"Yeah, if they're gonna raise our tuition, they'd better give us better lab manuals."
The poor dears think they're paying fee for service here. Sorry, kids, this ain't University of Phoenix. Now for a lot of you that sort of arrangement would probably be better, but be prepared for quite the tuition fee increase if you really want fee for service.
Monday, February 09, 2009
One for the privacy fans out there.
I'm not one to fret too much over privacy in the way some people fret over privacy, and I don't understand the mentality very well. To keep others from knowing things that are none of their business is one thing, but not registering to vote "so the government doesn't know where I live" as one friend of mine does is another.
But when it comes to uniform, Federal ID cards, I balk. It's not that I really have strong opinions about driver's licenses, but rather that there's no good reason for the Feds to have strong opinions either. "Real ID" and similar measures are only means to mischief.
Arizona is one of several US States that have refused to go along with Federal uniform ID schemes, last year passing HB 2677 (link unavailable due to technical quirks of the AZ Legislature website) forbidding Arizona compliance with the Real ID act. Janet Napolitano, now head of the Department of Homeland Security, signed the bill not out of opposition to Real ID per se but because Real ID was an unfunded mandate.
With Napolitano gone, we now see a bill with more teeth, HB 2426. The authors do not mince words, as the bill creates a new ARS § 28-337 reading:
Nothing to cause me to drive up from Tucson--and I'm still waiting to be entered in the RTS system this year--but you privacy nuts (I'm using the term affectionately) who live in the Phoenix area may want to drop in when the bill is up for discussion in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee this Thursday morning.
HT: Seth Apfel
But when it comes to uniform, Federal ID cards, I balk. It's not that I really have strong opinions about driver's licenses, but rather that there's no good reason for the Feds to have strong opinions either. "Real ID" and similar measures are only means to mischief.
Arizona is one of several US States that have refused to go along with Federal uniform ID schemes, last year passing HB 2677 (link unavailable due to technical quirks of the AZ Legislature website) forbidding Arizona compliance with the Real ID act. Janet Napolitano, now head of the Department of Homeland Security, signed the bill not out of opposition to Real ID per se but because Real ID was an unfunded mandate.
With Napolitano gone, we now see a bill with more teeth, HB 2426. The authors do not mince words, as the bill creates a new ARS § 28-337 reading:
This state shall not participate in the implementation of an enhanced driver license program to satisfy the requirements of the federal western hemisphere travel initiative or the Real ID Act of 2005 (P.L. 109‑13, Division B; 119 Stat. 302). The department shall not implement an enhanced driver license program and shall report to the governor and the legislature any attempt by agencies or agents of the United States department of homeland security to secure the implementation of an enhanced driver license program through the operations of the United States department of homeland security.
Nothing to cause me to drive up from Tucson--and I'm still waiting to be entered in the RTS system this year--but you privacy nuts (I'm using the term affectionately) who live in the Phoenix area may want to drop in when the bill is up for discussion in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee this Thursday morning.
HT: Seth Apfel
Sunday, February 08, 2009
The Arizona Reefer Review
Smoking pot in dormitories is rude. As is smoking tobacco in dormitories. Or smoking either while walking on a crowded sidewalk. And smoking anything while sitting in front of Espresso Art and pooh-poohing "consumerism" is hilarious for reasons lost on the average non-analytic thinker.
But marijuana possession or consumption is at least as peaceful and safe as having a bottle of Riesling in the fridge or having a glass thereof with lunch. There's no secondhand drinking--but secondhand smoking of any kind can be regulated separately. (And why did we get a private property ban but not a public sidewalk ban? That's exactly backwards!) Moreover, if a pot smoker gets violent or kills someone in a car wreck due to his consumption, it's so rare that it's remarkable in the true sense of the word. To be arrested and penalized for possession, even if the penalty is the "referral to the Dean of Students" given to privileged University of Arizona students--Joe Average gets probation if he's lucky--is simply wrong.
And it's largely unnecessary. Avoiding arrest if in possession doesn't require a Jedi mind trick a la "These are not the drugs you're looking for." Under ordinary circumstances--unless evidence of crime is in plain sight, the police are in "hot pursuit" of a criminal suspect or the public is immediate danger--one can refuse police entrance to a place one rightfully occupies until they produce a search warrant. Over on the Desert Lamp, Connor Medenhall has begun to review University of Arizona marijuana cases and found that many students could have avoided trouble if they simply stood on their rights.
Learning your legal rights--and if you live in a dorm, review your lease carefully--can save you much time and grief, whether or not you're breaking the law. It takes a little more effort than waving a sign at the Capitol and chanting a slogan, too, but you'll be doing yourself a direct favor with tremendous positive externality.
