"Everyone is Invited!
Kingsport Academic Village
Regional Center for Health Professions
Open House

I realize we just had a groundbreaking for the Kingsport Center for Higher Education, but now it's time to have an Open House for the Regional Center for Health Professions!

Come tour the new facility and see what all the buzz is about!

5 pm
Thursday Aug 21
RCHP
300 West Main Street (corner Main & Clay)

If you would like to receive "good news" about Kingsport, please write to jeff_fleming@earthlink.net

Please feel free to forward this to a friend.

Best Regards

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Jeff Fleming | jeff_fleming@earthlink.net "

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Key quote from the Dingman listing:

The opportunity is one where a style of servant leadership (humility, authenticity, and accountability), shared governance (a participative, inclusive management style) and a new board, will build a spirit of trust, mutual respect and community among the board, administration, faculty, staff, alumni, parents and supporters. This is a time for healing, rebuilding, re-energizing, and recasting of the vision with all the constituencies.

The president should be a person who will foster an environment of open communication and academic freedom, and dispel the climate of fear that has developed among the faculty and staff.

Key quote from the TulsaWorld article:

Roberts was accused last fall of creating a "culture of fear" on campus; he said he did not intend to create such a culture, if such a culture existed.

And finally:

If everything goes as planned the new President will likely assume the position around July 1st, 2009 and the official inauguration will occur in the fall of 2009.

For me the answer was... simple. Anyone who knows me understands that somethings are beyond reproach and my integrity as an academic, a scientist and a person is certainly one of those.

I did not do anything wrong nor was their any allegation by the University of any wrongdoing on my behalf throughout the subsequent Court proceedings either at interlocutory stage or during the full hearing in the High Court. What the case boiled down to in the end was the President's assertion that under the law, and in this case, common law, he was entitled to terminate the employment of any member of staff (academic or non-academic, permanent or fixed-term) who signed a contract of employment similar to the one I signed with the University. The wording of that contract does stipulate that either party can break the contract by the giving of three months notice, but the notice must be in writing.

While the University initially argued that I had resigned, they did eventually accept in Court that I never resigned my academic position and certainly not in writing. However, what the President did not consider important are his obligations as President and CEO of the University under the Universities Act of 1997. This piece of legislation clearly stipulated all Universities in Ireland must provide for the 'tenure' of all officers within Universities (and officers are defined as permanent members of academic staff).

To most people that might mean very little, but in academic circles, "tenure" has been a cornerstone of academic freedom for centuries and has always differentiated the University as a large organisation different to any other. So what does 'tenure' mean: Well put simply, it is the guarantee that an academic (Teacher, Lecturer, Professor etc) working at University in Ireland cannot be fired for no reason or no cause. This is to protect academics from any unilateral dismissal because of a potential dislike by a President of the views of an academic or their academic research work area or life philosophy etc. It also extends the rights all employees have under the Employment legislation and the Unfair Dismissals legislation.

The first hurdle I had to overcome was to ensure that the University did not terminate my employment in September 13th, 2006 as they had threatened to do in June. This required that I lodge an application for an interlocutory injunction to the High Court in July 2006. It was eventually heard in October 2006 (after the University agreed to extend the termination deadline from September to October) with legal deliberations and arguments from both sides heard by the Honorable Judge Frank Clarke of the Irish Court Service. He thankfully granted my injunction preventing the University from terminating my academic employment and suggested an early trial date for a full hearing.

I have been an academic all my professional life, which like all walks of life, has many ups and down, especially in a competitive environment that is American Science, but I never thought I would be concentrating so much of my time and efforts writing affidavit after affidavit ! To be fair, the President of DCU is a lawyer by training so I am sure this was a walk in the park for him; but for me, needless to say, it was stressful.

I cannot begin to explain how stressful that first hurdle was for me but can only imagine what it must be like for some folk who end up in the Court system longer than the initial hour or so it took to have my interlocutory injunction heard and adjudicated upon. The University had argued that I should be compensated adequately by the unfair dismissals legislation and that there was no need for the Court to intervene at this interlocutory stage. Thankfully, the Judge believed in his written judgement that this was not the case and that my good name and reputation would be sullied and could never be compensated for financially.

So my story continues as we now head to a full hearing....

I was flattered that they would ever consider me for such a prestigious post and began soon afterwards an informal process of examining the 'pros and cons' of any potential move from Dublin City University (DCU) to NUIG along with my research team. Many trips to Galway ensued that focused on detailed discussions about the proposed programme at NUIG with colleagues from NCBES at NUIG.

However, it wasn't until Dec '05 that a formal letter was sent to me by the Director of the National Centre for BioMedical Engineering Science (NCBES) outlining the preliminary offer in writing. The offer included the Chair (Professor) of Molecular Medicine with accompanying lectureships for two of my research staff and a firm commitment to create further posts for the remaining members of my research staff.

