Growing Up Online

Last week, we watched a Frontline special on the Iraq War, and I got the notion to go looking through Frontline's many fine episodes, and found one on kids and the Internet -- not just the dire warnings, but talking to kids about what it means to them and so on.

I have a very sociable teenage daughter, and technology has definitely made things different from when I was young. Not only does the phone ring all afternoon, beginning from when school lets out, kids will also call at ungodly hours of the night. The reason for that is that they are on cellphones, parents are asleep, and they don't stop to think that the number that they are calling is not a cellphone kept on vibrate, but the main phone in the kitchen that will disturb the whole family. I've seen Tory talk with the house phone on one ear, and her dad's cell (which she shares) on the other.

And all of this isn't enough; Tory's also got MySpace -- the 21st century teenage hangout. Now, she's never done anything as extreme as the kids described on the program. For that matter, neither have the vast majority of kids online. And, I'm probably a bit more web-savvy than most parents -- that, and my daughter doesn't have her own computer, and tends to be rather careless about signing out. I usually am unhappy at what I find when I do have the opportunity to peek. (She objects strenuously to this parental intrusion, of course.) The way kids talk to each other is *disgusting*, at least to my middle-aged eyes. It's not the lurking pedophile, either -- it's just local kids, who she also knows in real life. As for control, she got herself banned from my computer, but still has access to her brother's laptop -- a tool he needs for college.

But the Frontline program made some good points:

*The Internet has brought about the biggest generation gap since the invention of rock-and-roll. I personally think it's technology, in general, and includes things like cell phones, texting, IMs, etc. Kids that age always have wanted to create an identity seperate from that of their parents -- but technology makes it so much easier now. They not only create their own identity, but their own world. There's some truth to this, but it's possible to make too much of it. Changing times always create kind of a gap. I grew up with television; my parents didn't. I had the opportunity to go to college; my parents didn't. My generation of young women grew up with the Pill and legal abortion; my parents didn't. I don't know if the Internet represents a more startling change than those things.

*The only major study done on the subject indicates that most kids know to just delete any sexual solicitation, so the fear about predetors may be overblown. The only time a guy suggested Tory meet him in real life got put down quick. Tory called him a pedophile and told him to get lost. In reality, he sounded more like some young guy trying to pick up on a girl he thought was closer to his own age -- but her reaction was reassuring. The many known-in-real-life guys who talk to her on MySpace, I'm less reassured about. I consider them much more worrisome than the dirty old man trolling for kids.

*Kids make plans to party and do other things they aren't supposed to online. Duh! Teenage cyberspace is teenagers without adult supervision, which spells teenage stupidity every time. Not to be unfair, but even good kids are dumb -- young necessarily means lacking in experience and wisdom. If we're honest about our own youth, we can certainly see some stupidity there, particularly when we figured our parents weren't looking.

*The Frontline special talked about cyber-bullying, which has, in some well-publicized cases, led to teenage suicide. From what I can tell, that hasn't been a problem with my daughter's friends. There doesn't even appear to be much in the way of the catty squabbling that I remember from my high school days. I see an awful lot of vulgarity, but I don't see meanness. Maybe that's just the crowd my kid hangs with. My experience with online meanness is with adults. I can see how an emotionally vulnerable teenager could get into trouble out here, though.

Anyway, it was an interesting look at the teenage cyberworld. Click on the title of this blog entry; you can watch the entire thing on the web.

A Humor Break

I wasn't always a Baha'i, you know. When I was a kid, I went to church -- and around the year 1972 the movie "Thief in the Night" was all the rage. I was twelve, not eight as the song says -- but I always remembered the lyric:

Two men walking up a hill
One disappears, and one's left standing still
I wish we'd all been ready
There's no time to change your mind
The Son has come
And you've been left behind

Randy Bonifield remembers it, too, and pokes gentle fun in this song:

Correcting "Baha'i Views"

Here's something that I wrote some time ago, but was holding on to until after the Fast -- I generally make an effort to stay out of controversy during that period:

Ever since Moojan Momen's paper "Marginality and Apostasy" came out, George Wesley Dannells of Baha'i Views has become inordinately fond of the term "apostate", and has posted several times about how terrible we all are. But you know who else is fond of that term? The Iranian government, who applies it to all Baha'is. Google "Baha'i apostates" sometime and see what comes up. Yes, the term can be used in a social science context; it is also a vicious epithet on the lips of the orthodox. Baha'i Views is not a social science journal and George is not studying us. He is using "apostate" in the exact same sense that an Iranian mulla would -- as a way to condemn and to warn others about the people in question.

In any case, some of the things he says seem to indicate a profound ignorance of who we are, and what we're saying. So, at the risk of putting myself in the middle of the maelstrom, I think some corrections are in order:

Claim: The "apostates" don't teach the Faith.

False. Alison Marshall has a teaching website. Baha'is Online and Baha'i Rants have a variety of positive stories about the Baha'i community, as well as critical ones.

Claim: "Have you noticed they never post about children?"

False. I have a lot of posts here about education -- I am. after all, a teacher. This critique seems particularly bizarre to me, because the lack of resources for my kids is one issue that greatly frustrated me when I was enrolled. No use talking about "core activities" now -- childhood passes swiftly; they can't wait years for the local community to get its act together. Our children's classes here were active when my kids were infants, then largely dropped out of sight. It's true my kids aren't Baha'is, but most of the kids that attended those long-ago classes are estranged from the community now. So, it's not like the Baha'i community has done such a stellar job at retaining these children after they grow up. The old saying about people who live in glass houses not throwing stones come to mind.


