The Administration Menu module revolutionized my Drupal experience. At CRL, we wanted to use it not just for our administrators but for our regular users. We needed to customize the menus produced by the module to make it easy for content editors to use. We could have modified the menu, or we could have followed the suggestions in the README and copied the CSS into our theme. However, I wanted to avoid having multiple pieces of code to maintain and keep my modifications in one place. So, I tried implementing a module that used admin_menu’s hooks to add and manipulate menu items. It’s kind of hacky, but a good start for others who want to accomplish similar things. Read more about the module.
Category: Uncategorized
Disabling Windows Live Messenger at Startup
I couldn’t find documentation on this elsewhere on the net so I decided to add a note here. I have to use a Windows XP workstation at my job and I’ve been annoyed that the Windows Live Messenger program seems to start up every time the system restarts. Disabling this was non-obvious:
Geography, Safety, and White Flight
It’s after bedtime and things I’ve been thinking about all day seem to be converging. One of the biggest changes in moving to Chicago is hearing about shootings on a daily basis. I found this map today and I don’t know how to interpret it, but it’s staggering, horrible, and also engrossing. I can’t help but overlay the map with my hasty impressions about the different racial and class makeups of neighborhoods across the city.
View Chicago homicides map in a larger map
The transit ride is about an hour to and from work but it doesn’t feel oppressive. It helps me block off time for reading and I can finally get down to finishing the book Sundown Towns. The added dimension of reading it now is that I get to also see the flip side of white flight: the concentration of Black residents in cities rather than their absence in certain suburbs or rural areas. Thinking about race and technology, I came across this quote from interviews with youth conducted by Danah Boyd:
Tara (16, Michigan): [Facebook] kind of seemed safer, but I don’t know like what would make it safer, like what main thing. But like, I don’t know, it just seems like everything that people say, it seems safer.
This sentiment refers to a digital geography, but it is so familiar to the way that people talk about safety in towns and cities. It is easy to ridicule those with these attitudes as paranoid or even prejudiced. The problem is not that concern for safety is unwarranted, but that segregation has ensured that everyone loses the ability to realistically assess safety and move towards a safer world/
Neighborhood Names
There was a pretty good article in the Redeye this morning about the confusion surrounding the names of neighborhoods in Chicago. Living at the cusp, or at least what some bar owners want to convince people is the cusp of Lakeview and Wrigleyville (or is Wrigleyville part of Lakeview?), I feel this for sure. Just as real-estate developers and realtors can create new names and changing populations can provide the momentum to change the name of a neighborhood, I think its also possible for names to be totally out of whack with the reality of the neighborhood. 2 weeks ago, I went to the Little Italy neighborhood with Chiara, and she was disappointed by the few remnants of Italian or Italian American culture that remained in the neighborhood. Googling after we got home, she found out that the Italian American community there was largely displaced by gentrification cased by the expansion of the UIC campus. I had remembered reading Florence Scala’s obituary in the paper, and though it was sad to see the changes that had affected her community, it was awesome to see the concrete reality of the place where she passionately worked to hold together a community. I found out about Scala from a Wikipedia entry which quoted interviews that she did with Studs Terkel. It seemed like such a great combination of old and new media. I don’t know if I would have come across Scala’s story without Wikipedia, but Terkel’s interview added such richness to the telling of her story.
Reconsidering MySpace
Update July, 21 2010: danah boyd added this framing to her inquiry into race and social networking. Regardless of the current demographics of social networks, people (teens in the case of the focus of boyd’s work) still speak about them with racialized/racist language that follows how people talk about physical spaces.
Since the subculture-centered Make Out Club, to Friendster, and through MySpace, and Facebook, I’ve always had social networking website accounts. However, I always shyed away from them for the bands that I was on. Putting music on sites like MySpace used to mean granting them broad license for your content and I didn’t like the idea of arbitrary advertising being pumped alongside somehting that was deeply important and thought over by me and my bandmates. This past weekend, however, someone mentioned to me the stark demographic differences in terms of race and age between MySpace and Facebook, claiming that Facebook users tend to be older and whiter than their MySpace counterparts. Does a prohibition from MySpace mean that we’re cutting ourselves off from a more diverse audience and precisely the one that the socio-economic factors supporting DIY punk has already marginalized? This sounds a little like marketing, but I feel like music can be one of those rare sites where people can connect across vastly different experiences. I don’t want to squander the opportunity that I have as a public music maker to break through the geographic and socio-economic segregation that has mediated my life for a long time.
AMC Reflection
I got back from the Allied Media Conference yesterday. It has been helpful to have gone out of town on the weekends, even though it has also been an impediment to feeling like I’m getting more familiar with the city outside of the default of my routine. Going away and coming back has reoriented my sense of home from Bloomington to Chicago in a way that probably would have taken much longer otherwise. As Chiara mentioned as we were coming into the city, the ideas and projects that represent at the AMC seem much more present and possible in Chicago.
