Cambridge Colleges: Homerton College

With roughly 1200 students (undergrad and grads combined) Homerton is the largest of the 31 constituent colleges at Cambridge in terms of student body size, although given that less than half of these students are resident undergraduates Homerton retains the same sort of feel as many of the more traditionally sized Colelges within Cambridge.

       Homerton College has one of the most convoluted histories of all the Cambridge Colleges, only receiving status as a member college of Cambridge in 1976, the college can claim a heritage that dates back the 18th century, and has roots not only in Cambridge, but in London and across the UK as an influence on the development of academic work around the subject of education.  In 1730 the a society was founded in London for the education of Christian young men, gaining steam classes had expanded by 1768, groups were meeting regularly and the society had garnered enough financial support to purchase a house in Homerton, London.  It was in 1817 that the society adopted the name Homerton Academy Society.  In 1850 Homerton was refounded as Homerton College following a transfer of it's seminary school the University of London.  As the area around Homerton became increasingly industrialized, the growing college began looking for new digs.  It was in 1894 that the Congregational Board of Education purchased the estate of Cavendish College, Cambridge after the institution (dedicated to providing poor students the chance to sit Tripos at Cambridge without having to pay the cost of joining a constitnuent college) folded.  Taking the new name of Homerton New College and Cavendish College in Cambridge, which was quicky and blissfully shortened to Homerton College at Cambridge, and shortly after that became an all women's education school.
        Homerton College thrived over the course of the next century, opening it's doors to mixed gender classes in 1976---the same year that the board of regents voted to besow on Homerton the status of "Approved Society of the University of Cambridge.  Making the nearly 300 year old institution the youngest of Cambridge's affiliated institution.  In 2001 Homerton added a post-graduate research community and began taking on more roles of a full Cambridge College, a status Homerton was finally officially awarded a Royal Charter in 2010.
       Much of Homerton's impressive archetecture dates from the late nineteenth century, and the great hall can be described as having a true "Harry Potter" feel, with huge arched wooden beams soaring overhead.  Homerton is also known for it's location very near both the Education Faculty and Addenbrooke's Research Hospital, making this youngest-college a very attractive option for education and medical students of all degree levels.  It's location, away from the city center, also affords Homerton College ample grounds for greenspace, on which they have sprawling gardens and at least one wild orchard.

       Well known Homerton alum includ Samuel Dyer, William Johnson Fox, Carol Ann Duffy, Samuel Morley and Tamzin Merchant.
       Despite being Cambridge's youngest college, Homerton holds onto it's own slew of traditions, including having first years drink from an African cow horn known as the Homerton Horn upon matriculation to the college, and a uniquely designed undergraduate gown that imitates those worn by female students around the turn of the 20th century.  Homerton, like almost all the Cambridge Colleges, claims that the best thing about it, are it's "people."

Op-Ed Oregon & The Death Penalty

There is no question that Clayton Lockett, the inmate whose execution on Tuesday April 29, 2014 was terribly botched, was guilty.  No last minute appeals could be filed based on new evidence, and no mishandling of appeal paperwork by incompetent lawyers.  Lockett hadn’t found faith or hope on death row, hadn’t turned his time in prison towards helping other inmates, or even begged his victim’s family for forgiveness.  Long story short, Lockett made the perfect death row pensioner, and because of it, his writhing painful death, makes the perfect opportunity for us to look at the death penalty not as something we’re worried will impact wrongly convicted innocents, or destroy those capable of change after the fact, but rather whether or not putting individuals who well and truly deserve punishment to death, is something we as a society should continue doing.

The botched execution could have been caused by a catheter inexpertly inserted into Lockett’s groin, or it might have been the new secret mixture of drugs that Ohio has had to resort to since no drug companies will currently sell to prisons or states that conduct executions by lethal injection.  There will be no knowing what happened during the long 26 minutes that resulted in a fatal heart attack, until a state investigation of the procedure is complete.  In the meantime, Lockett’s highly publicized death, has brought the issue of capital punishment once again to the forefront of public attention.

