Revenge of the Nerds Professors gain clout in civic affairs. BY TOM LININGER Now that I've become a full-time professor, I get a little miffed when I hear someone dismiss a discussion as "academic." Apparently this term is synonymous with inconsequential. What's so bad about being academic? To quote Curly of the Three Stooges, "I resemble that remark!" (My scholarship draws heavily from Curly.) The public seems to believe that professors are ill-equipped to interact with the real world. How many professors does it take to screw in a light bulb? Three: one to write a research grant, one to organize a program in Darkness Studies, and one to write a scathing tirade about the power industry. I myself have written more tirades about the power industry than I've changed light bulbs. President Bush seems to have little faith in professors (which is appropriate, because professors had little faith in this C student.) Bush is backing legislation that would severely restrict academic freedom. The U.S. Senate will shortly vote on HR 3077, a bill that would empower a new executive agency to oversee certain academic programs relating to international studies. According to Beshara Doumani, a professor at UC Berkeley, this bill "is the most ominous threat to U.S. academic freedom in decades." And the Bush administration is fighting to make sure that university libraries continue to serve their noblest function: surveillance. Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act enables the FBI to monitor the books checked out by library patrons. In early July, a group of congressmen led by Bernie Sanders proposed to repeal this provision, but the Bush administration rallied its allies on the Hill, and the proposal failed by a narrow vote. You'd think that Bush wants to lock up the ivory tower and throw away the key. Will the intelligentsia become the irrelevantsia? Not to worry. Here in Oregon, academics are actually gaining influence in both national and local affairs. Within the last year, professors at the UO have won national acclaim for exposing gender bias in tort law, proving the health risks posed by vinyl, and highlighting the dangers of marine pollution, among other important contributions. Just last week, an Associated Press reporter ran a story entitled, "Oregon Professors Influence Bush." The article began with the typical stereotypes: "Over the years, the UO has developed a reputation as a hippie haven, home to Hacky-Sackers, Frisbee-throwers and anti-globalism activists." (Memo to the admissions office: time to drop the affirmative action policy for Hacky-Sackers.) But the article goes on to note that professors in the UO Education Department "have been the driving forces behind the push for letting 'scientifically based research' inform classroom practices." The Bush administration has great respect for the UO Education Department, and this department actually earns $1.46 million in grant money per faculty member — even higher than the grant money earned by the UO Frisbee-Throwing and Anti-Globalism Departments. Academics are also playing an influential role at a local level. Mayor-elect Kitty Piercy has announced her intention to form a committee composed of professors and others who would advise city officials on sustainable economic development. And professors with scientific expertise are organizing a group called the Independent Science Review Board, which will provide local officials with neutral advice on the scientific implications of policy proposals. Are professors becoming too active in civic affairs? The famed jurist Learned Hand warned that too much real-world involvement by scholars could comprise their intellectual integrity. "You cannot raise the standard against oppression, or leap into the breach to relieve injustice, and still keep an open mind to every disconcerting fact, or an open ear to the cold voice of doubt. I am satisfied that a scholar who tries to combine these parts sells his birthright for a mess of pottage; that, when the final count is made, it will be found that the impairment of his powers far outweighs any possible contribution to the causes he has espoused." Now there's some erudite, flowery language. I just have one response: What kind of a name is "Learned," anyway? Tom Lininger is a law professor and lifelong nerd.     Breaking Three Hearts Part II: Nature BY MARY O'BRIEN I've been walking in rural Ireland for three weeks. The rainfall, greenery and temperature could be western Oregon, but there are no natural forests. An Irish "forest" is dense, rigid rows of Sitka spruce, Douglas fir, lodgepole or Scots pine. At harvest time, every stick comes down and the rows are re-installed. It wasn't always so. In 1600, Ireland was heavily forested with oak, elm, ash, hazel, pines, alder, birch and willow. By then England had depleted its own supply of wood, and needed timber to build ships for colonizing other countries. When the Irish resisted British occupation from within their forests, Queen Elizabeth I ordered the destruction of all Irish forests. British empire loyalists were given property rights to Irish land (formerly held in commons) if they would move to the island to "reduce the Irish" and secure timber for England. By 1711, Ireland was treeless. "They had not left wood enough to make a toothpick in many places…" wrote a Frenchman who walked through Ireland in the 18th century. If you wanted to be an empire in 1600, you needed wood. Now you need oil. Like Elizabeth, George Bush is grasping a scarce resource for military and economic empire: oil from Saudi Arabia, oil transport through Afghanistan, oil from Iraq and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Bush Defense Department argues that complying with environmental laws like the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Clean Air Act, and Endangered Species Act interferes with military readiness to do this. In one recent case regarding five years of military bird-bombing on a South Pacific island, the lead Pentagon attorney, William Haynes II, argued that the bombing benefits conservationists because it makes some species like great frigatebirds more rare. "Bird watchers get more enjoyment spotting a rare bird than they do spotting a common one," Haynes II argued. He lost the case, but Bush subsequently nominated him to be a federal appeals court judge. Then there's coal-burning, another practice pioneered in Britain on an industrial scale. Bush has stopped the Clean Air Act's "New Source Review," which requires old coal plants to install modern pollution controls when they expand or make major repairs. "The [old] rules put up too many hurdles," Bush told workers at the Detroit Edison plant in Michigan. "And that hurt the working people." However, Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency data show that his gutting of New Source Review will cause 20,000 additional premature deaths per year. Perhaps Bush figures only non-working people will be the ones killed. Then there are all the other power plants, the nation's major source of airborne mercury, which lowers intelligence in children. Bush proposed removing mercury from the EPA's list of toxic pollutants, thereby delaying any mercury reductions for 15 years. The Clean Air Act would have required a 90% reduction in power plant mercury by 2008. As for chemicals still allowed to be called toxic, the Bush administration has increased by 10 percent the budget of Superfund for cleaning up the nation's most toxic industrial waste sites. But the entire amount will now come from the public, because Bush is dropping the 24-year practice of requiring polluting industries to contribute to a trust fund that helps pick up the tab when a site's polluter is no longer operating or can't be located.    