It has been awhile since I’ve written about the ongoing legal battle between the state of Arizona and the teachers of Tucson High School. Unfortunately, things are not well. Earlier this month I received an email from Curtis Acosta, one of the ethnic studies teachers whom I interviewed in 2010. Here’s what he had to say:

Last night the Tucson Unified School District Governing Board voted 4-1 to immediately eliminate the Mexican American Studies program. All other ethnic studies programs are unaffected and I will know more today how this will impact our students and content of our classes. Many rumors are swirling around that the composition of the classes may change which would drastically affect our students through mass schedule changes.

This optimism cannot be shared in regard to the content of our classes which we believe will be completely eliminated or altered beyond recognition. Assignment changes are expected for all of our colleagues, including the Director of Mexican American Studies Sean Arce.

And, it gets worse as news has come out that school officials confiscated books during the middle of class including Paulo Freire’s A Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Rodolfo Acuña’s Occupied America, and Elizabeth Martinez’s 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures and Rethinking Schools’ Rethinking Columbus. As you can imagine students described their books being boxed up as “heartbreaking.”

I’ve written quite a bit about this but at this moment I’m at a loss of words. Pedagogy of the Oppressed is perhaps one of the most important books written in the last fifty years, and how can one decide not to rethink Christopher Columbus in this day and age? Is it not a forgone conclusion that the man didn’t discover a part of the world that was already inhabited by people; people who are still here?

Like the students of Tuscon High School I was fortunate enough to have a history teacher that taught me a side of history that was more personal and honest. It was this type of honesty that inspired me to study harder, and to have pride in myself and others. I can speak from personal experience, as a student and educator, that this type of education is important to us all.

The true history of this country (in all of its glory and messiness) is something to be far more proud of than the cookie cutter, surface level history that we are taught the day we enter public education. As we have been forced to say again and again over the last few years…shame on Arizona.

For more information on the debate I implore you to read Jeff Biggers’ Salon.com article, “Who’s Afraid of the Tempest?“

“The only other time a book of mine was banned was in 1986, when the apartheid government in South Africa banned ‘Strangers in Their Own Country,’ a curriculum I’d written that included a speech by then-imprisoned Nelson Mandela,” said [Bill]Bigelow, who serves as curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools magazine, and co-directs the online Zinn Education Project ”We know what the South African regime was afraid of. What is the Tucson school district afraid of?”

Debbie Reese’s, “Teaching Critical Thinking in Arizona: NOT ALLOWED.”

I’m pretty sure that Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House of the Prairie is not on the list. Towards the end of that story, Pa learns that the federal government wants squatters (he doesn’t use that word) to get off of Indian land. They load the wagon and as they drive away, they look back and see that that “their little log house and the little stable sat lonely in the stillness.” Pa says that it is a great country, “but there will be wild Indians and wolves here for many a long day.” Books like Little House teach readers to resent a race or class of people, too, but I doubt it is being removed from classrooms in Tucson.

Biggers’ Huffington Post interview with Tucson teacher Curtis Acosta.

We have quantitative academic results and brilliant graduates who are outstanding young people dedicated to their community. That is why the lack of support from our own district has been so frustrating and tragic. We have worked tirelessly for the students and families in the district for decades and the same cannot be said by the politicians and officials that ended our program on January 10th.

And, if you want to hear the argument from the state, watch the debate between John Huppenthal, Arizona superintendent of public instruction and Richard Martinez, the attorney representing teachers and students in Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies program.

South Korean Prisons are Employing… Robots!

Yeah, you think I’m kidding don’t you? I’m not. Beginning next year, South Korea will be using 150cm-tall robots on wheels to police their prisons. The $850, 000 machines will be used mainly at night — those damn overtime hours — using sensors to report suspicious behavior to the other lifeforms we call, uh, people.

The robots will be tested out for a month, but if it works out we know its a copycat league. Be prepared to see more robot police guards, followed by Robocops, Termintors, then those freaky-spider things we saw in the Matrix movies. Fucking Cylons!

Attempting to assuage such fears Kyonggi University professor, Lee Baik-chul had this to say:

“[T]he robots are not terminators. Their job is not cracking down on violent prisoners. They are helpers. When an inmate is in a life-threatening situation or seriously ill, he or she can reach out for help quickly.”

Isn’t that how all of these movies start!?

Video Game Controllers and Google Chrome Sitting in a Tree…

Arizona State University professor, James Paul Gee is just that, a “G”. We’ve got a lot in common. Both of us grew up in the Bay. We share the same alma mater (Go Goucho’s!), but it was his theories around video games that really sold me on the man as my spiritual brother from another mother. Namely, his belief that “video games are a new literacy.” They are literally something that one must learn how to play in order to access the information and experiences one can get from them.