The debate over the death penalty across the United States has taken many forms.  Once a British Colony our history is steeped with a sense of justice.  An eye for an eye, so the old saying goes.  At one time, before we declared our independence, crimes as simple as petty theft, or as made-up as witchcraft, could leave one dangling from the gallows.   The eighth amendment to the Constitution isolated death as a penalty for only the worst crimes.  Aggravated murder, and even then, a jury or judge could decide on each individual case whether or not a defendant deserved to die.  Decisions that over the years saw racial minorities and men far more likely to die at the hands of executioners than whites or women.  Regardless of the crime.  

The US constitution also leaves the sentencing standards up to each individual state---unless a federal crime is being charged.  Today a full 18 States and the District of Columbia either have no death penalty law, or one so nonfunctional that it cannot be enforced.  

Oregon, although a death penalty state, has not executed a prisoner since 1997.  In total, only about 60 people have been executed in the State of Oregon since 1904--paltry compared to Texas, which has executed 68 people since 2010.  In the intervening 110 years since 1904, the death penalty has been abolished and then re-established in Oregon twice.  Today 37 individuals, including women, sit on death row under a temporary reprieve issued by Governor John Kitzhaber in November 2011, when he stated that he would sign no death warrants during his time in office.  Giving our State a handful of years to sit back and consider the merits and drawbacks of what it means to authorize the state--the government--to take a life.  To come to grips with the fine delineation between justice and vengeance.

The 501c3 Oregonians Against the Death Penalty (http://www.oadp.org/) also known as OADP, spearheads a campaign in Oregon to abolish the death penalty in our little corner of the Pacific Northwest.  Pointing out the strong tie between income and minority status, even in Oregon, and receiving the death penalty, and firmly advocating for a view of justice that does not engender increasing levels of violence, and simultaneously OADP works hard to acknowledge the rights of victims and survivors to seek out justice.

OADP, and similar groups, seek to remind us that sometimes “an eye for an eye” isn’t particularly “just” and in the wake of executions such as Lockett’s, we are reminded both that there are human beings capable of the unthinkable--and that sometimes we ask our corrections staff to engage in similar unthinkable acts on behalf of ourselves and our governments.  We are also reminded that Lockett’s family, however guilty he was, didn’t necessarily deserve to lose a man they called brother or son, and they certainly didn’t deserve to read article after article of how he died in pain.  

No matter how it’s approached, capital punishment in a modern world is a topic almost impossible to address, but maybe it’s time for Oregon to join the majority of the Western world, and abolish the death penalty once and for all.  To state that Oregon is a state in which justice can be meted out without the added dose of vengeance.

*Sources include the OADP website, and The Washington Post’s Coverage of Lockett’s execution.

Open Letter/Angry Rant To/About The Person Who Stole My Phone

To the person who stole my phone;

I know.  It's my fault.  I was in a hurry, I left it sitting there for maybe 10-12 minutes before I ran desperately back.  Hell, I probably saw you on my way out.  Didn't think twice.  Just another woman wandering into the bathroom...me rushed and running, you about to stumble into an opportunity.  A phone.  Sitting on a windowsill.  Just waiting.  10 minutes of just waiting.

Yup.  It was my fault.  I did something dumb.  The ultimate sin in this city full of intellectuals who have all been promised we're smart to the point that we're blue in the face.

And I know it was tempting.  In it's pretty shiny pink case.  The back shattered beyond recognition and held together with packing tape.  But you wouldn't have known about that til you got it home.  I like to imagine that you struggled a little.  That you thought, for just a second, before taking it.  But I know, because you almost immediately turned it off---at least according to android device tracker---that you probably didn't even hesitate.  Hell.  It's probably not even the first thing you've stolen, and it likely won't be the last.  My phone probably just looked like a free fifty pounder.  Sitting there.  Telling you that (at my expense) you'd just had a very good day.