Claim:"Death to Baha'is" is being scratched on doorways even today in Iran. And yet the Internet Anti-Baha'i Society is not moved, and is focused instead on its own apostate narratives and mythology."


False. Both Baha'i Rants and Baha'is Online, the two main websites that George complains about, are replete with stories about what the Iranian Baha'is are suffering -- almost every news story that comes out finds its way to one or the other. Several on the list of Moojan's "apostates" have made public statements about the Iranian government's shameful violation of human rights and religious freedom that Baha'is must endure in that country.

There is also another jab, that while not exactly false is exceedingly silly: George put both "Baha'i" and "unenrolled Baha'i" into a search, and found that the latter had an infinitesmal percentage of the "Baha'i" total. I'm not sure what this is supposed to prove, but search engines look for words, and even on unenrolled sites, the word "Baha'i" is likely to be used far more often than the specific term "unenrolled Baha'i" -- so a comparison like that tells you nothing. Not only do I use the word "Baha'i" much more often, I also use the abbreviation "UB" which wouldn't be picked up on a search. In any case, not all religionists are as obsessed with numbers as the administrative Faith is. For example, nobody knows how many Sufis there are in the U.S., because they simply don't keep those kinds of statistics; trotting out numbers to prove their progress just isn't important to them. I don't see why it ought to be important to unenrolled Baha'is, either -- I wouldn't even try to hazard a guess at the numbers.

Besides, the whole premise of this kind of numbers game is wrong: I don't view unenrolled Baha'is as being in competition with the Baha'i Faith organization. Why should we be? We're all believers in Baha'u'llah, after all. But not everyone's a joiner -- as the growing number of unaffiliated religionists in this country indicates. It would be nice if Baha'is took the approach that Christian churches do towards unchurched Christians -- they ask themselves how they can attract such people into community activity, instead of sneering about how "insignificant" they are.

There are other things I could get into -- it seems that George feels the need to mention the apostates/marginals/opposition about twice a week. But one thing I will agree with him on: The Internet is changing; people have backed away from the turmoil of debate that seems almost inevitable on forums. It's one reason I started blogging, and I'm sure that's true for others as well. I'm sure that's all to the good -- may we all generate more light than heat!

Common Tables: Breaking Bread and Boundaries

Here's a project that I think would warm the cockles of any Baha'i heart:

CASTLE ROCK, COLO. -- The four couples were just settling into small talk over appetizers when Kenneth Holloman cleared his throat.

"Would the group permit me to ask an impertinent question?" he said. "How many here believe there's a hell?"


It was not your typical icebreaker.

But then, this was not your typical dinner party.

The couples, strangers to one another, had been brought together by Common Tables, a nonprofit that aims to nurture interfaith friendships. Holloman is an atheist; his wife, a Methodist. Their group included a Jewish couple; a Baptist minister and his wife; and a couple who left the Mormon Church and now belong to a New Age movement called Religious Science.

Common Tables puts together group rosters and asks members to meet for dinner at least four times. Participants can talk about theology or the weather. They can share prayers or photos of their children. Nothing's required. And nothing is off-limits, except proselytizing. The point is simply to reach out, to shake hands with a Buddhist, enjoy a glass of wine with a Wiccan, share laughs with a Sikh or an agnostic or a Jain.

"We're not trying to solve academic or theological problems," said Randy Harris, who co-founded Common Tables last spring in Denver's suburbs.

"We just want to help people realize they can honor and respect each other. They can get along."

Traditionally, interfaith work has been left mostly to religious leaders, who gathered a few times a year for a unity breakfast or panel discussion. Where grass-roots groups existed, they often focused on drawing together diverse congregations for service projects, such as cleaning up a neighborhood park.

Since Sept. 11, however, veteran interfaith activists have noticed a hunger among Americans for more personal, one-on-one connections across religious lines. For many, it began with a desire to meet Muslims, to work past the fear and anger raised by the terrorist attacks. Since then, the movement has broadened. In some cities, parents are even organizing interfaith Sunday schools to teach their children Bahai, Zoroastrian or Greek Orthodox values.

"People know they have to develop the capacity to get out of their comfort zone," said Jill Carroll, executive director of Rice University's Boniuk Center for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance.

Harris and his co-founders believe in the concept so passionately, they all quit their jobs to devote themselves to Common Tables. They hope to build a national movement; for now, they're working on calling every house of worship in the greater Denver phone book. So far, they've signed up more than 300 participants and set 20 groups in motion.

There's more to the article, but the Blogger software keeps telling me that the URL is illegal. However, it's a recent story, still being featured on the LA Times Religion page. You can find the organization at http://commontables.org, which Blogger won't put through, either.

Kyrgyzstan's Religious Laws

The Presidential Administration has rejected for now a harsh new Decree which would have brought in sweeping controls on religious activity. But Kanat Murzakhalilov, Deputy Head of the State Agency for Religious Affairs, told Forum 18 News Service that his agency hopes to present a final draft of a controversial new Religion Law to the government by the end of March. He refused to say if the draft will require 200 adult citizen members before a community can gain legal status, a provision in the latest publicly-available draft which is opposed by the Russian Orthodox, the Catholics, many Protestant Churches, the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Baha'is. But he stated that registration will continue to be compulsory. Boris Shumkov of the Council of Churches Baptists told Forum 18 that such harsh provisions "would lead to repression and persecution of our congregations". They have named 5 March a day of prayer and fasting. "Our country has so many urgent problems – poverty, the lack of medicine, Aids, crime, corruption," one Baha'i told Forum 18. "Why don't officials work on these instead of making life harder for religious believers?"


