July 24, 2009 Part One

Alarm rang at 9 AM. Temp is 81 degrees. I am not oriented yet but energetic.

I am angry about the arrest of Prof. Gates but even more bewildered about the behavior of that policeman. He did not seem to be able to profile for social class. The police chief of Southfield MI was on PBS. He said that training was needed. He said times have changed. I think he was talking about social class.
I have just read a commentary supporting the police officer. Mostly I blame the idiot neighbor woman who called the police. I do believe that was racial profiling.
I must admit Prof Gates should have known better. I kept drilling my students (in the days of the riots and hippie profiling) to be polite to the police. Be polite to the police.
But Prof Gates was a full Professor at Harvard. As such he sits on the right hand of God. Lea quoted somebody on NPR as saying that "authority met authority"
Even as a lowly instructor I expected respect from others. The hardest thing for me when I left academia was that I got no respect.

BOOK REVIEW
Beverly Connor, *Questionable Remains*
Lindsay Chamberlain forensic archaeologist. Lindsay goes around burial sites determining what skeletons died of. She is on vacation when a woman begs her to investigate the caving death of the woman's brother. Of course the killers lock Lindsay in a cave. The inner story of the novel is the tale of Indians and Spanish colliding.

Hugs, Dr. Liz