Being at Cambridge can be hard.  Trust me I know.  You're surrounded by privilege.  People whose families spend more money on one spring vacation than your whole family has ever had in your whole life.  Brilliant scientists, adorably obnoxious theorists.  Some of these people have never held a job, or even needed to sweat over a grade.  Life seems freaking glued to a silver platter for oodles and oodles of them.  They could grab that platter and smash it against a wall, and when they wanted to go pick it up again, everything would still be there, untarnished and asking if they'd like a shot of whiskey with that? The layers of intersecting advantages can be intimidating.  The people around you aren't just smart--probably as much smarter than you as they are than me--and they come from stable, well-to-do homes whose dysfunction is probably buried pretty deep if it's even there at all.  Nothing harsh, and on the surface, making you fight to keep going every day, or asking you to pick up emotional waste to help keep others afloat, no mental illness making sure their families stay forever poor, and forever on edge  No latent anger exacerbated by economic condition.  They went to good schools, driven by tenacious personalities and supported by people who wanted them to succeed. I get it.  Emotionally staring that in the face, and thinking about how hard you worked to be here?  Taking something from someone who has (and has had) everything probably didn't seem *that* bad.  At least not the first time.

But, given the building I left that phone in for 10 minutes, and who has access to it, I can pretty securely say that no matter how much you think you're different, you too (like me--and I like to think I'm different too, but I'm not) had at least some of that privilege.

I mean, the people who use that bathroom?  Grad students, fellows and faculty.  Probably why you thought you were nicking something from someone who'd driven onto the downing site in a brand new 2012/2013 impala.  'Cause you know, I bought it as soon as my plane landed, waltzing off that first class direct flight into a fully funded fellowship.  Not struggling through economy after 4 transfers because I needed the cheapest flight I could find since it was all coming at the cost of 6+% interest for the rest of my natural life.  With all the money I saved up paying off my undergraduate student loans and working a non-profit job that meant I had to work nights to eat, you probably could be forgiven for mistaking the bags under my eyes for really expensive make-up and some new trend.  In your mind I take the train from London to Cambridge whenever I come back from vacation, and have taxi-cabs to get my bags to my house.  You can't possibly have taken a phone from the kind of person who goes an extra hour on the bus because it's 4 pounds cheaper, or who hauls 3 bags across Parker's Piece, and then across town when they move in.  The kind of person who got that phone used off of kind sibling 'cause she couldn't really afford her own.  I'm the kind of gal, I'm sure you thought, for whom the several hundred pound expense would be pocket change.  Oh boo.  The owner of that phone can only go to four May Balls.  Not five. If you glanced at my email, you'd have seen that I'm working all those events.  Or had you seen my LinkedIn, and Facebook before I managed to change the passwords and remotely lock the phone, it might have come to your attention that while I sit over here reading about how lucky I am, my family back home is literally falling apart, that my job history extends back to age 15, and includes a lot of washing dishes, standing in factory lines and scrubbing walls.

But that shiny pink case.  Designed to keep the screen from cracking any more.   I'll admit it was attractive.  I do hope you make some good cash off that cracked screen, and shattered back.  Or at least the case.  And I won't lie, I sure as hell hope you need it.  That you eat ramen more nights than I do, and that this relieved some horrible financial burden.  Maybe you were going to be kicked out of your apartment next week?  Or maybe you just really needed a drink.

If it's any consolation, I am American.  And I'm blonde.  I DO have those going for me, even if getting a new phone is kinda off the table financially.  So if you stole the phone to make a social statement, or because you were mad at some elite Cantabrigian, you DID stick one to Uncle Sam by sticking one to a middle class American chick whose older than she wants to admit.  Go You.

And if you're really really poor and you have a family member dying somewhere, some part of me is glad I could help.

But if you're just  a douche; then fuck you.