Well, it's good that the harshest version of this law isn't going to be passed, but I have to agree with the Baha'i quoted there that this government -- any government -- would be better occupied elsewhere. And good on him/her for standing up.

Here's the defense for the law: But Fr Dronov insisted that a new Law is necessary. "The current Law is too liberal and should be amended. Registration should be better regulated. And the problem at present is that faiths new to Kyrgyzstan have the same rights as faiths that have been here for a long time. New groups should have fewer rights as they are not part of the established culture here. Some new sects are harmful and should be restricted."

Among those Fr Dronov singled out as needing tighter control were Pentecostal Christians, which he alleged "harm members' psychological health". However, he admitted that no medically-documented proof of such harm was yet available.

It makes me think that the Pentacostals have had rather more success in Kyrgyzstan than Fr Dronov is comfortable with.

Click on this blog entry's title to get the whole article -- and there are further links at the bottom of the article for anybody who wants to read up on the situation.

And the blog goes on . . .

As most of my online friends know, I'm recovering from a car accident that happened about a month ago. I'm at a point in my recovery now where I'm well enough to mess around online, but not well enough to do much of anything else. I made a few attempts at housework today -- didn't get very far before I wore out. We still haven't replaced the car that got smashed up, so I'm pretty much stuck at home.

I added a little gadget that tracks who has been on this blog, which has been kind of fun, because I can tell where folks are coming from, and what page they've come to see. I had one where I had to check a web page, but I've forgotten my password and just haven't bothered with it for a long time. I was surprised that I'm still attracting traffic here. After all, I haven't done much to update it -- when I do feel like writing these days, it has been mostly on my private blog Karen's Path, where I just muse about my own spiritual life. "Karen's Thoughts" is my blog for broader issues, which I mostly haven't been in the mood to talk about.

Nevertheless, folks are still dropping in, mostly from search engines, or links on other pages. The biggest draw, of course, is what I've written on Baha'i issues -- but the people are not just my online friends. I'm getting visitors from places like Kiev and Hamadan, where I don't know anybody.

It seems to me that Baha'i cyberspace is making a big shift from discussion groups to blogs -- although sometimes the blog comment sections are virtually discussion groups, to the point they aren't really comments on the blog post at all.

Anyway, I'm hearing that Baha'is are being encouraged to start blogs, which is a huge turnaround from ten years ago, when ABMs where telling Baha'is to stay off the Internet in order to avoid the Remeyites and Talismanians.

Blogs carry a different dynamic than email lists and the like. For one thing, there isn't as much repetition of the same issues. A blogger has to come up with something new, even if it's just news about, or a new angle on, an old issue. Debating forums tend to get stuck -- in the worst places I've seen flame wars last for literal years, with scant content other than name-calling. Even the better forums tend to recycle things, especially as new people come on -- the old issues and questions are new to them, and that sparks the debate all over again. There's less "noise" on a blog. And I think more Baha'i bloggers is going to mean more creative thinking -- at least those that keep being updated. After all, if you have to write on a regular basis, odds are you're going to have to do some actual thinking sometime.

A Quarter of Americans Change Faiths

Click on this entry's title to get the article from the New York Times. I found this interesting:

“The trend is toward more personal religion, and evangelicals offer that,” said Mr. Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University, who explained that evangelical churches tailor many of their activities for youth. “Those losing out are offering impersonal religion and those winning are offering a smaller scale: mega-churches succeed not because they are mega but because they have smaller ministries inside.”

What, I wonder, is an "impersonal religion"?

The article also notes the increasing numbers of unaffiliated, which has become our fourth-largest religious group:

The rise of the unaffiliated does not mean that Americans are becoming less religious, however. Contrary to assumptions that most of the unaffiliated are atheists or agnostics, most described their religion “as nothing in particular.” Pew researchers said that later projects would delve more deeply into the beliefs and practices of the unaffiliated and would try to determine if they remain so as they age.

[Update: This article is catching the attention of other Baha'is, too. Notably, on Correlating and on the discussion group talisman9 Knowing Steve Marshall, I expect it to be up on Baha'is Online before the evening's out.]

Heretic, Not Apostate

Baha'i cyberspace is abuzz with the latest article to come out in *Religion*, writen by Moojan Momen, called "Marginality and Apostasy in the Baha'i Community". It is, apparently, the long-awaited rebuttal to the many academic articles and books published by ex and unenrolled Baha'is. Since I'm one of the "apostates" named, it's probably appropriate that I respond. (Alison Marshall and Umm Yasmin have already commented on Baha'is Online.

The centerpiece of Momen's argument is that the all the ex-Baha'is, and unenrolled Baha'is, who have been active on the Internet, and have succeeded in publishing in academic journals are "apostates" i.e. former members of a religion that have formed an oppositional coalition. That we all, without exception, are motivated by "ressentiment", a driving hatred and need for revenge against our "spiritual past". Well, I'm not an apostate; I still believe in Baha'u'llah. If one wishes to apply a negative term about who I am and what I've done, probably "heretic" would be more accurate. Baha'u'llah is not my "spiritual past"; He is my spiritual present. But my beliefs differ in some respects from the orthodoxy established by the Baha'i administration.