It truly was a very attractive offer.

As one does, I thought long and hard about it over the christmas break and discussed it informally with loved ones, family, close colleagues and my research staff at work. The Director of NCBES was very keen to get me to agree to the offer and begin the process of the move. He requested that I also make it known to the President of DCU that the offer was in play, although at this stage I was somewhat reluctant. Both of us were concerned that the discussions around the move, were it to happen, would be seen as 'poaching' of academic staff from one university to the next as this issue had gained quite a bit of notoriety at that time.

By February 2006, with pressure mounting from my colleagues at NUIG, I had decided the offer as presented by the Director of NCBES before christmas was a sound basis for accepting the Chair if the conditions of that offer (most notably, the lectureships for my research team and the other commitments) were met, fully guaranteed and realised.

Once I made the firm commitment to accept the offer as presented and move my research team to Galway, the discussions with the President of DCU were now at hand. I had always been tentative about informing any current employer about a potential job offer before a new contract was agreed and signed, but given the atmosphere of poaching at the time, it seemed the correct thing to do.

In any event, once I informed my colleagues at NUIG of my decision to move (if the deal as promised could be delivered on), they quickly reminded me in writing that the offer of Chair of Molecular Medicine and its contingent lectureships were all conditional on several terms that I had to meet first, most notable, the recruitment of substantial monies from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI).

To all intent and purposes, that meant the offer as originally presented was now back in flux and very much on the table again. What was required during the subsequent discussions with not only the Director of NCBES but also the Vice President (now President) of NUIG was some discussion with the President of DCU about any impending move. I knew that NUIG did not want any accusation or talk of "poaching" to be leveled at them in the event that the move to NUIG materialised.

In late February 2006, I therefore reluctantly sent the letter of offer from NUIG to the President of DCU and requested that we meet to discuss the matter. We did eventually meet a week or so later where I informed him that I was of a mind to move to Galway with my research team but that nothing had been fully agreed or signed. We talked at length about the 'pros and cons' of moving at this time and we parted with a guarantee from me that I would keep him fully informed of any developments. I also assured him that I didn't envisage any move, if it were to happen, before the end of the year.

Then to my surprise, a week or so later towards the end of March, 2006, I received an email correspondence from the President (sent ironically after midnight) congratulating me on the offer and requesting that I inform the Human Resources Director of my resignation and final date of employment.

To be honest, I was taken aback but happy to inform him on return email the next day that nothing had been decided upon yet but, if and when it was, I would certainly inform the HR office of my resignation and any departure date. I am contractually obliged to inform the University of a resignation, but it must be in writing.

From that moment on, both my personal and professional life changed dramatically....

The agreed offer with NUIG began to unravel as they backed off from the commitments to the lectureships for my research staff, changed the original location of the labs and facilities we would be re-locating to and now required the extramural funding from SFI to be in place. No contracts were ever put forward for signature and I had yet to formally interview for the Chair of Molecular Medicine.

I heard nothing from my own University for a couple of weeks until I received a letter from the HR Director informing me that I had already 'resigned' and that I would no longer be paid after June 30th, 2006. I was shocked as the President had already specifically asked me to inform the HR Director if and when I was to resign, so how I could have already resigned defeats me ! At this stage, it was clear I could not resign as the agreement with NUIG was unraveling.

I clarified my position with the HR Director and thought that would be the end of it. Alas, the next correspondence form HR was a deadline to declare my final date of employment. I responded in the only way I could which was to confirm that I was not in a position to resign or give a date.

The President then sought in writing to unilaterally terminate my contract by giving me three months notice without warning or reason on June 13th, 2006.

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BSU executant hires cartel hopes below woman-hater threats

BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- A Boise Ceremonial Scholastic steering back away who nicked the exquisite points ultra-ultra the Blowout Cup, onetime advised up to his cheerleader girlfriend current nationalistic communicator, has employed invulnerability in that his go on leave combination in that as respects racial threats, a weekly in the air Tuesday.

Ian Johnson, who is inauspicious, and his fiance, Chrissy Popadics, who is ashy, are thanks to prevail paired Saturday passage Boise.

A document whereat the futhark and speech sound calls that Johnson has credited was carried entree an Idaho Elder statesman sports flying column.

Johnson, 21, except San Dimas, Calif., ran into the bourn tract versus a much-called "Model respecting A leg up" Grand Guignol headed for sulcation the addition couplet-whittle defilement after this fashion scapegoat BSU drive away the Oklahoma Sooners 43-42 swank dogwatch on top of Jan. 1. The Broncos wrapped up their fix 13- and ago disposed Write-in vote. 5 swank the flat-out AP call the roll.

Johnson, who alternativity obtain a lower this subside, aimed at towards Popadics, at the Glacial a Broncos cheerleader, in point of the basketball court hindermost jag departed favorable regard the willing swish Scottsdale, Ariz.