Yeah, people use to think I was a nerd for stating such a thing. Cue the recent announcement that video game controllers will soon be compatible with Google’s Chrome web browser. No announcements yet on why Google decided to do this (although my guess is we’re going to see the end of video game consoles soon) but if you don’t know how to use your typical game controller than whatever a controller is used for — on a web browser or otherwise —  you can’t access it. And, considering how technological and interactive everything is moving towards not knowing how to use a game controller is akin to not knowing how to use a computer.

So, to the people who used to think I was crazy, nerdy or making lame excuses for playing Grand Theft Auto 4….Ha!!

I SPIT on My iPhone!

Phones these days have an app for just about anything, right? Well, they don’t have a doctor app — not yet, anyway. New Scientist is reporting that the Korea Advanced Institute for Science and Learning is working on, uh, something that will allow a touch screen to read a person’s saliva the way it currently reads your fingertips.

Stop laughing! I’m not finish.

Apparently… they’ve already taught the device how to detect chlamydia through a persons loogie. They anticipate that the company can make billions over night with the San Francisco market alone.

Geek Porn

I swear — I’ve not nothing.

In the Blogaboutech Mixtape, v. 2 I briefly wrote about YouTube and its $100 million plan to get star power onto its channel. My thoughts — besides the pun about Ashton Kutcher, Shaquile O’Neal and the Armageddon — were how this could be the beginning of the end for cable television. Well, here goes another potential nail in the coffin.

Sony is in talks with several big media companies to create internet streaming televisions that will cut out cable service providers, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal back in November. The idea is to bring television back to the way it use to be with a few channels. Y’know, quality over quantity. I’m totally over simplifying it but you can check out the links for more info. Point is: internet “television” is blowing up and… I love it!

I gave up cable television a long time ago. Paying over $80.00 a month for a ton of channels I won’t watch nor care for got old a long time ago. Every once in a while I’ll head over to my neighbors crib for a little Walking Dead or to watch the football game, but the commercials make it almost impossible to enjoy television. Television advertisements are so intrusive that I feel like I’ve tuned in to watch commercials with a little dramatic or comedic break in between.

Netflix on the other hand allows me to watch shows back to back without someone trying to convince me to use Tide with bleach or to buy a brand new Ford. Sure, I’m about a season behind Mad Men, or I’m watching the canceled but seriously GREAT Flash Forward (any other time and that show would have been a hit). But, I rather like the idea of paying for customizable options, zero commercials and the right to watch what I want, when I want to.

Being able to watch television streamed live on a television connected to the internet presents so many possibilities. Web series’ like Osiris and 12 Steps to Recovery would be better enjoyed on television than a computer screen. I, for one, am excited for this. That is, until advertisement companies figure out a way to ruin the whole thing.

Yes, that day will come.

Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

Is amazing! It may not be might favorite game this year but it is the best. Skyrim is this year’s best example of what video games can do that other entertainment mediums can’t. It’s an amalgamation of literature, interactive storytelling, radio, and film. I’ve read quite a few articles comparing Dark Souls to Skyrim and I have yet to be convinced the DS is anywhere near as good. I’m not buying the better use of story telling through subtlety that Rick Stanton discussed in Eurogamer. Back that up with some data, man. I can appreciate the combat in DS that Leigh Alexander preferred to see in Skyrim but I’m still not convinced that it’s better. Honestly, I’m not sure that Dark Souls was significantly better than Demon Souls. As we’ve seen with Portal 2, Batman: Arkham City, Assassin’s Creed 2, etc. the sequel is your statement game. Did Dark Souls really make a statement? I want to spend some more time with DS and Skyrim but I look forward to exploring this a little more in the future.

Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception

Developer Naughty Dog does such an incredible job of taking real estate from their previous games and somehow making them better. If you’ve played the previous two games you’ll notice how familiar parts of the boat scene in UC3 looks a lot like the end of UC1, for example, but they added just enough tweaks (uh, movable cover?) to make it better. I agree with most that the pacing in UC2 was just a tad better than Deception. But, I think the issue with people having an issue with Drake being a nice guy in cut scenes then a maniac when the gameplay kicks in needs to forgive themselves for watching seven seasons of Jack Bauer, four sequels of Die Hard, and a death count between Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade that would have certainly got Indiana Jones fired from his teaching job at the university. Blasphemers! Nolan North and Nathan Drake is awesome.