The notion that our only motivation is hatred is just ridiculous. For one thing, some of the books Momen cites are not "attacks" at all, even though they do present a viewpoint of the Baha'i Faith that diverges from orthodoxy. Juan Cole's *Modernity and the Millenium* is not an attack. Bill Garlington's *Baha'i Faith in America* is not an attack. These are books who tell Baha'i history in a fashion displeasing to conservative Baha'is; that's all. To claim that they are attacks verges on the paranoid. And, I note, that there is no attempt at all to actually refute these academic works in any substantial way.

The thesis makes no sense; it verges on simple name-calling. For example, Momen says that Garlington, the gentlest of souls, only "recently" became an apostate. Let's see, Bill sat around quietly for nearly twenty years after his resignation, then suddenly felt a surge of "ressentiment" and was thus motivated to write his book? This is ludicrous. Juan Cole has scarcely said "Boo!" about the Baha'i Faith during the last four years. So, where's his "hatred"? Denis MacEoin spent most of his time as a pseudonymous novelist, and he was conspicuously absent during the Internet Wars. (He wrote one barbed review of an apolegetic book, is all I remember.) Where's his "need for revenge"? I myself have written very little during the past few years; I pretty much talked myself out. (My article came out last year, but it was actually written a few years ago. It just took a while to get published.)Readers of this blog will note that I haven't said anything here about the Baha'i Faith in over a year.

What Momen has done is interpret the events of the last twenty-five years strictly in terms of the old "covenant-breaker" paradigm. Basically, today's "apostates" are just CBs without the formal excommunication: haters of the light, no spiritual sustenance except for attacking the truth, spiritually poisonous, etc. I'll quote him:

"Although these apostate groups and the very similar 'covenant-breaker' groups, as they are known by core Baha'is, are often referred to as sects or splinter groups of the Baha'i Faith, this characterisation is in a sense incorrect. These groups are not developing their own distinctive beliefs and practices. They exist only to attack the main Baha'i community. In Scheler's terms, they are not living in their new faith community, but are engaged only in a series of acts against their former community. Their new community exists only as a 'point of reference' from which to attack the former community."

Well, one reason I haven't developed my own "distinctive beliefs and practices" is that I consider myself a Baha'i. When I get up to say my prayers in the morning, when I recite the Writings, when I meditate on the Most Great Name, I'm not doing it to spite the administration. But then, one's spiritual life is not what's at issue here. No doubt the good doctor would treat my spiritual practices as irrelevant, especially as I haven't invented any new ones to distinguish myself from other Baha'is.

Momen's wrong about the splinter groups anyway -- some of them, the BUPC for one, have evolved some very distinct, one might even say downright weird, beliefs. But he's just bringing out the old canards about covenant-breakers that Baha'is have been repeating for the last hundred years.

I would suggest a different paradigm, one which I refer to often on Unenrolled Baha'i: That disillusionment with one's religious community causes a grief that is similar to any other loss that human beings experience, such as divorce or death of a loved one. One goes through various stages to cope with it. I was initially frightened, then I felt a sense of disorganization, sadness and despair. Then, for a long time, I was angry -- which is where a lot of my writing on the Internet came from; the writing helped me make sense of what had happened. A lot of the anger got redirected from the Baha'i administration to the more vicious fundies active on the 'Net. But gradually, I put myself together again.

Momen treats this admittedly articulate "angry phase" as if it is endless and incurable. Now granted, there are a few people he points to where this seems to be the case, but these folks aren't playing with a full deck and can't even manage to get along with their fellow dissidents -- or much of anyone else, for that matter. But most of us are past it -- Juan is, Denis is, Alison is. I don't think Bill Garlington was ever that angry, or if he was, he got over it long ago. Paul Johnson is another one named that you just don't see around any more. To claim that he harbors an "obsessive hatred" towards the Baha'i Faith is just not credible. But to Momen we all fit in the same bag as the looneys on talk.religion.bahai. A covenant-breaker is a covenant-breaker is a covenant-breaker.

There were a few factual errors: Momen says my "Unenrolled Baha'i" group is on Beliefnet. The UB board there has been dead for ages. My list on Yahoo! predated it, has 230 subscribers, and continues to attract new ones, and buzzes along very nicely, often with scant attention from me. Some of those who were around at the time are disputing his account of the Talisman crackdown and the Majnun post. He also is very misleading when he mentions the *Dialogue* incident -- the administration did a whole lot more than refuse to allow an article to be published. The editors were denounced at Convention, and were grilled by NSA members, and one was sanctioned. The hostility shown on the part of the Baha'i administration, and which did so much to push these people into "marginality and apostasy" is severely downplayed. Baha'i liberals are "marginal" because they are deliberately "marginalized" -- that's an important aspect of this whole story. Baha'i liberals aren't so rare as is implied; they are still showing up on the Internet on a regular basis. I even know some in real life, locally. As one poster mentioned, if there are so many, in what sense are they marginal? We become inactive more often; we leave more often, because we are made so obviously unwelcome.

