Staying academically sharp over the summer (and the rest of your life)

It’s hard to believe that my formal educational career is over, or at least over for now. I have my Master’s degree. No longer will I have professors, syllabuses,  and reading lists carefully curated to keep me thinking big thoughts. For ow on, my education is a quite a bit more up to me.

Luckily, in a world that contains Khan Academy, open course material from all kinds of major universities, and  all the TED talks you can handle, staying academically engaged even outside the actual academy is easier than ever. My friend and colleague Lili is blogging over at GradGuru, and recently asked “What are you doing this summer?“. My main goal this summer is to start learning how to code with CodeAcademy. How about you?

Bad Hands and Stacked Decks: Barriers to Reentry and Collateral Consequences for Women of Color

My paper “Bad Hands and Stacked Decks: Barriers to Reentry and Collateral Consequences for Women of Color” was recently published in the Mills Academic Research Journal.

Available online here.

Intern Life: Lunch Routine

There is a lot of good advice out there about using your lunch hour to strategically improve your professional relationships, but the fact of the matter is that sometimes being an intern means that the interesting people are too busy eat with you. Besides, half the fun of starting a new job is learning the area around it. With those ideas in mind, I thought I’d share my personal eating-alone lunch routine.

Working at the City of Oakland has led me to spend a lot more time Downtown. Where before I only saw the late night fun side of the City Center, now I get to be part of the professional bustle, all business-ware and cell phones. Because there is such a daytime population around Frank Ogawa (or is it Oscar Grant?) Plaza, there’s no shortage of coffeeshops and lunch places from which to choose . Here’s my usual routine, guaranteed to lift the spirits, stay in budget, and be over before your coworkers know you’re gone.

Step 1: Coffee at Cafe Teatro   – $2 for a large drip coffee

Locally-owned Cafe Teatro is the kind of place you probably don’t notice if you don’t work downtown. Located off a side entrance to the Plaza, it’s hard to see from the street, and the hours are on an office worker’s schedule – closes and 4 pm, and nothing on weekends. But for that demographic, the Cafe is perfect – fast, friendly service; a floor plan that facilitates flow-through; and little tables if you’d rather hide out for a while. Their baked goods are also really excellent. Cafe Teatro was also recently written about on the blog  Living in the O, in their  “Rediscovering Downtown Oakland” series.

Step 2: Hot dog at Rebel Dog – $3 for a hot dog (tax included)

Rebel Dog (née Top Dog) is another gem that might easily go unnoticed. The store isn’t much more than a grill for the hot dogs and a place to stand while you watch them on the grill. And it doesn’t need anything else. The hot dogs are basically the best ever, and the toasted sesame buns are great. The service varies from “like it was in the good old days” to “greasy spoon waitress sass,” so it works best if you share their goal of getting your dog as quickly as possible and clearing the way for others to do the same. There’s a bevy of condiments and a good soda selection, too, if the dog’s not enough for you. Plus their location lets you move on to…

Step 3: Look at kittens at the SPCA – free!

Right around the corner from Rebel Dog is an East Bay Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Being an intern often means also being at a stage in your life where you can’t have pets. For those animal-lovers among us, that can be a downer. Luckily, the SPCA knows what you need: big windows tolook at kittens through. With hot dog in hand, watch some little cats bat at string, and you’ll be ready to go back to your desk in no time.

So next time you find yourself without an engaging lunch partner, take a stroll around your workplace and find your own fun!

Drawbacks of Bureaucracy: Whistleblowing and Penn State

Although Eric Silver’s article Why Child Sexual Abuse Goes Unreported: A Sociologist Explains has received the most attention for what it has to say about whistle-blowers, it also has some interesting insights on bureaucracy.

To sum up, bureaucracies are important to us because they break complex tasks into manageable pieces. The individual tasks are simpler and can be accomplished. Silver’s example is keeping grocery stores stocked, and other examples are easy to come by: the roads you drive on, schools you attend, most payroll processes. If a bureaucracy is working well, you won’t notice it working at all.

In an ideal bureaucracy, people follow procedure and don’t undertake tasks outside their original scope of work. Just as the bureaucracy breaks down tasks, so too the worker compartmentalizes, and is satisfied with not necessarily seeing something through from start to finish.