Also: enjoy the 40+ photos of Pueget bicycles ranging in age from the 1970's to the mid 1990's.  Hope you get a kick out of them.

Big Fluffy Death Metal Puppy

     

 Settling in, my boombox blaring out the open window of my dorm room across the lawns of Newnham College, it's hard to deny the indelible draw of Cannibal Corpse's 2004 album, The Wretched Spawn.  I can only hope that my downstairs neighbor shares the same appreciation for guitar work as I do, because next up is Arch Enemy's Dead Inside, and since I want nothing more than to spend an afternoon thinking about puppies, it's imperative to get my groove on.

       In this exam term, so many of us are drawing back to the beginnings of our uni careers, drawing connections across what we've studied from first year on, remembering history and linking ideas, thoughts and events together.  So it's no wonder that I'm seeing those connections in all aspects of my life---and there is perhaps no better example of cause/result historical analysis than the case of Death Metal and Puppies.  As we all well know, it was just a mere 7 years after the groundbreaking album, Welcome To Tell (1981) by Venom that the first "puppy" (then known as "small useless dogs") was spotted meandering through the streets of Newcastle (also the birthplace of Death metal).  Within five years, by about 1986, these "small useless dogs" were popping up in cities throughout the world.  Miniature versions of German Shepherds, Chihuahua's, mutts, sprouting up and capturing the hearts and minds of people across the world.          Further scientific study (conducted as all GOOD scientific study is, here at Cambridge) revealed that there was something inherent in the sounds produced by bands such as Morbid Anal Fog and Napalm Death, that caused dogs to discover their inner children, and regress to a state of being never before seen.  Families across the world experienced both the heart wrenching rhythms of Gorgoroth, and the heartrending presences of adorable slowly growing "puppies" in their homes, and as members of their families.

       Actually, that's all a load of shit.  But a socialist/feminist/hilarious Cambridge student known as Chris Page has a debut Stand-Up hour this coming Monday at Corpus Playroom.  With almost 100 gigs in Cambridge, Norwich, Cardiff, London, and Edinbrugh (including fringe) under his belt, this show is long awaited and promises to be good fun.  Tickets are 5 quid each (buy ahead of time here: http://www.corpusplayroom.com/whats-on/comedy/big-fluffy-death-metal-puppy.aspx) and the show is appropriately named, "Big Fluffy Death Metal Puppy."

Also: It has this cool poster (seen in part above), which in my guesstimation is absolutely enough reason to go.