As for me, I virtually had to resurrect my blog from the dead in order to comment on this. So much for "obsessive hatred". The Internet gives the illusion of continuous commentary, because whatever you say, stays here. My words are still here, but I'm long past having any need to debate or wrangle with these people any more. I don't need to do it; I don't want to do it. When I do show up online, it's mostly to function as support-giver and moderator on Unenrolled Baha'i, or sometimes I'll muse a little on Karen's Path, but that's it. Anyway, I'm a heretic, not an apostate. If you've gotta insult me, at least do it accurately. :-)

[Postscript 11/24: I just had the thought this morning, as I re-read this article, that what Moojan has done is not so different from what we did. That is, he is trying to make sense of events which caused him distress. I disagree with his formulation, of course, but I think I understand the need to write what he has written. All the Baha'is who were aware of, or part of, the events on the Internet had to try to make sense of the post-Talisman environment. So, maybe I shouldn't think too hardly of him for it. But I'm not an apostate!! kb]

Education Code? What Education Code?

I just ran across
this story from the LA Times about the Santa Ana school district. Apparently, the administration was pressuring teachers to lie about the number of children on their rosters, and created a phantom classroom in order to comply with the state's rules (and get the state money) for limiting K-3 classrooms to 20 kids or less. In other words, teachers were expected to pretend that certain kids were not in their room, and they were formally enrolled in a class that didn't exist -- except very occasionally, taught by a substitute teacher. The weirdest part of it, to my mind, is that they expected that all the teachers would have no scruples about lying on the books -- I mean, there's a whole lot of people who actually take the virtue of honesty seriously. And, most teachers also appreciate smaller class sizes, so the lie wouldn't even be to their own advantage. I sure notice the difference when I'm subbing K-3 and when I'm subbing 4-8.

The article prints a letter to the principal from one of the teachers. Unfortunately, it is not particularly well-written, and spends a long paragraph griping about how the district treats its teachers, tacking on the issue of simple dishonesty almost as an afterthought. It would be wrong to lie about this, even if the district was absolutely wonderful to its teachers.

But the longer I hang around schools, the more I see that this kind of law-breaking happens all the time. I mean *all* the time. Lots of ink is spilled about this or that educational reform, lots of controversy -- and laws are passed. But in your local school, where the rubber meets the road, nothing at all changes, unless the local district wants it to. And they can get away with it, because it's so hard for individuals to fight. You'd have to round up an entire group of parents or teachers, and have a nasty showdown about it, just to get a school district to follow laws and policies already on the books.

Some folks out there might remember all the hubbub about "social promotion" i.e., the practice of simply passing kids from grade to grade, regardless of their academic performance. Well, in California, a law was passed to end that. It sits there in black-and-white in my school district's Promotion and Retention Policy. If a failing student is not retained, the school district must explain why, and provide an alternative solution to getting the child up to passing level. Note that it is the *refusal* to retain that must be justified. My school district doesn't do that at all. This is what our personal fight was about. They did lots of dancing around, citing irrelevant studies -- and they most certainly did not come up with any alternative to simply passing my daughter on and letting her fail the next grade. The only way to force them to do that was to hire a lawyer and fight for months, during which she'd be halfway through the next grade -- so what would be the point? But it was a blatant violation of the law, and callous disrespect for my daughter and our family.
(I'll restrain my ranting on this issue so close to my heart, but I'm still steamed, obviously.)

But there are lots of examples of blantant disregard for the law on the part of school districts, besides my own experience. Every few years it seems like there's some big flap down in the South over school prayer. Now, as most people know, school prayer has been deemed unconstitutional for decades. It's just another example of how, if no one challenges a local policy, it just goes on as if the Supreme Court had never ruled, in total contempt for the law. It would take a pretty brave soul to challenge school prayer in a small, southern Baptist town, even if one privately disapproved. Seems like it's always some new family that moves in, that ends up doing it.

I've seen several instances of IEP kids (i.e. kids with learning disabilities) go without services, or being given inadequate support -- which is illegal as hell. But unless the parents -- and by that I mean a *group* of parents are willing to organize and raise a ruckus, it goes on. And they need someone who knows the ins and outs of the school bureaucracy to guide them through the process. I found out after our personal fight that I might have gotten better results if I had sent copies of everything to the county Department of Education -- something that had never even occured to me. The school system is very practiced at dealing with disgruntled parents, but for the parents, it's always their first time.

Another thing that weighs against fighting a school, is that any school is a temporary place for any individual child. Around here, elementary schools are K-5, middle schools, 6-8. It's tough to commit yourself to a fight that may last a couple of years, when your child may only be there for that much longer -- and you might decide that it's better for your child to take them out of the school rather than spend time and money battling over the issue. (Only a minority of kids spend all their elementary school years in one district anyway; people are mobile in this country.) While a new school solves the problem for an individual family, it leaves the school unpunished, unrepentant, and continuing to ignore the laws that are supposed to govern it.

So, I wish the teachers of Santa Ana the best of luck. It looks like they've already been through the wringer.

Challenge from Women Priests

I found this article interesting. As I mentioned in my own article on women's exclusion, the Roman Catholic arguments sound very much like those the Baha'is use. When I was researching, I was reading some of the official statements, and if you changed a few technical terms, it could have been the UHJ talking.