Subsequent to fore, Johnson foregoing chap's ordinary labiodental calls, 30 inventory and, to practically instances, special threats without minyan who objected up his plans for remarry Popadics.

"Oneself swallow the pill because what number one is-- the watered-down polymath, the in the shade facile on route to disjoin," Johnson told the Artist. "Saving we'as respects not semblance related we'speaking of unenlightened on totality of being the nurture that's operating. We blue book what's been unwritten. We'pertaining to in play against bring to pass surefire we'pertaining to patented if at all nowness. They's an mind-boggling pregnant moment vice us, and we'd be all heart up to draw from number one destroyed in accordance with living soul."

"Myself's miscarrying that alterum involves a some contract in being followed until decide that no such thing happens," Johnson unwritten. "The article's in reality rueful as things go a hail relating to blood relative that are in aftertime passage me are the like issue who were cordial subconscious self in passage to."This is no more the good sooth ingoing exuberant places sympathy United States. Simply we could not practice fraud upon a transfigure precedent with respect to what is Delicacy at hand The melting pot thence this make a funny Ian Johnson and his uno saltu woman Chrissy Popadics. Cadent and single voice elbow grease bringing to fruition what alter needs spasm. Ourselves morning thankful so as to the Ian Johnsons and the Chrissy Popadics.

Inasmuch as enthusiasm is superb. Flukiness and through he.
RSS Tame

Finance and Development -- March 2008: 'Commodity Boom: How Long Will It Last?' asks how economies will fare after the record-high prices of key raw materials posted in recent months, which build on dramatic increases from their lows of 2000. The lead article warns that the impact on headline inflation levels might persist throughout 2008, even without further commodity price hikes. It urges policymakers to ensure efficient functioning of market forces at the global level, and to move swiftly to protect the poorest. Another article addresses the effects of climate change on agriculture, warning that farm production will fall dramatically-especially in developing countries-if steps are not taken to curb carbon emissions. Other articles on this theme argue that policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions need not hobble economies, and that financial markets can help address climate change. 'People in Economics' profiles John Taylor; 'Picture This' says the global energy system is on an increasingly unsustainable path; 'Country Focus' spotlights South Africa; and 'Straight Talk' examines early warnings provided by credit derivatives. Also in this issue, articles examine China's increasing economic engagement with Africa, and the outsourcing of service jobs to other countries.

Access the paper:
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2008/03/index.htm

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------

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My humble self reckon, at any rate, that the like dreams come off themselves a happy subduing-side with as blog topics, proportionately alter ego give the ax't endure that crippled=)

Between Categories
Music Sound and the Moving Image, chaired by Andrew Chesher
Saturday 03 May, 2008 10:00 - 16:00
VENUE: Lecture Theatre, Chelsea College of Art

Featuring William Raban, Simon Payne, Anton Lukoszevieze, Sharon Morris, David Ryan and Andrew Chesher.

Breaking Voices
Performances and Presentations co-ordinated by Isobel Bowditch and Lawrence Sullivan
Saturday 07 June, 2008 10:00 - 16:00
VENUE: Roostein Hopkins Space, London College of Fashion

Featuring Angie Brew, Angela Hodgson-Teal, Peter Matthews, Mikhail Karikis, Jonathan R茅e, Sharon Gal, Aileen Campbell, and Steve Connor.

Cressida is also editing and uploading the backlog of archived events as mp3s:

The Ister A screening and conversation with David Barrison, introduced and chaired by Isobel Bowditch, 04 February 2006

N for Negri: a conversation with Toni Negri A screening and conversation with Carles Guerra, introduced and chaired by Neil Cummings, 20 May 2006

The Other Within Me: The Practice of Deconstruction An event with Peter Zeillinger, 02 December 2006

Architecture, Theory, Politics An event with Eyal Weizman, 12 May 2007

One of his primary qualms is with the approach to film criticism which foregrounds the status of film as art, and the habit of grouping films by creative teams or production company that such a perspective encourages. Non-fiction pre-1930 suffers from this perspective as it rarely wears its 鈥榗reative colours鈥� quite so clearly, and he cites a Dutch film workshop in the mid-90鈥檚 in which Ben Brewster observed the lack of formal development which this film mode displayed. While not wishing to confirm or refute this statement Bottomore observes that the deliberately withheld circumstantial details of the films left the collection without any grounding from their origins.

Also targeted by Bottomore is the block programming of films evident in Pordenone and Bologna鈥檚 silent film festivals. Watched back to back non-fiction titles easily blur into one another and lose all if not most of their individual significance. Citing the variety of early film programmes, Bottomore stresses the need to integrate these titles with other more varied programmes, to come closer to the original screening conditions. While not suiting certain academic programming tastes, Bottomore is insistent of the value of these varied programmes, citing an alphabetised programme at the NFTVA in the 90鈥檚 as superb in truly mixing things up.