Cambridge Colleges: Darwin

From my happy little Queen Anne style compound (aka Newnham College) on Sidgwick Avenue, across from the Sidgwick site (guess who they were named after?  Yup.  A guy named Sidgwick), the walk into town and the dept. where my degree course is located takes me down a hill that seems a lot shorter going down, across Ring Road, and between Queen and Darwin Colleges, before crossing the river and getting into the sort of downtown in and around some of the older colleges and University sites.
       In 1963 Trinity, St. John's and Cauis colleges banded together to found a new graduate college of Cambridge to help address the growing need for space for graduate students as interest in the University of Cambridge vastly outpaced it's ability to house and serve students in the post-war years of the 1950's and 1960's.  Education across the world was broadening in it's accessibility for people of all backgrounds, and Cambridge was not quite an exception to that rule.
       Named after the Darwin family, who used to own the land and a building where the college now sits (Newnham grange), Darwin College was founded on the 28th of July, 1964, meaning it's almost exactly five years older than the idea of a literal moonwalk, although it did not receive it's charter as an independent college until almost 12 years later in 1976. Darwin College holds the honor of being the first college founded in Cambridge as a mixed college that admitted both men and women from the moment of it's inception.  Darwin was also, perhaps not coincidentally, the first of Cambridges Graduate-Only institutions. There is an extensive collection of family portraits of various Darwin family members on semi-permanent loan to Darwin Colleges, which can be seen if you have the time to walk through the college hallways and meeting rooms.
       In the years since it's founding Darwin College has been able to acquire, in bits and pieces, a sizable chunk of land in and around it's original site, and with significant financial support from the Rayne Foundation, was able to turn an originally small ad-hoc college site, into something that very much resembles many of the more traditional looking Cambridge College sites, replete with a library completed in 1994.  It was in 2010 that with one final land purchase Darwin achieved it's current full size, stretching along Ring Road on the front, and bordered by the River Cam behind.
       Today Darwin is home to approximately 600 graduate students from all disciplines within the University in addition to 45 fellows who hold posts at the College at any given time.  Darwin stresses academic life within the college, and hosts the well-known through Cambridge Darwin Lecture Series on hot-topics each year.  Most of the last 2 years worth of Darwin Lecture Series have been published.
       Darwin College shares a sister-college relationship with Wolfson College and the University of Oxford, and student groups within the college work hard to make sure that the graduates studying at Darwin have the opportunity to take part in all aspects of college life, from rowing in bumps each term to competing in football (not American style).
       Notable Darwin Alum include Dian Fossey, Brian Gibson, Seamus O'Regan, Sir Ian Wilmut, Paul Clement and 2009 Nobel Laureate in Medicine, Elizabeth Blackburn.  Darwin prides itself on having a diverse body of students, and on the fact that it is able to foster connections between students of all disciplines since it does not favor any type of degree or subject studied when considering admission to the college.
Upon graduation alumni of Darwin College are automatically added to an alumni group that adorably sends out an annual newsletter entitled "The Darwinian."  Kinda makes me think twice about the cold grey brick wall I walk past every morning on my way to class.

       

Dear US Military, #BringBackOurGirls: Moral Complications in International Obligations

According to CNN (although it's only one of many sources, and one of several numbers) there are 276 young Nigerian women still missing after a mass kidnapping the night of April 14th, 2014.  Reading through the plethora of information available on the internet, these girls are potential shining stars for Nigeria's future.  In a nation where only 71% of boys get high school educations, it's no surprise that the number of girls dips even lower at 57%.  These girls, many who had been within weeks of graduating, represent not only their own achievement in completing an education, but the hopes and dreams of families who were willing to work hard to educate their daughters. They are a generation of educated women who represent a change in the way women are raised. They are Nigeria's future.  Their families today are facing armed militia in the jungles of Nigeria as they continue to search for their girls, and possible political repercussions as they protest their government's inaction.

As rumors abound that these young women will be sold for the US equivalent of 12 dollars, as brides or slaves, a world that has largely ignored Nigeria, Boko Harem, and the political unrest in Central Africa for the last decade and a half if not longer, suddenly finds itself focusing intently on Africa's most populous nation--Nigeria, in what may indeed be a watershed moment for its government, president and splinter groups.  For a moment, watching youtube videos of desperate family members and reading story after story of how long these young women have been held, many Americans and indeed US and UN supporters across the globe, are calling for action.  So much so that Nigeria's president extended an invitation to the US military to send a team of specially trained experts to help locate the missing schoolgirls. Someone to come to the rescue.

For one shining moment it seems that there might just be some good that the US military can do without all those pesky complications.  This might be the ONE instance in which our grandiose military might could save the day without us having to think through any messy consequences or ultierer motives.

But like all shining moments, this one fades.

Unplanned, and unanticipated, this global cry for justice provides a chance for the US military, already deeply involved in Africa, to hedge in a little deeper.  To have a legitimate reason to be a little closer to Nigeria's oil supply.  To spread tendrils grasping for information and support into a new place, and to do it without much criticism. Indeed, to do it with global support.  Because let's not forget, the US military has long been interested in Africa, and their main mission and goal is to support US interests abroad.  And by US interests, I don't mean the interests of the hundreds of millions of Americans, unable to think of any better way to help, tweeting #BringBackOurGirls.  