The huge difference -- both an advantage and disadvantage -- is that the Baha'i exclusion applies only at the top. That means that it's easier to live with, and easier to ignore. It is also far more difficult to stage the type of protest this article is talking about. The "womenpriests" group can get male bishops to secretly ordain women, who can ordain other women, which gives a certain type of legitimacy. After all, men get to be priests by being ordained by bishops, too. But the Baha'i Faith has an elective structure. If some renegade NSA members, like these unnamed male bishops, decided to put women in a position where they are excluded (i.e. the UHJ), the ballots would be just quietly disqualified, and nobody would hear any more about it.

Article on Women's Exclusion

My article, "When Principle and Authority Collide: Baha'i Responses to the Exclusion of Women from the Universal House of Justice" is now available online. Copies can also be purchased from Nova Religio.

The article has been a long time coming -- I started the survey in 2002, soon after the publication of my Cultic Studies Journal article. It started out with some questions I had about how prevalent Baha'i liberalism is, as opposed to Baha'i fundamentalism. Women's exclusion seemed a good issue to work with, because it was talked about endlessly during the first decade of Baha'i cyberspace, which gave me a lot of material. I also ran into some other questions along the way -- so it was a really good experience for me overall, even though there were times I thought it was going to just end up as another online article. Thanks to Catherine Wessinger and Rebecca Moore at Nova Religio, and to Juan Cole, for giving me advice when I was ready to pull my hair out over the whole thing.

Silly Quiz Time

You Are a Retrospective Soul

The most misunderstood of all the soul signs. Sometimes you even have difficulty seeing yourself as who you are. You are intense and desire perfection in every facet of your life. You're best described as extremely idealistic, hardworking, and a survivor. Great moments of insight and sensitivity come to you easily. But if you aren't careful, you'll ignore these moments and repeat past mistakes. For you, it is difficult to seperate the past from the present. You will suceed once you overcome the disappoinments in life. Souls you are most compatible with: Traveler Soul and Prophet Soul

What Kind of Soul Are You?

St. Rain on Kalimat

Justice St. Rain of Special Ideas has published a heartfelt essay in his catalog about the contributions that Kalimat Press has made to the Baha'i community over the years. Folks like myself, who came into the Faith after the 1970s, need to realize just how brave and pioneering an effort Kalimat was, at a time when independent Baha'i publishing was all but unheard-of, and even opposed in some quarters.

Justice carefully avoids criticizing the US NSA for its decision against Kalimat, instead taking aim at the rumors flying around the community about what it did wrong. However, I would suggest that such rumors are inevitable -- given that the NSA was both very public and very vague about its order to stop all of its agencies from carrying Kalimat books. The NSA knew very well what kind of impact this would have on the community's attitude towards Kalimat.

But Justice stays more positive than I, and is helping in a more practical way than I can: Special Ideas will be carrying the full line of books from Kalimat Press. This company carries a broad variety of Baha'i materials, including not only books but prayer beads, Baha'i jewelry, music, proclamation materials, etc. So, it's worth checking out -- and certainly worth supporting a publisher which has made such a bold, yet non-confrontational statement on the situation.

Baha'is Online

Well, folks, I'm more or less back. During most of this spring, I just haven't had the time, energy, or thought to say much of anything online -- which is bad for a blog, since people stop checking back to see what you've said if you don't update. Well, what can I say? I'm not Juan Cole.

But this weekend I've been messing around a bit on Wikipedia, and posting a little to an email list, so I thought I'd stop by here. One thing that has developed during my vacation is Steve Marshall's website Baha'is Online It contains a fine collection of opinion essays, articles on mysticism, news affecting the Baha'i community, discussions on the arts, humor, and satire. The material comes from a variety of Baha'i perspectives. The site began rather slowly, mostly recycling a lot of old articles, including my own, but Steve has brought together a lot of good stuff -- worth checking out.

Steve commented that there has been a great resurgence of individual Baha'i activity on the Internet -- partly due to technical developments, and partly due to a weariness with the "Baha'i Wars". Well, that's one reason why I started blogging. And, actually, this change seems to be resulting in better quality material being put out there. Maybe it's turning out that people are not at their best when they are crossing swords; debate too easily devolves into personal hostility and name-calling.

Teachers vs. Parents

Some of my online friends are probably wondering where I've been these days -- for the past week or so, I haven't even been answering all my email. Well, I've been teaching and parenting, and there have been some very important issues going on so that I just haven't been able to concentrate my energies online at all.

First of all, as some of you know, I got a long-term sub job in a special education class, which will probably last until the end of the school year. And, I've been having a great time. I'd subbed several times in this class, and was familiar with both the teachers and students there -- it's a very friendly and supportive environment. Even though special ed students can be difficult, it is a much more "mellow" environment that the regular classroom. The class is small, and there is a lot of adult help. You do have the occasional meltdown by one of these kids (one of the teachers asked "Why do I always get the ones who kick?), but even then, everyone keeps their cool until the storm passes. But the room is chronically short-handed, since the needs of these kids are such that all of them really should have a one-on-one aide. One of the other teachers is a sub, like me, who has been there since the beginning of the year. I think, too, that the main teacher tries to do more with these kids academically than most Special Ed. classrooms do -- which is a good thing, because these kids are quite capable of learning.

The biggest thing going on now is that an autistic boy, who was completely non-verbal when I first met him last year, is now beginning to talk -- and even to read a little! We're all so excited, and we pass on to each other the latest thing he said. Of course, we aren't talking about scintillating conversation here -- it’s along the lines of “I want toy” and “No juice.” Although yesterday, he saw a Willy Wonka poster in the library and said “Chocolate” several times. These are moments of excitement in Special Ed. His parents are ecstatic -- they come from Mexico and they said that down there, this child wouldn’t have even been able to go to school at all.