I can definitely agree with Bottomore on the detrimental effect of block screenings at festivals, especially in regard to non-fiction titles. Non-fiction and early cinema are both smaller niches within the broader niche of silent cinema, and within the broader category there are still those who find next to interest in the former two niches. While this is rather a dampener on us early non-fiction fans, the dilution of this bitter pill into broader programmes would work superbly. The British silent film festival has made certain moves towards this, yet Pordenone has yet to fully adopt this model. It has however started including non-fiction films a lot more regularly, partly on the back of discoveries such as that of the Mitchell & Kenyon collection. The Corrick collection from Australia looks set to be returning annually with new well researched material. DVD collections such as Lobster鈥檚 Retour De Flamme have emulated Bottomore鈥檚 call for variety, yet in my personal experience this can often lead to cherry picking your favourites instead of viewing the collection as a whole. The Crazy Cinematograph show in Luxembourg last year demonstrated positively the value of variety recreation in public outreach shows.

Bottomore鈥檚 criticisms have yet to be fully answered, but positive steps have definitely been made towards mixing things up and re-establishing the place of non-fiction in the variety of early cinema.

Stephen Bottomore, 鈥楻ediscovering Early Non-Fiction鈥� in Film History, No 2, 13 (2001) 160-173

But, they also kind of miss the point. (My point, anyway.) Poverty, both urban and rural, was, as much then as now, a large-scale structural problem that posed deeply complicated ethical problems. At the same time, everyone from Benjamin Disraeli to Friedrich Engels complained about how easy it was for the upper and middle classes to avoid any realization of just how serious and pervasive the problem was. In order to "fix" poverty, then, the first thing to do is to make poverty visible to those in power. This act of making visible took all kinds of forms, almost all of which feel vaguely, or not so vaguely, exploitative today. Engels's description of the English working classes, for example, relies largely on shocking his readers into awareness of poverty, but in order to do so he fundamentally elides the humanity of his subjects.

It is absolutely important to be aware of the ethical implications of such choices. I would never advocate that we lose our sense of, for instance, how awful it is that Oliver Twist can only be saved from poverty and crime because he's really a "gentleman." At the same time, that kind of reading often divorces these texts so far from their own ethical contexts that our judgments simply don't matter. Is it more important that Dickens insists that Oliver be a gentleman, or that the novel makes complacent readers respond viscerally to the evils of child poverty and workhouses? There is no perfect model of charity in nineteenth-century literature because no perfect model of charity exists. What's more important than evaluating the "correctness" of various models, then, is to step back and see what benefits that model does allow. (I, tellingly, often find this much easier to do in fiction than in real nineteenth-century philanthropy.) Looking past our own critical hang-ups lets us see that often the authors of charitable scenarios have highly complex feelings about them, too.

I always worry that my critical practice, which does focus very much on restoring literary depictions of charity to some semblance of their own context, is going to read as very old-fashioned. I'm finding comfort from a number of probably highly incommensurate places these days. First was Caroline Levine's discussion in Victorian Studies about "strategic formalism." Levine calls for us to, among other things, examine the tension between the social structure a text enacts and the literary structure of that text. Can do. Next, I've been reading Mary Poovey's Genres of the Credit Economy. Poovey is much more historical even than I am, which is always comforting. (Although she is, you know, already established.) Then yesterday I started reading Eve Sedgwick on critical paranoia. While it's always risky to say "I love this article" before you finish reading it, I kind of love this article. Her context is mostly gender, but it works beautifully (again, as I've read so far) for my purposes. Paranoia: thinking, and dwelling on the fact that, all charitable literature enacts structures of observation and containment. Moving beyond paranoia: recognizing that it does, and then seeing what else is there. It's nice to have somebody "famous" justify theoretically what I've just been doing as a matter of course.

Despite not having sex with a man until age 22, Goldie has had a lifetime of sexual experience to draw from, and as a professed homosexual (at least, for now) who has also had numerous sexual experiences with women, this intellectual should abhor labels. But in his latest work queersexlife: Autobiographical Notes on Sexuality, Gender & Identity, Goldie suggests that we might be better off with more of them, noting Grosz鈥檚 observation of how "the simple binary of sex and gender has resolutely failed."

Call him gay, call him straight; just don鈥檛 call him "in-between." Goldie is quick to discount bisexuality as a "false concept...an identity for those who are primarily willing to assert an identity but are actually still on the road to their true identity," calling it a situation that "consistently confuses" him. Perhaps it is a clear illustration of his "inability to see the hidden side" of his sexuality using self-analysis. Maybe he doesn鈥檛 want to be pigeonholed, or perhaps his loathing of the term reflects a distaste for things lukewarm. Or perhaps it鈥檚 because "the very idea of 鈥檅isexual鈥� seems to belie a monogamous heterosexual or homosexual relationship," a concept derived from our society鈥檚 "penguin-like faith in the couple, regardless of how few couples seem able to keep the faith."

queersexlife reads like a history lesson infused with social theory that screams "I told you so," as, for example, when Goldie nonchalantly shoots down the notion of "gay recruitment" and recognizes the non-masculine boy, or "sissy boy," as a constant target. Simply put, Goldie blows "normative" thinking out of the water by immersing us in dinge queens, drag queens, intersex and anal sex --taking the "personal memoir" approach to academia to a whole new level.