This year, as was the case with the conference last year, I came back ambivalent, which is, perhaps the way it should be – that narrow space that is simulatenously “this is amazing and awesome” and ” this is a huge problem that we’re completely ignoring”. I spent most of my weekend in the Media Lab working on the Supercomputer Build. The best thing about this was meeting many different people who had visions and ideas for the technology or who identified as “geeks” but didn’t fit into every part of that stereotype. The only full session that I went to discussed how broadband stimulus funds could be and leveraged in a way that was useful and accountable to communities. Building computers from parts and installing free/libre/open source software on them felt like the micro version of broader efforts to increase access to technological infrastructure. The people with the vision were the ones building the machines, and hopefully, with cases off and free software, the platform seemed malleable and responsive to that vision.
My friend Josh said that he felt like more space was made for print media at this year’s conference, but being surrounded by technology it was hard for me to assess that. There was ample evidence that we were all struggling to make the technology responsive to our activities and human networks rather than the other way around. The Voces Moviles project is very awesome, giving immigrant workers in LA, many with limited internet acess, access for their stories on a blogging platform via their mobile phones. However, I was disappointed that, given the limited time in the keynote, they chose to exhbit the platform rather than the stories. This culminated in a projected IRC channel with tweets, vozmob texts, and IRC chats that ended up seeming very distracting to me. Also, juxtaposing the vozmob technology with something like twitter is useful for explaining it, but reinforces the idea that FLOSS and community technology hackers are simply trying to recreate commercial technologies instead of trying the address their missing functionality for communities. Ultimately, the stream of txts and tweets just didn’t seem very articulate. Detroit MCs Invincible and Sterling had planned to drop freestyle verses being prompted by people’s projected messages in response to the question “what are you ready for?” Unfortunately, most of the messages were things like “The AMC is so awesome”. It is hard to condense complicated feelings and ideas into 140 characters on the spot and the nature of the messages just showed that there’s a great need to assert collective experience and excitement, even when sitting in the same auditorium. I sat next to some older ladies who proved that snark needn’t be exclusive to my generation. They were particularly incensed by the projected messages. Maybe the technology seemed cryptic to them, or maybe it didn’t meet their needs at that moment. The nice thing about the AMC is that this kind of counterpoint remains present at the conference.
A more successful public use of technology at the keynote was a Skype video chat with an artist/organizer in South Africa. The connection was shaky at times and it was difficult for the moderator to speak into the PA mic, so the audience could hear it, and also into the computer mic without everything feeding back like crazy. Still, I think it demonstrated how you can make technology do things it wasn’t exactly designed to do, that doing this doesn’t always go smoothly, but ultimately people can come together to use tools to do cool, useful things.
I’m so glad that I got to be a part of this year’s conference. Ultimately, the greatest value to me comes not from the session content but from all the people you meet and the threads of conversastion that bring together and blanket the session topics. Even holed away in the Media Lab I got such a strong sense of that.
Masculinity and Sexual Assault Awareness Month
This is a first draft of an op-ed for a group called ManUp! that I’m working with in Bloomington. I’d appreciate any comments or feedback:
April, sexual assault awareness month makes me tired. I am tired of seeing women that I respect and care about exhausted as they do the challenging, important, but also extremely difficult work of supporting survivors of rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence and working to raise consciousness which might prevent future violence. Many of these remarkable friends have experienced violence in their lives and started doing the work that they do because of the lack of support that they experienced. Their efforts are remarkable and brave yet ultimately they shoulder the weight of their pasts as well as the weight of the survivors that they support and the confused, indifferent, or even hostile voices they encounter doing prevention work.
I am tired of feeling trapped in the same tired discussion in the rare cases that men’s violence and men’s violence against women comes to the surface, whether it is in the lives of celebrities such as Chris Brown or the lives of men in my social circles. I can try to excuse the violence, weakly dismissing it as stress or substance abuse or as an isolated incident. Or, I can pat myself on the back, satisfied that at least I am not one of “those men†who chooses to be violent, to harass and intimidate those passing by on the street, who touches someone’s body without their permission, who pressures someone to consume too much alcohol or drugs in the hope of getting lucky, or who seeks to belittle and control intimate partners. In either case, I can’t find the imagination to think of a world where perpetrating and experiencing violence is not a part of manhood – mine, my friends, or Chris Brown’s.
I am tired of a man’s strength being defined by his ability to suppress painful experiences and to downplay the experiences of others rather than crying out and reaching out and working in the hopes that others might be spared those painful experiences.  I am tired of the gentleman’s agreement that we will not speak of our fear of violence from other men or the fear of the violence we have committed or might commit.
Finally, I am tired of the myth that violence against women doesn’t matter to men and that it is not men’s work to end this violence. It is a myth that I have found comfort in because it excuses my own inaction. If this myth rings true to me or other men, I fear it is only because we have spent so much energy convincing ourselves that it is true.  When I think of all the effort spent changing the subject to avoid seeming vulnerable, laughing along or remaining silent when a friend tells a cruel, demeaning joke, or convincing myself that it’s not my place to say or do something when I witness or hear about violence it seems like such a waste. All that energy could have gone into dealing with the violence that men have witnessed or experienced in our lives to make sure that we don’t repeat it. It could go to defining manhood by our best, most noble qualities instead of the worst of our choices. It could go towards working earnestly as allies with women to prevent violence that hurts us all. Sexual assault awareness month is not just a chance to be aware that violence is terrible, that it happens too frequently, or even that it hurts both women and men. It is also an opportunity to be aware that we can make a different, less violent world.