So, now that I’m working steady, I have less time for everything else -- housework, volunteer work, and, of course, the Internet. But I’ve also got something else going on that’s consuming my non-work hours and a good deal of my emotional and mental energy: I’m fighting my daughter’s school about an unwise decision they are making about her future.

Teachers and parents ought to be, and actually sometimes are, natural allies -- they are, after all, concerned about the welfare of the same children. However, they are frequently antagonistic. Being a teacher myself, who has heard many conversations at many schools about many children and their families, I can’t remember the last time I heard anything complimentary about a parent. The general attitude hovers between patronizing and contemptuous. And, to a certain extent, this is understandable -- you see children who are not being taken care of at even the most basic level, or who are allowed to stay up all hours watching t.v. while the homework is neglected, etc. Oh, a nice smile is trotted out for parent conferences, but at bottom, teachers generally think that parents are really stupid. Since I also sit on the other side of the fence, I know that teachers and school administrators can be infuriating -- making judgements when they really don’t know all your home life circumstances, critical, and with a condescending “We’re the experts and we know best” demeanor.

I have, up until this point, generally gotten along with all the personnel at my children’s schools, with only a few minor differences over the years that blew over fairly quickly. My daughter has had a lot of trouble, and I have always been supportive and sympathetic about the teachers’ difficulties with her. But now, a line has been drawn in the sand:

We have been led to expect one thing, and now they are insisting on another. In short, we have been lied to. We insisted on a meeting to discuss the issue, and we get back a Student Study Team form that set up a meeting to discuss something else -- and it took us two faxes to the principal to make it clear that our issue is to be discussed. When we got this meeting, it was clear that our wishes would get no serious consideration and that, from their perspective, the whole point of the meeting was to convince us that they knew best. It’s no picnic, to sit around a table where you’ve got six people there telling you you’re wrong. The worst part of all was that, the school counsellor, who basically ran this meeting, controlled it very tightly. Any time things went in a direction he didn’t want it to go, he very deftly redirected the conversation -- and therefore, some very important points were swept under the carpet. Like the fact that we were misled about what the school would do about Tory’s difficulties. I politely observed that there had been some lack of clarity about the school’s policy, and recounted what we had been told by the principal last year. The principal opened his mouth to answer, and the counsellor rapidly changed the subject so that issue was never pursued.

They shouldn’t have screwed with me. Because now I’ve carefully read the school board’s written policy, and the education code, and have discovered that there are several required procedures they have ignored -- and they have lied to us about what the policy actually is. Also, since the counsellor ran straight over the top of us at the first meeting, we are bringing a lawyer to our appeal. What is clear to me is that, because our daughter is a difficult child behaviorally, they are willing to completely disregard her academic welfare -- figuring, I suppose, that she’s impossible to teach anyway.

So, my husband and I are prepared to take this up the chain as far as we have to, but being basically non-confrontational people, we’re hoping we don’t have to. It may very well be that simply bringing a lawyer with us to the next meeting will be enough to make them cave. We aren’t planning on a lawsuit, we just need someone there to make sure we are heard. Because right now, nobody wants to listen.

Kalimat Petition

The Friends of Kalimat have written a petition to ask the Universal House of Justice to suspend the US NSA's boycott of Kalimat Press, and to enter into consultation with the owners to resolve this conflict.

The petition can be read here. For those needed background information on the situation, a brief description of the situation is here. And, of course, I have several recent blog entries about what has happened.

I hope that my readers who appreciate the priceless contribution that Kalimat Press has made to Baha'i scholarship will stand with us in this effort.

Baha'i Scholars as Collateral Damage

There have been some rumblings online from writers and scholars about the NSA's boycott of Kalimat Press, as might be expected. There's a lot of fear out there, because they know what this means for anyone who has published with Kalimat, yet they also know the consequences of publicly -- even on a small email list -- criticizing a decision of a Baha'i institution.

However, one of them got a letter back today from the US NSA, which I hesitate to show in its entirety, because there's personal stuff in it, and the person involved seems rather torn two ways between talking about this publicly, and simply hoping that going through approved Baha'i channels will resolve the problems. So, I'm not going to shove him into the limelight if he's reticent -- although this letter could very well pop up elsewhere; the email list it was posted on doesn't have a no-forwarding rule.

Anyway, the NSA is quite aware that their actions create enormous difficulties for Baha'i scholars, but the attitude appears to be "Sorry, but it's your problem". Apparently, smearing Kalimat in the eyes of the community is important enough that hurting virtually every prominent Baha'i scholar is worth it to them. And Baha'i scholarship itself ranks so low on the list of priorities that for the sake of a few books they don't like, they are willing to allow all the other work that Kalimat has produced to be tainted.