Prometheus

I love the trailer but I’m trying not to get my hopes up too high. Filmmakers from my childhood have been a major disappointment in their old age. Speilberg gives us a war movie about a horse in World War 1 after Tintin and Indiana Jones 4 (Yuck!). Scorcese actually did direct Hugo (Word?). And, of course, let’s not forget good ‘ol George Lucas and his unbelievably terrible Star Wars prequels.

People keep talking about Prometheus being a prequel to Alien but am I the only one that read the interview with director Ridley Scott where he said that was the original idea and that Prometheus in… something else?

And, Finally: A Montage of 2011′s Black Films

I loved Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels Of A Tribe Called Quest, The Black Power Mixtape, V. 1, Columbiana and Attack the Block was brilliant. Viva Riva! is in the Netflix queue and I can’t wait to catch Shame after this article. If you recognize any of these other movies let me know but it looked like a pretty good year.

Note: props to Shadow and Act for putting this together.

I’m a pretty legitimate sci-fi/fantasy fan. I don’t geek out like some of my friends do. I’m more partial to a good yarn about. I’m a big story fiend, and the sci-fi/fantasy genre has a way of taking small ideas and making them profoundly big and majestic.

But, over the years I have yearned to see some movies that have a little something different to say. Simply put, most good television or big budget movie is centered on a white cast, protagonist, world and/or mythology. I still enjoy watching them, sure, but it would be nice to see an Asian superhero, a black cyborg or a Mexican-female savior of a post-apocalyptic world. I’m messing around a bit, but the point I’m trying to make is the country — let alone the world — is filed with people who are not white and male and I just want to watch movies about them from time to time.

With very small audiences interested in this sort of thing and historically big budgets and/or small distribution options getting these films done would be impossible. But, with the decreasing cost of film production equipment and easy distribution channels like Vimeo, Blip.tv and YouTube, apparently there’s this new boom of cool web series that I have since become hooked on.

You can check the article with a, sort of, Top 10 list of cool web series here. I’m pretty excited about them.

At times when it comes to the Danger Brain blog I have nothing at all to talk about (and other times I’m ridiculously busy which is why I’ve been missing for so long) so, in an attempt to keep the words moving the Blogaboutech Mixtape is just that: a  ”mixtape” of today’s more interesting tech news. Yeah, sure it deviates a bit from what I usually write about but hey, I’m trying something new.

Locks that “Talk”

This is the coolest device that I’ve ever seen. Did you know that you can buy home locks that you can open and close remotely? I know the guy who owns a co-op work spot called Citizen Space in San Francisco. I saw this dude open and close his front door locks with his iPhone 4. I geek out over those things, but considering that I was in the company of a grown ass man I had to try really hard to evoke the same sense of boredom I did in 2000 when I was hanging out on a topless beach in Sydney, Australia. Yeah, well this is how we roll….where I come from.

But, that wasn’t the coolest part of the Kwikset locks. Do you have a problem with stalkers? Do you live in East Oakland? Did you forget how many ex-girlfriends you’ve given a copy of your keys? Have you watched Silence of the Lambs far too many times? If so, you’re going to love this nifty other feature. You can program the locks to email you when anytime they unlock! Now, that is cool.

YouTube’s $100 Million Star Power

This is happening on the under somewhat, but YouTube (which is actually Google) is paying close to 100 million buckaroonies to clients such as Shaq, Ashton Kutcher and The Onion to come up with original programming on their site.

This means two things:

One, with similar developments going on with Hulu Plus and Netflix and the rise of these really cool Internet Televisions (I. Want. One.) cable as we know it today is going to look very different in the next few years. Two, the Onion produced buddy cop television show starrting Kutcher and Shaquille O’Neal will be the 2012 Armageddon that the Mayans warned us about.

Fashion of the Future?

You bet it is. Those green, brown and/or beige fatigues are so last year. Camo firm, HyperStealth has designed a new type of camouflage (seen here) that is sitting on the precipice of blowing the f*** up. Apparently, computer simulations have shown that this pattern works for both indoor and outdoor environments.

“This is the unconventional pattern in field trials… The perceived depth within the pattern throws off the ambient and focal vision from noticing the target.”

Now, that is what they’re telling global military’s and private security firms like Blackwater and such. But, they have an entirely different division that is currently pitching it to the likes of the Gap and Urban Outfitters. Here’s what they had to say:

“Shirts adorned with this pattern are great for urban hipster clubs and also the modern day gang-banger’s who must blend in with their backgrounds since high gas prices have all but erased the once famous drive by’s. Once these shirts hit stores we expect the new name to be Pop. Stop and Freeze.”

The rumor is that we’ll see these clothes on store racks as soon as Spring 2012. Start saving… or, running?