Unsurprisingly, this is not an ideal way to approach complex moral issues. Silver points out that there was probably some “reporting upward” — individuals doing their small, bureaucracy-sanctioned part to end the child sexual abuse that was going on. But those small “rights” didn’t add up to the institution “doing the right thing.” And so long as everyone acted within the strict confines of the bureaucracy, it never would have.

Better Gmail signature lines

I recently added a signature line to my emails. Usually I dislike signature lines — the misattributed  inspirational quotes, the sudden 16 point Comic Sans. But I realized how much I appreciate having all of a person’s contact information attached to their emails, particularly when I can search archived conversations in Gmail. Plus, I figured the more people who know I’m a public policy major, the more chances for awesome jobs I have.

I noticed, however, that when I was exchanging emails with people, the bottom of our conversation was cluttered with my phone number, major and graduation year. Over and over. I looked like a pompous jerk. A pompous jerk who couldn’t use email.

Luckily, Keith C. and Dave C. have created  a Gmail add-on that solves exactly this called “Signature Tweaks.” Check it out in the Labs.

For this and more small ways to make a Gmail signature line that doesn’t suck, check out this Mashable article.

Toning down your digital rhetoric in one simple step!

Have you ever started writing a concerned email, but realized YOU JUST SEEMED ANGRY?

Have you ever started writing a YouTube comment, but realized it didn’t convey exactly HOW FREAKIN’ CUTE THIS KITTEN IS?

Today I learned that highlighting text and hitting shift+F3 will switch text from ALL CAPS YELLING to reasonable, friendly lower case.

HOW COOL IS THAT!

Er, I mean, how cool is that?

US-made tear gas in Egypt

I woke up to an email today reminding me that Egyptians are being killed by tear gas made in the US:

Tens have fallen dead only last week. Some of them were shot dead. But many others suffocated to death due to the use of that particular gas, that was not used during the 18 days of the first wave of the Egyptian Revolution in January and February. It’s a new lethal gas, the effects of which exacerbated by the fact that some of the canisters used had already expired.

One of the people dying from the gas was a 27-year old female doctor who was a volunteer at the field hospitals in Tahrir square. She was moving medical supplies between two of the field hospitals (the one hosted by a mosque and the other by a church) that are completely operated by volunteer doctors. Tear gas was shot at the clinic and she died due to suffocation and convulsions. This is how
brutal, inhumane and completely insane the use of this gas was.

Not only are the protesters attacked, but the security forces want to make sure that the injured cannot get help easily, if at all. Although the American empire might not be held responsible for the inhumane use of that gas, as if there is a humane alternative and if  only morality can trump capitalism and America can stop exporting their war-machine to the world, it is an American company that sold that particular tear gas to the Egyptian military perhaps also with American Aid money, how charitable!

I urge you as people with integrity to complain about that company in whatever capacity you can…all of you can cause
them a huge inconvenience when they get letters of complaint from American citizens, not us dogs and scum of the earth outside American borders.

I urge you to please, in the name of anything that matters, to take action and make your voice against this heard.

The kind of gas being talked about is CR gas which, among other horrific things, can “melt” your skin if it comes in contact with sweat, and causes severe pulmonary damage. Of the three or four kinds of gas canisters being used against Egyptian protesters, CR is the most dangerous. The reason doctors suspect it is CR gas being used now because protesters are suffering convulsions.

The company that produces these gas canisters is Combined Tactical Systems, Inc. of Jamestown, Pennsylvania. Unsurprisingly, they
have some pretty negative Yelp reviews. Their URL is www.less-lethal.com. Exactly what is more lethal than nerve gas is left to the visitor’s imagination.Luckily, CTS has included their contact information on every canister, so once your vision clears and you stop shaking, you can let them know what you think. You can reach them at:

388 Kinsman Rd

Jamestown, PA 16134

(724) 932-2177

Here’s a petition to sign, if you like other people to write your speeches.

And remember, Egypt isn’t the only place these gases are used and misused. Israel also uses CTS produces against protesters in Palestine. In fact, there’s been an Israeli flag flying above CTS headquarters. And again, it could well be that US aid money is being used to purchase CTS products. Your tax dollars at work!

You can also e-mail the CEO of Combined Systems Inc (CTS’ parent company) and the US State Department here.