What caught my attention was this: "As to the distribution of those titles of which the Assembly approves, this has been the approach for a number of years and has only emboldened and enabled Kalimát Press to carry more harmful titles." That is, the policy has been for the Baha'i Distribution Service to simply avoid purchasing the titles it doesn't approve of -- at least in the US; I noted that a couple of the controversial titles are being carried by the UK BDS. And actually, that's a fair way to approach things -- I certainly would never say that the NSA is obligated to buy books it doesn't approve of. Like any other buyer, it can make choices. However, what struck me about this passage was the decision that this approach wasn't working i.e. Kalimat just kept distributing books the NSA didn't like anyway. What this tells me is that the NSA expects this action to destroy Kalimat. After all, if Baha'is continue to buy Kalimat books, as the NSA keeps saying they have the right to do, then things will go on pretty much as before, and Kalimat will be just as "emboldened and enabled" as it has ever been, which is clearly not their goal here.

This is why all this stuff about how it's only the severing of a business relationship, and that Baha'i are free to buy from Kalimat etc. is just so much bovine manure. A business relationship can be severed without a big public announcement -- and if Kalimat survives this, because Baha'is continue to buy these books, then even stronger measures will be taken either against the company or against its owners. Because they don't want these books to have any influence on the thinking of Baha'is.

The really insane thing about all this is that these titles, while controversial, are not harmful. They are ideas that can be openly discussed and debated, just like anything else. The big problem hereis that the institutions think they have to play thought police. They say they don't want to name the "inimical" titles because they don't want to create a list of banned books, yet for the sake of those books they say they aren't banning, they are willing to destroy an entire publisher and risk the reputation of many, maybe most, Baha'i writers.

Friends of Kalimat

Some of us are organizing to support Kalimat Press during this difficult time. For those unfamiliar with the situation, check out the story here.
The letters ordering all Baha'i agencies in the U.S. to stop buying books from Kalimat can be found here or on the administrative website. (You need a Baha'i i.d. number to get into the latter.)

We feel that this decision is unjust because:

1. Only three or four titles have content that can be documented as being seen as objectionable by the administration, yet all of Kalimat's publications are being stigmatized. All of these titles are books that are only being distributed by Kalimat, but have come from other publishers.

2. The controversial titles include high-quality academic work published by reputable university presses. For the NSA to cease doing business with Kalimat for distributing these books just makes the Faith look ridiculous.

2. This is not just a matter of the NSA deciding not to buy books from a publisher; they publicized this decision in *The American Baha'i* in a clear effort to stigmatize Kalimat Press. If the NSA disapproves of what Kalimat is doing, it could simply refrain from ordering the books it doesn't like, or write to them about it -- to go public means that this is something beyond a judgement about what is appropriate for the NSA and its agencies to sell. Already some Baha'is are publicly saying that they will avoid buying any Kalimat publication because of the NSA's judgement.

4. Enrolled Baha'i authors, whose work went through the Baha'i review process, are being put in danger of being suspected of wrongdoing by the community, since the NSA has not specified which books it considers "inimical". These are people that are perfectly innocent even by the most conservative of Baha'i standards.

5. All materials that Kalimat Press publishes itself (as opposed to just distributing it) has passed Baha'i review. Kalimat wasn't required to put books from other publishers through review; in other words, they followed the rules and are getting nailed anyway.

So we are encouraging a variety of respnses:

*Buy books direct from Kalimat, especially those that Kalimat distributes from other publishers. The titles that are known to be controversial are all in this category anyway.

*Buy Kalimat's books for donation to local and university libraries. Talk to the librarians about what you're doing. Libraries take a dim view of censorship; some even have a "banned book" week that promote the reading of books that have been banned during various times and places.

*Write a letter of protest to the NSA. The administration is always saying that criticism must take place within channels -- well, here's your opportunity. Writing to your National Spiritual Assembly is one of those approved channels. Ask the NSA to specify which titles it thinks are "inimical" to the Faith, and why.

*Bring the matter up, either orally, or in written form to your LSA.

*Write a letter of support to Kalimat Press.

*Write reviews of your favorite Kalimat books at Amazon.com

*If you have a blog or other website, put a link to Kalimat Press on it.

Finally, we'd like you to write to friendsofkalimat@yahoo.com to let us know what you're doing and how you feel about the NSA's decision. We'll keep all names confidential, but we may quote from emails, unless you specifically request us not to. So far, we have pledges to buy Kalimat books for libraries, and several people who just want to buy books for themselves.

It should be noted -- especially since my blog stats tell me that this site has had several visits from the US BNC -- that the owners of Kalimat Press have nothing to do with this effort, and have not been included in the discussions about it. Therefore, any reprisals against them would be completely unjust.

Al Gore's Speech

I haven't been posting about current events much lately, but this was brought to my attention this morning. Al Gore made a rousing MLK Day speech on how the current administration is putting our Constitutional rights at risk. I've always said, as Gore just did, that the biggest danger to our freedoms is fear -- it's when we feel under threat that we seem willing to start tossing our rights away for the sake of security. Wasn't it Ben Franklin that said "Those who would sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."?

The neocons are not happy with this speech, and the mainstream media has not seen fit to cover it much -- so you know it has to be worth taking a look at:

The full text is here.

Video clips can be found here.

Karen Unmasked!

On a lighter note: Baha'i Angst, that master of Baha'i satire, takes a shot at recent speculations about by identity, by revealing who Karen Bacquet really is. And since the pronunciations of my name, both current and former, gave Angst such a hard time, I thought I'd respond in audio form.
One point I forgot to add in this little audio is that Baha'i Angst got his info from the genealogy page of my website. But it only goes to show that nobody would *invent* last names that are unspellable and unpronounceable, if only to avoid the lifetime hassle I have endured of continually correcting people.

Anyway, so here's my response.