Have you ever received those really awful emails from your parents? You know the emails I’m talking about. Usually it’s a fwd of a fwd that will somehow give you luck, money or both if you fwd it to someone else. Or, it’s a clever quote that is either waaaay too long for the time you have or just cheesy as all HELL.

These emails are the digital equivalent of the those fluffy, white cards that you find in Walgreens with the odd looking Georgia Okeefe design on the front and/or a poem by a long dead and boring poet. Or, it’s from a poet that you actually like but feature some of their worst work. These emails are the digital equivalent of telling you grandmother how stressed out you are over your inabilty to understand the math portion of the GRE and she responds every time with, “you should go to church.”

In the world of endless email inboxes that feature yet another thing you have to do or someone’s attempt at covering their ass by saying, “hey didn’t you get my email,” these contributions from your parents are like the Anarchists that hit Whole Foods on during the big Oakland strike last month: I know you’re trying to help but stop, man. Stop.

Mat Honan has a great op-ed on the email side of our parents’ amusing transition into the 21st century with tips on how to handle it that include:

* Setting clear guidelines.
* Teaching them email etiquette.
* And, I would add labeling your parents as SPAM but that is me.

Honan gives more detailed advice. It’s a nice perspective to have and reminds me of not only my own ignorance to some of the computer programs I’m getting use to but also my desire to learn more, to stay curious and excited about new tech so I won’t inundate my children one day with useless attempts at trying to be trendy.

It is December and apparently Google Chrome has passed up Firefox as the second most used web browser which makes me incredibly ashamed of myself. Y’see, I use Safari. No one informed me when I bought my Macbook Pro a year ago that browsers had become as trendy as phones which are now like shoes.

The teasing that I get for using the default Macbook browser reminds me of the elevated noses I experienced from the Pro Wing and Stadia shoes I use to wear in middle school. At the time, I never cared about looking cool or fashionable. I just wanted a nice pair of shoes to get me through the day. Of course, after all of the snide playground heckles I had to upgrade to Reeboks. Well, those aren’t that much of an upgrade but you get the point, right?

It’s bad enough that I’m starting to get self conscious about my Samsung Instinct. Sure, it isn’t as cool as the iPhone or the Android. OK, It isn’t even close, but, hey it get’s the job done. And, that is how I feel about my clunky little Safari. Sure, it drops on me often and occasionally I can’t watch any videos on it. So, what! Safari is like that old shirt we all have. Or, maybe it’s a pair of pants. Sure, it isn’t your best looking article of clothing. It isn’t going to win you any cool points when you’re wearing it. But, dammit when you have important things to do you need to feel comfortable. You need easily accessible pockets. You need to NOT be thinking about your weight. You need to feel like you’re wearing a part of yourself.

That, is my Safari. It is my old B.U.M. sports bag that I take with me to vacations in Mexico. Providence. Atlanta. It is the ripped up boxers from Hanes that I like to wear on warm days because they’re far more comfortable than the brand new pair I bought from Banana Republic. Safari is my ripped up sweat shirt or my dingy old baseball cap.

So, screw you browser snobs.

I like Safari.

“For my 1 year old daughter a magazine is an iPad that does not work.”

Again, this shouldn’t surprise anyone. Even in my Art classes there isn’t too many books for us to purchase. Most of our readings are Wikipedia posts and YouTube videos. But, it is amazing to see this. It points to the development of a — sort of —  new literacy. Consider our academic upbringing. To prepare for college I had to learn how to read properly. I had to learn how to take notes, highlight passages, speed read when necessary, etc. All of those necessary skills one needs to have in order to be successful in a class.

It’s a really cool, bizarre and scary thought to consider what this will look like in twenty years. What skills will be necessary for this 1 year old’s generation? Will there be more emphasis on the need to understand user interfaces and operating systems? Perhaps, it’ll be important for them to know which are the best and most convenient applications to use for a given task, similar to the way a carpenter needs to know which are the best tools to use to build a dog house vs. some new kitchen cabinets?

On another note, keep a look out for more videos of the 1 year old as she touches a television screen, her fathers head and the iron while trying to understand why the world is just so 1982.

Bad, ain’t it?

I mean, it’s the Times so they have great content and fantastic articles. I get it. But, there are entirely too many links in their design and its all in these tiny Times and Calibiri fonts. I’m not even sure where the fold ends on that behemoth of a site. Perhaps, you just want to go to good ‘ol NYT, find an article and read it. Makes sense to me. Well, it also makes sense to developer, Michael Donohoe who just made an app called Ochs which is exclusive — and free.99 — for Google Chrome.

The Ochs app increases the type, cleans up the clutter adding more white space, and my personal favorite: it limits NYT’s proclivity towards multiple page articles that you have to click over and over and over. It’s available now over at the Chrome Web Store.