What do I mean? Imagine if Maricopa County had to hire a process server to deliver each photo-radar ticket. A certain cost/benefit analysis would completely change. Now imagine if the police had to go before a judge every time they wanted to have a look around for a couple of spliffs in the desk drawer. Try justifying that one to the supervisor when there's real crime--the sort with victims--to fight.
But marijuana possession or consumption is at least as peaceful and safe as having a bottle of Riesling in the fridge or having a glass thereof with lunch. There's no secondhand drinking--but secondhand smoking of any kind can be regulated separately. (And why did we get a private property ban but not a public sidewalk ban? That's exactly backwards!) Moreover, if a pot smoker gets violent or kills someone in a car wreck due to his consumption, it's so rare that it's remarkable in the true sense of the word. To be arrested and penalized for possession, even if the penalty is the "referral to the Dean of Students" given to privileged University of Arizona students--Joe Average gets probation if he's lucky--is simply wrong.
And it's largely unnecessary. Avoiding arrest if in possession doesn't require a Jedi mind trick a la "These are not the drugs you're looking for." Under ordinary circumstances--unless evidence of crime is in plain sight, the police are in "hot pursuit" of a criminal suspect or the public is immediate danger--one can refuse police entrance to a place one rightfully occupies until they produce a search warrant. Over on the Desert Lamp, Connor Medenhall has begun to review University of Arizona marijuana cases and found that many students could have avoided trouble if they simply stood on their rights.
Learning your legal rights--and if you live in a dorm, review your lease carefully--can save you much time and grief, whether or not you're breaking the law. It takes a little more effort than waving a sign at the Capitol and chanting a slogan, too, but you'll be doing yourself a direct favor with tremendous positive externality.
What do I mean? Imagine if Maricopa County had to hire a process server to deliver each photo-radar ticket. A certain cost/benefit analysis would completely change. Now imagine if the police had to go before a judge every time they wanted to have a look around for a couple of spliffs in the desk drawer. Try justifying that one to the supervisor when there's real crime--the sort with victims--to fight.
Why the University of Arizona cuts make sense
Being an ABD grad student I'm a little "bothered", so to speak, by the prospect of mandatory furloughs. The "deferred compensation" alternative presented by Ted Downing--who I miss having in the legislature--seems more sensible, but at the very least the policy could have been distributed differently between higher-paid employees, departmental staff, junior faculty, and grad students. The high-paid employees can take the hit, University departments are already running on skeleton crews and can't afford to have staffers taking days off, and five days' income is so much for junior faculty and grad students that it's sure to hurt morale. (Both will come to work anyway.) ASU has taken this into account. U of A charged forward clumsily.
Then again, the details haven't yet been sent to us, so maybe the plan isn't set in stone.
But that aside, the cuts make sense. University of Arizona President Robert Shelton sent an e-mail early last week presenting them in brief. To quote:
Letters and Sciences makes sense from an intellectual perspective, although some toes will surely be stepped on. But as for (a) through (d): why were these things paid for by the State, anyway? To fund museums, UA Presents, etc--highbrow stuff, all--with the taxpayer dime is simple exploitation. It's the worst kind, too: literate sorts who prefer the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields to AC/DC can put together pretty-sounding albeit half-baked arguments for subsidizing their entertainment with far more skill than the AC/DC fan can bring to bear in telling them to go fuck themeselves. It isn't a fair fight. (Full disclosure: your narrator owns a copy of Back in Black but usually prefers Sir Neville Marriner's chamber orchestra.) Back at Tulane the classical-music concerts didn't come out of our tuition fee, but were financed by ticket sales--usually free or a small peppercorn for students--and donors in the community who valued the arts.
It should be that way at the University of Arizona, too, and this is the correct way to make it so. Did you know that UA Presents was subsidized? Neither did I. (Isn't government funding of colleges and universities insidious?) Now I do, and now I know the subsidy has gone away. And I'll pay more for the ticket, and perhaps start paying a fee to drop in at the museum. And some high-minded businessman who does think that artsy stuff should be more affordable than a Rolling Stones concert or a day at the ballpark (it is, but it's less popular anyway) or who wants to be a patron of the arts will make a donation or even establish an endowment. Bread-and-circuses stuff has the public's immediate interest and attention. Elimination of a support staff position in the Department of Transgendered Jewish Chicano Studies does not.