But don't worry about bad news getting out about these and other Bush anti-environmental measures. Bush has proposed that the Office of Management and Budget appoint its own experts to peer-review the scientific accuracy of all government-issued warnings related to public health, safety and the environment. Bush proposes that only scientists who have never received funding from any federal agency be considered qualified to participate as reviewers. This leaves industry scientists to screen all federal agency statements regarding global warming, toxics, drinking water, energy depletion, nuclear accidents, endangered species or forest health. Forest health circles us back to Queen Elizabeth giving Irish public lands to private individuals in return for service to her empire. Bush's Healthy Forest Restoration Act, supposedly geared to protecting forest-edge communities from catastrophic wildfire, includes "Goods for Services." This allows companies to cut down and take large trees on public lands as payment for cutting down small ones. The list of Bush's anti-Creation measures is essentially endless. In an age when nations globally are beginning to acknowledge the dire conditions we humans have brought to water, climate, soil, ocean fisheries, forests, energy, population, wetlands, pollution and extinctions, President Bush is accelerating the stabbing of nature in the heart. The effects of the reign of Bush II will be seen by anyone walking on Earth centuries from now. Mary O'Brien of Eugene has worked as a public interest scientist since 1981. She can be reached at mob@efn.org     Mitakuye Oyasin! We are all related. BY DON ADDISON I've noticed an increasing interest in Native American cultures, languages, and especially spirituality today, which has translated into full classes wherever I am teaching courses on these subjects. I, myself, am Choctaw Indian. I am grateful to be Native American, but it wasn't always something one wanted to state publicly in the past. A fresh new spirit abounds today, and many American Indians are tracing their roots, learning about their cultures, and getting acquainted with their indigenous languages. A recent local powwow is a good illustration of this return to one's Native cultural roots. As I looked around the crowded hall, I saw rows of Native youth eager to participate. When the drumming and singing began, the dancing commenced and our spirits soared into the sky. Many Native American spiritual leaders over the centuries foretold this phenomenon we are privileged to see today. White Buffalo Calf Woman, a Lakota, spoke of a great spiritual renewal. Other American Indian prophets expressed a dream that Indian and non-Indian would someday come together in unity. Deganawidah, Peacemaker of the Iroquois Confederacy, long ago promised he would "return," and other great messengers left similar prophecies that a great teacher would come, as the Navajos believe, from the East. Bahá'u'lláh, the prophet-founder of the Bahá'í Faith, did come from the East and Native Americans are increasingly joining his faith, because they believe Bahá'u'lláh has fulfilled these prophecies. The Hopi, for example, foresaw a time when the Indian and the Euro-American would join together in unity. Bahá'u'lláh proclaimed this, saying, "Ye are the flowers of one garden and the leaves of one tree."   Unity in diversity characterizes Native communities today. We Indians enjoy comparing notes on how languages, music, and customs differ in some cases, and appear similar in others. Bahá'í teachings encourage unity in diversity — the coming together of all peoples. However, Bahá'u'lláh never said Native Americans must give up their cultures or languages. Kevin Locke, Lakota musician, dancer and educator says that "the Bahá'í Faith actually enhances" his Native beliefs and culture. The resurging interest in Native spirituality is not without controversy, and Native American Bahá'ís are quick to point out their beliefs are not being compromised or misused by the Bahá'ís. On the contrary, in 1916 Bahá'u'lláh's son, 'Abdu'l-Baha, gave a most splendid prophecy about a glorious future for Native Americans. I believe I am lucky to be Bahá'íÖit gives me answers to today's problems, it requires religion and science agree and if they don't, science without spirituality can become materialism and religion without science can become superstition. American Indians have always had "science" — our's just developed differently than European sciences. Natives see science as spiritual. The Bahá'í prayers revealed by Bahá'u'lláh for believers to use do not preclude using prayers of other religions, including those of indigenous religions in American Indian languages. Bahá'ís believe in the same God as Native Americans, Christians, Jews, Muslims and the other world religions. We have beautiful prayers for unity, marriage, the morning time and the evening hour, for assistance, and for children. And when life on life's terms gets difficult, I look up a powerful prayer Bahá'u'lláh revealed to be read in times of tests and difficulties: "Armed with the power of Thy Name, nothing can ever hurt me, and with Thy love in my heart, all the world's afflictions can in no wise alarm me." Many folks ask about the sad things that happened to Indians over the last 600 years. Those things really did happen, so let us learn from those experiences and teach our children to look at all peoples as members of the same family, enjoying the beauty of all our cultures and languages. The Bahá'í Faith gives me this hope. What the Bahá'ís express about unity can also be summed up in probably the most famous American Indian expression one can find around the country today: "Mitakuye Oyasin." Though it is Lakota, this phrase is used by Indians from many different backgrounds; it means "all my relations" or "all my relatives." In other words, we are all related in one family. So we must put hatred and prejudice behind us because one must not hurt one's own relatives. Mitakuye Oyasin! Dr. Don Addison teaches Native American Music at the UO, and American Indian languages and Native American studies at LCC, Chemeketa Community College, and at the Grand Ronde Native American community. He also serves on a Baha'i institution that advises members on spiritual matters. This column is part of a series on spiritual viewpoints coordinated by Two Rivers Interfaith Ministries.
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