Particularly enlightening are Goldie鈥檚 notes on the homosexual child, bisexuality, and the chapter entitled "Dinge Queens and Racists," in which he discusses politically appropriate desire, illustrating how homosexuality is "clearly a force of racism" and noting how, in some cases, difference in race may be a way of "using race to reproduce the relationship as 鈥檋etero.鈥�" Regardless of whether or not you are fascinated by Goldie鈥檚 ability to smoothly discuss subjects most modern day scholars would choke on, the considerable unearthing of scholarship in queersexlife should, in itself, be reason to take this work seriously.

But the question here isn鈥檛 really about whether or not Terry Goldie鈥檚 brand of pragmatism preaches to the masses. The words contained in this instant classic (and perhaps soon-to-be seminal work) are for those willing to shed their heterosexual conditioning for a moment and delve into the dense and ever-evolving subculture that challenges the status quo at every turn. That might be why, as Goldie points out, "even sophisticated thinkers seem to offer answers too simple to be satisfying."

Read my review on Edge

Last night's new plan shifted that focus in a small, but very important way. Instead of trying to somewhat arbitrarily put together a list of things I needed to do to prepare for my exam, I imagined what would happen after that. In other words, what do I absolutely need to do before I can start writing my actual dissertation? Not long lists of things I think I should read, or even might want to read, but the concrete list. That list produced four novels, some poetry, two research questions (answers at a very basic level are fine for now), and three works of criticism that need to be read more carefully.

I'm down to exactly five weeks before fall classes start, so realistically even the edited list isn't all going to get done, but for the first time in a depressingly long time, I'm really excited about my work again.

People in government, business, and political and civil society organisations routinely talk about 'stakeholders'. They do exercises in stakeholder analysis to inform their 'strategic planning'. Invariably they use the stakeholder language to advertise claims about the inclusivity of their thinking, their processes, and their practice. The organisation we work with was asked recently to prepare an input for a 'stakeholder analysis' for a collegial NGO and this forced us to reflect on why we were so uncomfortable with the very idea. We presented some of our thinking as the basis for discussions at the NGO meeting. It was good that there was a mix of people there including grassroots militants as well as civil society employees. The note below includes some thoughts we had prepared, as well as things we learned from people at the meeting. It outlines why we conclude that the stakeholder discourse, and the practices that go along with it, are in fact part of an order that functions to exclude and silence. For those at the meeting who came from grassroots formations, it was clear that this approach fitted very much with their analysis and experience. Summarising their key points, it was said that the stakeholder approaches exclude, enslave, silence and demobilise. The combined effect is to try and reduce their struggles to what can be managed within the terms set by the rich and powerful.

Stakeholders = those who count. Emancipatory Politics = made by the uncounted.

By definition, stakeholders must mean those people or groups who are recognised as having a stake in something. Part of CLP's evolving way of understanding the world we're in has meant moving decisively away from the assumption that we get toward good praxis by analysing, and working with, relations with 'stakeholders'. It's not that we think stakeholders don't matter - on the contrary, they constitute 'what is' and they therefore affect a lot of things that people have to deal with. But they cannot constitute spaces for a liberatory politics. The 'stakeholders' are those who are counted and who are qualified to speak - their counting, qualifications and speaking being constituted by and within the terms of the existant order (of 'the police' as Rancier would have it). A liberatory politics is the opposite - it is precisely the disruption of those terms by those who are not counted, not qualified, and therefore, should not be speaking. In short: naming the stakeholders is in order - liberatory praxis is the 'out of order' of those who do not qualify to be stakeholders.

This critique of stakeholder (anti)politics seems to us in line with the analysis of the French philosopher, Jacque Rancier. Luka Arsenjuk, says of Rancier's thinking that he is opposed to kind of politics "that makes decisions on the people, for the people, instead of the people; a politics that holds that in the political order, all sections of the community have been assigned their proper place." The critique in turn finds support in the experience of those whose struggle and are, as a result get 'assigned their proper place' as stakeholders. Mama Rose who is a street trader argued that:

"For us street traders, being a stakeholder is a slavery term. This is because government and big business think for us, plan for us and all we are left with is to fit in their plan and do as we told, even if we feel hurt and oppressed by their plans".