I mean the interests of Halibruton and Walmart and ExxonMobil.  US Africa Command, created in 2006, is an arm of the US military dedicated to ensuring a US presence in the development of African nations, and as that implies in all parts of the world, continued US military and economic dominance.  Made up, according to wikipedia of a minimum 2,000 dedicated "key personnel" US Africa Command is hardly an afterthought in US long term planning, and with a history in Africa that goes back to the Civil Rights movement at home, we know there are corporations and congresspeople with their eye on how this could all play out.

We need to remember that Nigeria, a nation that was originally essentially carved out by Colonial interests with no respect to religious or ethnic boundaries or diversity, has been struggling to find it's footing since the Western world walked away. Through this process, Nigeria suffered a massive civil war less than 50 years ago.  A civil war where the world decided not to watch or know as up to one million people died, many from starvation.

We also have to remember the US using women's rights to further justify invading Afghanistan and Iraq.  To propping up a puppet government in Iran after topping a democratically elected leader in the early 1950's.  We are happy to use "women's right" and "women's suffering" to justify military might, and happy to ignore those issues when it's our allies perpetrating these alleged injustices (see Saudi Arabia).  

Most importantly of all we need to remember (particularly those of us who are US citizens) that the United States of America is (as Noam Chomsky says) a global hegemon, and our government can easily be seen as more an oligarchy than a republic or a democracy.  We have long since lost the privilege of being able to send in military forces, no matter how small or few, or how well trained and effective they might be, without considering the longterm global implications of our actions. Being the hegemon does not endow us with a moral obligation to police the world. Rather it demands we recognize the extent to which our power can encompass and warp even the most noble of goals.

Yes.  There are over 200 girls missing.

Yes.  Something MUST be done for these girls, their families and the girls and families pursuing education across western Africa.

Is US military involvement sending in a "white knight" (figuratively and literally) really the best solution that the world has--I personally don't think so, no matter how emotionally (and politically) rewarding it would be for me as an American to cheer the troops that brought those girls home, and to bubble with pride about what we, the fucking United States of America, can accomplish. Because we can accomplish a lot. Particularly when it involves guns blazing, and planes flying.

But however good it would be for the US of A to play the hero, it won't solve this problem.  

Boko Harem has been an ongoing issue for Nigeria for almost 20 years.  Hundreds have died, tens of thousands have been impacted, and all that has changed this last week, is that the world finally cares.

These 200 girls deserve to be rescued, but they are not the first victims of this conflict and they sadly probably won't be the last, and their rescue should not come at the cost of Nigeria becoming a foothold for US military power in Africa, or a government propped up a little bit more by US aims for US economic interests.

The list of nations who have succombed to that fate goes on and on and on.  Iran, Vietnam, Guatemala, El Salvador, Niceragua, Argentina, Peru, Syria, Indonesia, Ghana, Turkey, Venezuela, Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan and on and on and on. Sometimes we waged outright war, sometimes we slipped in as "support" sometimes we just sent our CIA to topple governments and undermine democratically elected presidents. However we did it, we altered the course of history forever in each case, and in each case it wasn't the Guatemala's or Zaire's of the world who benefited. It was Dole Bananas, and Shell Oils.  

Perchance we should step in, send soldiers and guns and more.  Rescue these girls in a blaze of American glory. Because, to be fair. We can. Our military machine is something to be proud of. Well trained, well equipped and damn good at their jobs.  But perchance we shouldn’t, because of exactly that. Perchance we should find a way for this effort to be a little more UN and a little less US, a little more Nigeria and a little less Western Powers.

Either way, there are already US military members on the ground in Nigeria today. They will, whatever else, work towards rescueing 270 some odd girls, who truly and completely deserve their futures back.  However, this is something we should watch with a careful eye and critical lens, because sometimes saving the day isn’t enough, if in doing so you forget the potential future consequences of doing something as dangerous as inviting the US military in to stay.