Swords you can turn into ploughshares. Pepper spray — well, it’s not a food product, essentially, but I suppose you might need to fend off a bear someday. But nerve gas? Sometimes it just boggles the mind that humankind decided to invent nerve gas.

Oscar Grant Plaza

I’ve been reading about the #OccupyOakland protest and march last night. I was there, which makes it all the more interesting to see how it is being covered by the news. There’s a lot I want to say, but for now I just want to point out an interesting little tidbit in this article from RT.com:

For those of you who don’t know, the plaza in front of Oakland’s City Hall is called Frank Ogawa Plaza. Frank Ogawa was an Oaklander who was the first Japanese-American to be elected to a City Council seat in a major US city. He greatly improved Oakland’s trade relations with Japan, and was the main force behind the sister-city relationship between Oakland and Fukuoka, Japan.*

He was not an unarmed African-American man killed by police. That was Oscar Grant. See, the first day Occupy Oakland moved in to Ogawa Plaza, the occupation began referring to Frank Ogawa Plaza as Oscar Grant Plaza instead.  It’s been interesting to see how well its caught on. At first, blogs and news sources didn’t mention the name Oscar Grant Plaza without mentioning Frank Ogawa Plaza as well. Then it was “Oscar Grant Plaza.” Now more and more media use the name Oscar Grant Plaza with explanation. Now it seems news sources from outside the Bay Area have accepted the new name, leading to the amusing confusion above.

It is really cool to see such a clear example of making change just by pretending the change has happened. Too time consuming, bureaucratic and difficult to change the name of a public space? Don’t have elected officials that value the same people you do? Systematically excluded from the power networks of dominant society? Well, sometimes you don’t need them, you just need other people like you.

One of my favorite lines of TV dialog is from Angel:

We live as though the world is as it should be, to show it what it can be.*

I live in a world where that plaza is named in memory of Oscar Grant.

Given that I work on the plaza, I’m thinking about reprinting my business cards.

Sally Lieber, my new internet friend

I’ve admired Sally Lieber ever since she came to speak in my Women in Politics class last semester. She spent time in junior high trying to dress more like Gloria Steinem, she got interested in politics while listening to the radio as she worked construction jobs, and she once spent time living as if she were homeless to gain an understanding of the homeless experience so she could write and advocate for the best possible policy. What’s not to admire?

A few weeks ago I retweeted a Sac Bee editorial Lieber had tweeted about releasing non-violent female inmates from California prisons, putting them into “alternative custody” in their homes instead. It’s a really interesting idea to me. In fact, it was the subject of the first cost-benefit analysis memo assignment I ever did in my undergrad years. (It’s even more interesting to see its success — or lack there0f — now that it’s in place, but that’s a different post).

I sent a little tweet to Lieber to thank her for highlighting the article, and lo and behold, she replied to me:

 

 

 

 

 

And moments later I got a notice she’d started following me on Twitter.

I know it’s just good form to reply to tweets and follow people who follow you when you’re maintaining  a professional Twitter account. Nevertheless, it put a spring in my step for the rest of the day.

“Resistance is exhausting”

This summer Mills College launched a program called Investing in Oakland @Mills. The idea was to get Mills students teamed up with organizations in Oakland. Each project was supervised by a Mills faculty member or staff person and a person from the outside organization, and hired 4 or 5 interns.

I was selected to intern with the Oakland Department of Public Works. The bulk of my internship consisted of researching Complete Streets, Better Streets and Green Streets, three different public infrastructure paradigms. Three different ways of deciding how to make a street more than a place the most possible cars can drive and park on. There’s a lot I could say about the research, but for now I’ll just give you one takeaway: whether you want your streets to be Complete, Green or Better, planting trees is a solid start.

I’m also a Doctor Who fan.

So imagine my excitement when this week’s episode featured Gibbis, a gopher-ish fellow from the planet Tivoli, “the most invaded planet in the galaxy.”

Gibbis works in town planning, “lining the highways with trees, so invading forces can march in the shade.”

That’s me! That’s my job, too!

It’s so nice to see yourself represented on TV.

For a more informative and less nerdy take on how I spent my summer vacation, check out this article from The Campanil, the Mills newspaper:

Summer interns invest in Oakland by Heather McDaniel