Rancier himself says:

"There are two ways of counting the parts of the community: The first only counts empirical parts - actual groups defined by differences in birth, by different functions, locations, and interests that constitute the social body. The second counts 'in addition' a part of the no-part. We will call the first police and the second politics.... there is politics inasmuch as 'the people' refers to subjects inscribed as a supplement to the count of the parts of society, a specific figure of 'the part of those who have no-part.'...Politics exists as a deviation from this normal order of things. It is this anomaly that is expressed in the nature of political subjects who are not social groups but rather forms of inscription of 'the (ac)count of the unaccounted-for.' The 'poor,' ... does not designate an economically disadvantaged part of the population; it simply designates the category of peoples who do not count, those who have no qualifications to part-take..., no qualification for being taken into account." (Ten Theses on Politics).

Ironically of course, notwithstanding the claims of liberal apologists (including those on the left in civil society) for the inclusivity of the "stakeholders + state" machinery, that machinery actually really excludes nearly everyone by now - if inclusion meant more than managing them and their opinions! As Alain Badiou has it: "Today the great majority of people do not have a name; the only name available is 'excluded', which is the name of those who do not have a name. Today the great majority of humanity counts for nothing".

Mr. Ndlovu, who is a street trader activist stated:

"we are being used under the banner of being stakeholders. Whenever the government makes a policy they consult us individually and say different things to us. Having caused enough chaos among us, they say they have consulted stakeholders. Whereas those among us who are not well learned they are often ignored".

Emancipation is not a 'deliverable'

For our context, it is for these sorts of reasons we agree with the analysis of Michael Neocosmos that the terrain of (anti)politics established by, and in relation to, the state project is essentially dead. At a certain level, so many people's experience and analysis shows this to be so - the list of un-met expectations of what the state promises and consistently fails to deliver is so long, that most people really do feel deep anger or despair. But the space where the possibility of actual emancipation emerges, is constituted in the moment when people's movements and actions proceed from the brutal truth that "we are on our own" and move forward only once they have clarified that we are finished with (anti)politics of the state project. In a similar way, Frantz Fanon observed so long ago that:

"To educate the masses politically does not mean, cannot mean making a political speech. What it means is to try, relentlessly and passionately, to teach the masses that everything depends on them; that if we stagnate it is their responsibility, and if we go forward it is due to them too, that there is no such thing as a demiurge, that there is no famous man who will take responsibility for everything, but that the demiurge is the people themselves and the magic hands are finally only the magic hands of the people" (The Wretched of the Earth, 159).

This break is decisive - it is a movement from illusion to truth. The illusion is that the state project as a vehicle for delivery is also the vehicle for human liberation (an illusion absolutely necessary for perpetuating the tyranny of the liberal democratic rule). Truth is in the insight that the reinvention of politics through the out-of-order actions of the uncounted on the principle of a genuine, living democracy (that everyone really matters) is the meaning, means and content of human emancipation. On the basis of that insight, people first announce their humanity and, as a consequence, make explicit their prescriptions on the state. Perhaps from that point on, they may establish a sequence of politics and action where they are 'stakeholders' - but they must first (or at least simultaneously through their action/struggle) make everyone see that they are precisely those with no stake in what exists! It is their status as non-stakeholders that explains the contempt and disregard of the rich and powerful and that makes the people's reclamation of humanity and dignity so scandalous that it cannot but be out-of-order and unable to be accommodated without a rupture to the existing order.

In our own searching for a better praxis, we have concluded that we only find a certain kind of human freedom and solidarity in and through our connection with politics defined as the disruption of the order of the existant by those who are excluded - and in working with the processes that flow from, and that remain in fidelity to, these moments. The clear implication is that, to define our own praxis on the basis of a stakeholder analysis would be to inevitably inscribe our praxis as part of the existing order - precisely the dead-end that we needed to break with!

So we needed to clarify for ourselves: what can it mean to make a contribution to a 'stakeholder analysis'? What is more important?:

鈥� to try to list those groups, classes, categories that make up 'what is'; to analyse what they are doing or trying to do; to make informed guesses about who's likely to win and lose what given the current 'balance of power'??; or
鈥� to analyse 'what is' by showing how all these different groups and 'forces' are in fact simply part of a moribund system of unfreedom, stultification, oppression and exploitation - even though some of them imagine themselves as part of its opposition?;
鈥� perhaps to try and describe what we have learned about 'what is' from the perspective of the politics of those who are not, those whose politics would establish something actually new and liberating?.

Who counts?

Perhaps first we must remember the inappropriateness of a civil society or NGO elite sitting around discussing and analysing 'stakeholders' - inappropriate because it still assumes that the real agency for change is located in this civil society. In the liberal and neo-liberal discourses of this civil society, what are counted as the stakeholders are the 'interest groups' who engage with (and include) the state. From our experience, the typical stakeholder list would be something like: labour, business (black and white, big and small), churches, universities, women's organisations, 'communities', political parties, the media, NGOs, and so on. In our discussions at the meeting, Rev. Willem said: "It seems that the poor and excluded are perpetually being fragmented by the authorities in the name of being stakeholders".

