Benjanmin Zephhaniah: Rong Radio
Being Christian
Let’s be clear here: The church has been the primary source of the oppressions that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people have experienced through out their lives. Just as Scripture was used to justify slavery as recently as 150 years ago, just as Scripture was used to keep women out of leadership positions in the church . . . Scripture was used to fight both of those movements of the spirit. And so, indeed, the Church has been the source of most of the pain that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people have experienced. And what we try to say to the Human Rights Campaign and others is, if the church is the cause of this oppression it needs to be church people who undo this oppression, and that is what we are trying to do here.
Let’s also be clear that the religious right, both within our church and in other churches, are still proclaiming those kinds of oppressive things that are causing our children to grow up doubting whether indeed they are beloved by God or are an abomination. . . . Only religious people can undo that oppression and that is indeed what we along with the Human Rights Campaign are trying to do in this day and time.
Bishop V. Gene Robinson, June 14, 2006, at the 75th Episcopal General Convention
I’m not sure why, but my partner’s daughter has decided that she’s an atheist and it drives some of her Christian classmates up the wall. I admire her tenacity but I worry that the ongoing struggle will convince her that no good can ever come of faith. One day I want to take her to see Bishop Robinson.
Top Intellectual Property Developments of 2007 for Scholars of Composition, Rhetoric, and Communication
Introduction
Clancy Ratliff, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Co-Chair, 2008 CCCC Intellectual Property CaucusThe year 2007 carried quite a few key developments for those who follow issues and debates related to copyright and intellectual property. For the third year running, then, the CCCC Intellectual Property Committee is pleased to publish this annual report in the service of our first goal, to “keep the CCCC and NCTE memberships informed about intellectual property developments, through reports in the CCCC newsletter and in other NCTE and CCCC forums.”
They don’t make it too easy, but this series of reports is worth reading, if nothing else because they illustrate the general disarray that dominates intellectual property rights. It’s a shift, of course, echoed in broader shifts over ownership underwritten by the mass availability of cheap computers.
The rhetoric of the titles tell the story. A report by Traci A. Zimmnerman, for example, is called “McLean Students File Suit Against Turinin.com: Useful Tool or Instrument of Tryanny.” Jeff Gain’s “Bosh v. Ball-Knell: Faculty May Have Lost Control Over Their Teaching Materials” also suggests serious trouble, at the very least.
“The Importance of Understanding and Utilizing Fair Use in Educational Contexts: A Study on Media Literacy and Copyright Confusion,” (Martine Courant Rife) and “Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video” (Laurie Cubbison) hint at the shifting ground on which property rights now stand.
And finally, “One Laptop Per Child Program Threatens Dominance of Intel and Microsoft,” (Kim Dian Gaine) and “The National Institutes of Health Open Access Mandate: Public Access for Public Funding,” (Clancy Ratliff) suggest the ongoing vitality of programs that directly challenge the old property paradigms.