Tuesday, February 3, 2009

State Representative Calvin Hill is Pointing His Finger

I'm going on mini-tirade. I ask that you read all the way through. Please and thanks!

A powerful state lawmaker believes Georgia’s university system must not be too bad off financially if it can afford to employ experts in such subjects as oral sex and male prostitution.

Rep. Calvin Hill (pictured to the left) (R-Canton) said the university system has resisted accepting the budget cuts that nearly every other part of state government has absorbed as lawmakers fill a $2 billion hole in the budget.

Meanwhile, he said, Georgia State University is touting its faculty as experts on issues that are outside what he believes to be the university’s mission.

“I’m saying we all need to pull together and when we have things that are extraneous and outrages, which I don’t think should be discussed with our tax dollars, maybe some of this will come to mind when we have to make budget cuts,” said Hill, vice chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
Click here to read the rest of the AJC article. I owe a thank you to friend, poet, and blogger Robin Kemp for sending this info my way.


Dr. Mindy Stombler is one of the professors who has Senator Hill pointing his fingers. I checked out Dr. Stombler's course offering for Fall '08 and Spring '09, and I am here to tell you that she did not teach Blow Jobs 1101 as the AJC article would make it seem; however, Dr. Stombler did teach multiple classes of SOCI 3156: Sexuality and Society.

What is this Sexuality and Society course? I'm glad you ask. Here is GSU course listing for Sexuality and Society:
Social construction and social control of sexuality. Examining trends in sexual attitudes and behaviors across the life course and how they are influenced by social interaction and social institutions. Topics may include sex research methods, representations of sexuality, sex education, sexual health and infection, sexual violence, and the commodification of sex.
I think people from the 700 Club would even admit that course description sparks some interest. I also know, as student who attended Georgia State University, that Sexuality and Society is a very popular class, and it fills quickly. I have only heard positive reviews of the course. If Rep Hill wants to talk money, I hope he realizes a class that fills each semester equals money. I think Dr. Stombler should invite Rep Hill to audit one of her classes, since Rep Hill wants to criticize. The Capitol is only a couple of blocks from GSU, so it isn't like it would be out of his way.


I want to share information on Dr. Stombler's research because I find it interesting.

"Her latest research project involves unraveling the power dynamic embedded in the practices of oral sex, particularly cunnilingus, and connecting conceptualizations of cunnilingus to public discourse (particularly messages about oral sex sent through music and other media). Key questions include how people view cunnilingus and how individual and public conceptualizations of cunnilingus are mitigated by race, gender, class, and sexual orientation," and I have pulled this from her faculty page at GSU.

Also, according to her faculty page, Dr. Stombler did a three-year study of Black and White Fraternity Little Sister programs that focused on the different ways that men exploited women in these organizations and the different ways the women resisted exploitation. All thanks to Google for your being able to read an article titled Resistance in Sweetheart and Little Sister Programs, which was written by Stombler and Padavic. Maybe I should mail a copy to Rep Hill; however, I doubt it would be do any good, and I'd rather use my stamp to send the article to someone who would actually read it and have an intellectual conversation about it.

I want to read what Dr. Stombler is currently writing up. Her current project is writing up her results from a second three-year study of gay fraternities that focuses on how men in gay fraternities negotiate the dual identities of being Gay and being Greek. Now, I think it would be stupid to question if Senator Hill wants to know about this study. I'm not a betting man; however, I would bet that Senator Hill doesn't even know that gay fraternities exist. OHHHHH....... maybe we could talk a gay fraternity into asking Senator Hill to pledge. Or, here is an even better thought: a gay fraternity could name Rep Hill a honorary member.


Rep Hill needs to turn his finger to the Governor's recommended continued cuts to the QBE education formula that go to operate schools, the elimination of 10 conservation rangers and 18 staffers at the Environmental Protection Division, cuts for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation crime labs and arson investigators at the Georgia Forestry Commission, reduction of case workers at the Child Protective Services Division, the closing of four prisons, and elimination of nurses in Georgia's schools. And that, my friends, is just the beginning of what I think are important issues.

Representative, quick wasting taxpayer's money by spending time "investigating" and talking about distinguished GSU professors when you could be working on some of the issues I listed above and many other.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I can't wait until your generation gets into office, Dustin. Throw the good old boys out.