I suspect that the set of moaners and the set of donors will be largely exclusive. Belief that everything good is the government's responsibility pretty much absolves one of any duty to support anything privately. We're far more likely to see Jim Click's name on a plaque in the Arizona State Museum than we are to see the establishment of a Paula Aboud Chair for Study of the American Political Tradition. I will, however, contribute the dollar equivalent of 19.68 euros if that last one ever happens.
Then again, the details haven't yet been sent to us, so maybe the plan isn't set in stone.
But that aside, the cuts make sense. University of Arizona President Robert Shelton sent an e-mail early last week presenting them in brief. To quote:
We will also be forced to eliminate or greatly reduce many of our outreach and community-based activities. This will result in:
a.. The suspension of three-quarters of University funding for UApresents.
b.. The current Flandrau Science Center facility, Planetarium and UA Mineral Museum will be closed to school groups and the public later this spring.
c.. The Arizona State Museum will be open to the public fewer days per week, and many outreach and educational activities, including public events, will be cancelled later this spring.
d.. The UA Museum of Art will be open fewer days per week, and will eliminate its engagement in university-level education as well as educational outreach.
e.. A significant portion of the UA's outreach and extension operations across the state will be suspended.
The new partnership creating the Colleges of Letters and Science allows us to reduce the number of academic colleges from 16 to 13, and we have previously announced the closing of University College, the functions of which are being absorbed in the new Colleges of Letters and Science.
Letters and Sciences makes sense from an intellectual perspective, although some toes will surely be stepped on. But as for (a) through (d): why were these things paid for by the State, anyway? To fund museums, UA Presents, etc--highbrow stuff, all--with the taxpayer dime is simple exploitation. It's the worst kind, too: literate sorts who prefer the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields to AC/DC can put together pretty-sounding albeit half-baked arguments for subsidizing their entertainment with far more skill than the AC/DC fan can bring to bear in telling them to go fuck themeselves. It isn't a fair fight. (Full disclosure: your narrator owns a copy of Back in Black but usually prefers Sir Neville Marriner's chamber orchestra.) Back at Tulane the classical-music concerts didn't come out of our tuition fee, but were financed by ticket sales--usually free or a small peppercorn for students--and donors in the community who valued the arts.
It should be that way at the University of Arizona, too, and this is the correct way to make it so. Did you know that UA Presents was subsidized? Neither did I. (Isn't government funding of colleges and universities insidious?) Now I do, and now I know the subsidy has gone away. And I'll pay more for the ticket, and perhaps start paying a fee to drop in at the museum. And some high-minded businessman who does think that artsy stuff should be more affordable than a Rolling Stones concert or a day at the ballpark (it is, but it's less popular anyway) or who wants to be a patron of the arts will make a donation or even establish an endowment. Bread-and-circuses stuff has the public's immediate interest and attention. Elimination of a support staff position in the Department of Transgendered Jewish Chicano Studies does not.
I suspect that the set of moaners and the set of donors will be largely exclusive. Belief that everything good is the government's responsibility pretty much absolves one of any duty to support anything privately. We're far more likely to see Jim Click's name on a plaque in the Arizona State Museum than we are to see the establishment of a Paula Aboud Chair for Study of the American Political Tradition. I will, however, contribute the dollar equivalent of 19.68 euros if that last one ever happens.
Dos Cabezas
In the modern era of government bailouts, no town of three hundred--certainly not one with a Wells Fargo stage stop--would be allowed to fail.
I've posted another photoessay to Associated Content, this one a shoot of Dos Cabezas done during a Wings over Willcox lunch break. Portions were supposed to be submitted to Jones Photo's winter contest, but Dwayne's took their sweet time with processing and I missed the deadline.
Arizona is full of places like Dos Cabezas, funky "ghost towns" that are still inhabited. Were I to return, I'd approach the subject rather differently. Rather than so heavily emphasizing old individual structures I'd show Dos Cabezas as it is. As I'm planning on going to Whitewater Draw before the sandhill cranes leave for the season, I'll be in the area again, and might take a roll of Kodachrome 64 to shoot this second, more interesting essay.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
"Consent search" en español
One would think a good translator would be easy to find in Arizona, but word is that the Spanish-language version of the new consent-search form read something like "With my permission, you will search my car" without it being clear that one could withhold consent.
Sounds like a laughing matter, but word is also that evidence ended up being suppressed in a few cases because of this. (And no, I will not name my early-career defense-lawyer source!) It makes one wonder if a bad translator was hired to save money or if translations are a "brother-in-law job" in Arizona.
Sounds like a laughing matter, but word is also that evidence ended up being suppressed in a few cases because of this. (And no, I will not name my early-career defense-lawyer source!) It makes one wonder if a bad translator was hired to save money or if translations are a "brother-in-law job" in Arizona.
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