Register Now for the Allied Media Conference!
Friends!
I’m working on the How-To Track of the Allied Media Conference this year.
There are already a lot of exciting things in the works for it.  I’ve been working on a hands-on project to refurbish and build media workstations using Free/Libre/Open Source software during the conference. I’ve also been talking about developing a session to use mobile technologies to mobilize people to act quickly to do things like respond to foreclosure evictions. Finally, I’m always excited about how the AMC respects and prioritizes even the youngest participants with the kids track.
This year’s AMC is going to blow your mind.
I’m writing to ask you to register early, at the $100 level, and help us organize the best conference possible.
I also encourage you to propose a session, whether or not you can lead it. What do you want to see happen at this year’s AMC?
Register here: http://alliedmediaconference.org/register
Propose a session here: http://alliedmediaconference.org/propose
Read the vision statement for the 2009 AMC, We Are Ready Now, here: http://alliedmediaconference.org/about/mission_vision
I hope to see you in Detroit,
Geoff
Holla at your representatives that you don’t want to fund abstinence-only sex ed.
Act at http://capwiz.com/advofy/utr/2/?a=12162006&i=92217564&c=
This is what I wrote:
I am very concerned about the safety, health, and happiness of youth in Indiana and across the nation. So, I am writing to ask you to end funding for ineffective abstinence-only-until-marriage education programs including:
* Title V Abstinence Education program, Section 510 of the Social Security Act – (state formula grants), funded at $50 million
* Community-Based Abstinence Education under Title XI of the Social Security Act – (direct grants), funded at $116 million
* Adolescent Family Life Act (Title XX of the Public Health Service Act) abstinence-only grants, funded at $13 million
GRAND TOTAL: $179 million per year
It is my hope that by de-funding programs that don’t work, we can provide support that will help youth in Indiana, and across the U.S., safer, healthier, and equipped to make the best choices in their lives.
I know that my local school district has an abstinence-based curriculum and not an abstinence-only sex education curriculum. However, the pressure of funding programs that do not fully discuss contraception, STI prevention, and acknowledge the reality that youth in Indiana (and around the US) are sexually active, regardless of whether this is the best choice or not, means that many youth in my community do not have the information they need to be safe and healthy and to encourage their peers to make safe, healthy life choices.
I have first-hand experience working as a volunteer doing presentations about healthy relationships, sexual assault, and domestic violence in Bloomington-area middle schools and high schools. I have found that, because of the local school district’s and Indiana’s emphasis on abstinence and reluctance to talk about even the biological mechanics of sex, many youth lack the basic information they need to participate in a comprehensive discussion about preventing sexual assault and relationship violence.
This is just one local and personal example about how non-comprehensive, abstinence-only-until-marriage education sex education is failing to make Hoosier youth safe and healthy. However, there is ample additional evidence at the dangerous shortcomings of such approaches.
Here are the facts:
• In spite of their receiving over 1.5 billion dollars in federal funds since 1996, not a single, sound study has shown these programs to have a beneficial impact on young people’s behavior.
• Recent studies show these programs can create harm by undermining contraceptive use when young people in abstinence-only-until-marriage education become sexually active. In one study, abstinence-only-until-marriage program participants were one-third less likely to use contraception when they did have sex compared to students not receiving the restrictive abstinence-only education. Nationally, over 60% of young people will have had sex before graduating from high school.
• Over 135 national organizations, including the country’s major medical organizations like the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, belong to the National Coalition to Support Sexuality Education and strongly believe in teaching young people both abstinence and contraception.
I know that issues around sex and youth can be controversial, but I believe that I stand with the majority of Americans who want comprehensive sex education for their young people. A 2004 survey by National Public Radio/Kaiser Family Foundation /Harvard University Kennedy School of Government found that 86% of voters want young people to receive a comprehensive approach to sex education that includes teaching about both abstinence and contraception.
By voting to end the 179 million dollars per year funding for the following failed programs, you will be sending a clear message that you support science and common sense.
Both fiscally and in terms of public health, we cannot afford to continue funding this unproven, dangerous approach. Young people’s health and lives are at risk. We urge you to side with public health, with the medical community, with parents, young people and teachers and oppose any new funding for the abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.
Mailman Subscription Form with Drupal’s Webform
I’m trying to use Drupal’s webform module to make a subscription form to a Mailman mailing list. Tracking thoughts and problems here.
I like webform because it stores form responses which might be useful.
Webform also lets you send e-mail on form submission and specify the sender/subject. I was going to use this to send an e-mail from the address that user enters in the form to the -request address of the mailman list.
The problem is that the module lets you set the From: header but not the Sender: header and mailman uses the Sender: header to detect the requestor.
Options
- Find a way to use tokens to set the subject to be ‘subscribe address=<form_submitted_address>’
- Try to send my own e-mail with PHP code specified in the Additional Processing textarea of the Webform advanced settings fieldset when editing my form.