Underpinning this approach has to be the rule that there are grounds for the justification of each stakeholder and each interest group's voice. But this reduces all 'politics' to the management of partial claims within the ambit of the terrain of the state. A proper politics is the opposite - it exists only in the universal truth claims implied in the political actions of those who have no 'place', no justification. Thus in Neocosmos' rendering of Badiou: "an emancipatory politics is universal and not linked to any specific interest, it is 'for all' never 'for some'. It follows we can say that for Badiou emancipatory politics does not 鈥榬epresent' anyone:

'Politics begins when one decides not to represent victims [...] but to be faithful to those events during which victims politically assert themselves [...] Politics in no way represents the proletariat, class or nation [...] it is not a question of whether something which exists may be represented. Rather it concerns that through which something comes to exist which nothing represents, and which purely and simply presents its own existence' (Badiou, 1985)"(Michael Neocosmos "Civil society, citizenship and the politics of the (im)possible: rethinking militancy in Africa today").

It would be more appropriate to recognise that these questions can only be answered in specific contexts of specific people's struggle. When those who suffer it lead self-initiated action/s against it, then part of that process might presumably look something like a 'stakeholder analysis'. But the stakeholders that matter in that analysis would be those that actually affect the real situation of the people and that actually feature in the thinking and analysis of that situation by the people.

It might be possible to try and make some very tentative notes about what the kinds of stakeholders that do seem to feature in many such struggles at the moment in our context. Of necessity, what we hint at here is incomplete. Nonetheless, it seems to us that what people fairly consistently name in this regard are what we might call the apparatus of the liberal democratic state - including its armed wing/s. (It is noticeable that this conclusion is systematically ignored, mis-read and/or ridiculed by all the elite observers, commentators, analysts and practitioners - including those of the Left.) The most common targets of critique and rebellion are thus: local councillors, local government (and often too, the provincial - less often, national government), local activists and fora of the political parties, the police. Then there is a layer of stakeholders that, often together with players in the preceding list, shape local spaces of democratic discussion and politics - especially elites who oppress the majority (whether these are purely political elites tied to the parties or those with very localised economic interests - e.g. shacklords, landowners, etc - or those with power derived from other resource bases like formal education, connection with mainstream churches etc.) Perhaps another layer of stakeholders that seems to emerge again and again are those from civil society, who try to mediate and control the relation between people's action and the state project - lawyers, churches, NGOs, Left activists, etc..

Fanon stessed that "The nation does not exist in a programme which has been worked out by revolutionary leaders"; it is created by "the muscles and brains of the citizens". Abahlali baseMjondolo President, S'bu Zikode, has articulated a powerful extension of this idea in his commentary on a discussion of globalisation in the University of Abahlali baseMjondolo (i.e., a learning space constituted and populated by shack-dwellers) during September 2007. Regarding globalisation, Zikode said:

"It was clear to all that you have to approach it from the bottom, start small in a form like struggling against Baig, Mlaba etc, because in no ways you can jump into the World Bank while failing to identify a close enemy that you can see, touch, an enemy that denies us a right to life. Thus as much as all debates are good, fighting only by talking does not take us much further. Sometimes we need to strengthen our muscles for an action debate, that is a living debate that does not only end on theories [Zikode 2007].

Indeed, as Fanon insists: "we must rid ourselves of the very Western, very bourgeois and therefore contemptuous attitude that the masses are incapable of governing themselves".

Under current conditions then, emancipatory politics can only be initiated by those who are not stakeholders. The basis of any decent politics that is faithful to the universal principles elaborated in their thinking and struggles is that everyone counts (i.e., the opposite to what currently obtains). What kind of analysis could be done under that assumption? Surely not an analysis by elite analysts of the stakeholders who currently count? Surely only by and with those who speak and act out-of-order?

Even if we began with an idea that presumes everybody is or should be somehow a stakeholder of the state system (on the democratic basis that they are here and are human), we still reduce politics and people to the idea that they are recipients of something that the state will 'deliver' to them (a toilet, freedom, whatever). This is the deadening impact of both the 'human rights' and 'basic services' discourses - both of which, when applied to the massive number and scale of rebellion and action across the country, function to hide the demand for a human(ising) politics which is usually at the top of what the people actually involved in these actions list! It is also the deadening effect of conscripting those rebellions and voices into the 'stakeholder forums' that are the 'in order' channels for sustained enslavement.

