Items

CBGB: There’s been talk that CBGB might move to Vegas, now that it’s closed its doors in NYC. Bruce spoke out about this last night:

That’s like moving The Whisky to Worcester. That’s like moving the Old Grey Whistle Test to LA. It doesn’t work.

Darfur: You can now look at high-res satellite pix of burned villages in Darfur.

Halloween: Global Exchange’s Fair Trade Trick or Treat Action Kit is plain nifty. I was digging through one at a friend’s house last week. Wish I knew about it in time to order some for other friends.

Opting Out: Today I talked to T&G columnist Clive McFarlane about the Opt Out project. Taking my own advice, I wrote down what I wanted to say on an index card, and tried to avoid saying anything but those things.
Note card

Clive asked why the project only focuses on schools giving kids’ private info to military recruiters, when schools also give kids’ info to colleges. These seem like very different things to me, but I don’t know much about how schools give that info to colleges, and hadn’t really thought it through.

I tried to avoid this question in a nice way. If Clive writes a column about the project, we’ll find out if I succeeded.

After our conversation, I phoned some of the other people helping with the project, and one said to me:

Schools are not required to give info to colleges by federal law. It’s not legislated. That’s the difference.

That sounds about right to me. Back when I was in high school, we opted in to having info sent to colleges. And the policies seemed like they were under local, rather than federal, control.

(The Telegram website should really have homepages for Mr. McFarlane and Ms. Williamson. Why no respect for the city columnists?)

3 thoughts on “Items”

  1. Thanks for the tip on the satelite photos.

    Your blogging about Darfur is imperative. And as doubtless you have noticed, blogging volume regarding Darfur has plummeted. Thank you for your efforts.

    We are hopelessly stalled in Saving Darfur. But it is only hopeless if we-the-citizens continue to be bystanders risking little or no cost to ourselves.

    Please help promote what must fast become our roll models:
    DARFUR HEROES: Santa Clara Univ Vigil & Fast
    http://darfurdyingforheroes.blogspot.com/2006/10/darfur-heroes-santa-clara-univ-vigil.html

    More Darfur Heroes at DARFUR Dying for Heroes
    http://darfurdyingforheroes.blogspot.com/

    Thank you. Rosemary, Dave, Mary Rachel, Jay coming up on week three of
    Rescue Darfur Fast-Till-Genocide-Stops
    http://darfurdyingforheroes.blogspot.com/2007/09/join-rescue-darfur-fast-till-it-stops.html

    Jay McGinley jymcginley@cs.com

  2. I think the other point to be made re: Clive is a practical one… while opting in versus opting out may be the difference re: privacy between college and the military, the other difference is that the risk of having your kid die is significantly less if they are in college versus in military service. It´s ludicrous to act like college and the army are the same thing. College hopefully serves individual advancement, and the military purports to while in fact it uses the individual for dangerous projects of warfare and colonization overseas. (check out http://www.newamericancentury.org).

    It´s also worth pointing out that whereas college is increasingly the realm of the wealthy to upper middle class white elite, many counter recruitment organizations have successfully demonstrated that the military actively targets poor to working class youth of color, who often do not have the financial resources to make college an easy option.

    Yes students have a right to privacy. We should also have a right to succeed at higher education and show our full potential, regardless of our class status. Then, maybe, we could really serve our communities, instead of being suckered in by an increasingly greedy and immoral government.

    Given his articles in the past, I´m kind of surprised Clive even asked that question. I´m glad you avoided it, because it isn´t the point at all.

  3. I guess there’s two issues here, privacy and military recruitment. If you’re only concerned about privacy, you might object to both the colleges and the military receiving your info, although an opt-in situation is very different from an opt-out situation. Anyway, I’m glad Mike was asked the question, because it gave him time to prepare for a response if it was asked in a public forum.

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