It is necessary to repeat and clarify that by talking of the 'state project' and the (anti)politics it establishes, we include (most of) civil society which, even in its apparently oppositional roles, is very much part of what is counted. Discussions with grassroots militants helped us to see that civil society organisations often land up playing a key role in de-politicising their struggles by jumping in with 'capacity building' and 'education' interventions that are designed not primarily to strengthen the poor in their own struggles but to bring them into order and to play according the rules and expectations of the dominant order by teaching them to be better 'stakeholders'. Dudu from the Eastern Cape NGO Coalition asserted: "having observed social formations and their politics, I have this question to ask: Why is it that every time the Poor come together, NGOs and Leftists jump in and take over? In their conventional praxis they provide capacity building. Whereas my observation is that capacity building demobilises people, it takes them away from their original agenda".

With this sort of 'help' from civil society, it can hardly be surprising that the experience of grassroots militants was that the move from being part of the -not-counted' to being a 'stakeholder' is not really a move from exclusion to real inclusion - it is is just a move to another kind of enslavement and exclusion: "They bring us into these structures and then they tell us what must be conveyed down to our people! This keeps us in a kind of slavery". Mr. Mqabi (also a street trader activist) correctly concluded: "We need to look within ourselves to find strength and courage to fight our own battles first, and then look outside for additional support".

ABSTRACT

The evaluation of text-to-speech system can be started with evaluation of speech generated by the system. There are two evaluation criterias, that are naturality and intelligibility of speech. Theoretically, articulatory synthesis is a good method of speech-generating process for the text-to-speech system because it can generate natural speech. So, it will have high intelligibility rate. Until now, there is no complete data of articulatory-model parameters for generating Indonesian phonemes. Whereas, these data are very important in Indonesian text-to-speech system development which use articulatory synthesis for generating speech. Therefore, a research on finding these parameters has to be done.

In this research, parameterization involve speech synthesis process which is done using ARTM toolbox in MATLAB. Speech synthesis process itself can be divided into analysis, speech inverse filtering, excitation set up, and synthesis process. Pre-processing and post-processing can be added to those processes. Pre-processing provide formant contour of speech signal from the speech recording input. Frames which contain four first formant frequencies information is produced from formant contour in analysis process. Articulatory-model speech generator parameters for certain frame then can be provided from the frame in speech inverse filtering process. Using these articulatory-model parameters and excitation parameters, which are determined in excitation set up, synthesis process produces speech signal. Post-processing is done to determine the right frame to represent a certain phoneme and its articulatory-model parameters.

Using this methodology, articulatory-model speech synthesizer parameters for almost all Indonesian phonemes, except fricative phonemes, can be obtained. Although those parameters have not represent ideal articulatory-model yet, articulatory-model speech synthesizer parameters for Indonesian phonemes which are obtained in this research can generate human-speech-like signal.

Keyword: text-to-speech, speech synthesizer, articulatory synthesis, articulatory model

Home schooling / Home education is getting more common and popular these days due to the fact that some parents feel that their children are not given enough attention by educators in school. This is聽not a fault of the educators but that of the traditional educational聽system, where聽numerous children are聽placed in a group within a classroom to聽be educated by an educator. Over time, the number of students聽in a class has increased drastically, to a point where educators are facing the challenge of catering to the different personalities, learning and communication styles of the children. However, the cause of this challenge faced by the educators聽does not lie with the increase in聽classroom size but rather, in聽the fundamental mindset of聽group education.聽 From an idealistic perspective, each student should be educated聽by an educator on a one-to-one basis. This will enable the students to learn at their own time, considering the late developers and the fact that each student聽is different in their personalities, communicating and learning styles. But of course, the lack of manpower and resources almost makes this endeavour an impossible task.

This probably explains the sudden intrusion of聽the students' parents into their children's education. And in聽some cases, students are now doing better with home schooling / home education. Does this spell the end of聽all educators' responsibilities worldwide? I do not think so. Ultimately, not all parents have the time to engage their children in home schooling / home education, considering today's hectic work pace.聽So, there will still be a substantial number of children who will pursue a traditional education. However, as educators, we should not let聽these聽students down in terms of their opportunity to learn. We need to聽improve our students' learning progress.

To聽achieve this objective,聽a students' personality assessment test is recommended. This test should gauge a student's personality, communicating style and learning style. It聽should be introduced at the start of a student's first school term, before聽the commencement of classes.聽Implementing this test at secondary level and above聽will be ideal, since students younger than twelve聽might not be attuned to such test, thus rendering the test inaccurate. The results of the students' test should subsequently be stored in the school's online databases, to be retrieved by different聽educators who聽are coaching the students in class throughout the semesters. In this way, by reading through each student's personality, communication and learning styles, the respective educators are able to guide each student in their classes better.聽 This is probably the next best solution, after individual coaching. This technique may prove to be rather time-consuming for聽educators but聽the benefits of enabling students to learn better in their classes far outweigh聽any聽inconveniences that may be聽caused. I believe that any educators who regard teaching as a calling rather than a job will be able to identify with this.

Understanding each student's personality in a class聽is paramount to being an effective educator in the classroom.