You can check out the video for Mates of State’s “I Am a Scientist” cover today at Paste Magazine.  Whoo-hoo!

Thank you to: Lindsay Van Dyke for conceiving of and directing the video, Bob Pollard (Needmore Music) for permission for doing the video, Smith College for the fantastic location, our great volunteer cast and crew, and Mates of State for a terrific performance!

Early in the planning for Science Fair, Molly Ledford was considering writing a song called “Raised By Scientists” for Lunch Money to perform.  That didn’t happen (yet?), but I really like the idea of it — it is a very specific way to be raised.  To give one hint of what it was like, at least in the Childs household, I’ll direct you to a piece I wrote three years ago about having a chalkboard in our dining room.  (Incidentally, I just repaired that chalkboard, so it will again have a place of prominence after our move to Austin.)

But for the song of my childhood to be complete, it’d have to be “Raised By Scientists and Feminists.”  To give a hint of that, as I’ve also mentioned, and as the Deedle Deedle Dees memorialized in song, I chose Susan B. Anthony as the subject of a book report, and then dressed up as her to present it — that, along with the fact that I am reliably informed that my first question to potential preschool friends was, “Are you for the ERA?,” should give you a sense of that side of our childhood.

Thus came Science Fair.  The CD, as the liner notes indicate, was inspired by the lives of my parents, Ves and Holly Childs.  My dad (an electrochemist and feminist) died three years ago today — on the summer solstice, which, that year, was also Father’s Day.  I chose today for the Paste Magazine-hosted premiere of the video for Mates of State‘s contribution to the record in part to honor the date.  And then I also asked my mom, whose background you can read about below, to write a little about being a feminist in science and engineering.  Here’s what she wrote:

I was slow in coming to the realization that I was drastically underpaid and disrespected compared to my male coworkers. It was 1964 and I was in my second year of my first off-campus job, at Phillips Petroleum Company. I was using the company’s new IBM 7094 mainframe computer to model and optimize nonlinear systems like gasoline plants, a somewhat harder group of problems than those most of my coworkers were working on.

I knew that my job title (engineering aide) was different from those of my peers (research scientist, computer analyst), though my job was similar; I thought that was because I had been hired more recently than everyone else. I was grateful to have been hired at all, though I had a solid BS degree with a double major in math and chemistry and had done better on the pre-interview tests than anyone else who had ever taken them. The matrix algebra courses I had taken, expecting them to remain entertaining but useless, had actually given me a head start on understanding the project I was hired for.

Two things happened about the same time to open my eyes. First, the project my boss and I had been working on was ready to be written about and published. Second, the company hired another “engineering aide” in my department.

I learned that my boss was hiring another person to work on our project, primarily by writing a journal article; he and my boss would coauthor the article, and I would not. I got to figure out most of the computer coding and engineering simulations and to draw the illustrations for the paper. The article was so long that there was no room even to express thanks to me.

The new engineering aide was a young man with a high school diploma and a drafting class. His job was more clerical than technical. He was paid slightly more than I was.

Because I was a woman, I was classified as a low-paid, low-prestige employee and I was not eligible to publish technical work that I had done. I was enraged. But there was nothing to be done. Sex discrimination was perfectly legal, and, indeed, expected, by everyone except me.

Starting in college, I had worked on “desegregation,” as civil rights activities were then known. I hadn’t realized that women needed protection for their civil rights too. I knew that women in the sciences were regarded as “cute” or as interlopers; a physics professor referred in a class I was in (50 men, two women) to “girls in college looking for their M.R.S. degrees.” I knew that not many women actually worked in science or engineering. But my parents had encouraged me to pursue chemistry, though my high school had offered no science at all – my mother always told me that I could do anything I wanted, and that the women in my family were strong achievers. It had never occurred to me that I might be underpaid or disrespected at a fairly won job that I was doing exceedingly well.

Partly in reaction to my own experiences, soon after our third (and last) child was born, I started working for the Equal Rights Amendment, which would have forbidden having different laws for men and women (excepting obvious areas like privacy and wet nurses). I spent ten years as a full time volunteer; another woman and I ran the field organization in Oklahoma. We lost the last legislative vote by one vote (that of a legislator who told our lobbyists he was going to vote yes, walked onto the floor, and voted no). I believe that, even though we lost, our ERA work made gender discrimination less socially acceptable.

Women still do not have constitutional protection, and job and educational discrimination continue, albeit in more subtle ways. I would really like to know for sure that my children and grandchildren will be treated fairly in school and on the job, regardless of their gender. I would particularly like to be sure that any of my beautiful little granddaughters who wanted to be a scientist or engineer, like me, would have a full opportunity to do so, and to be published when deserved and to be paid equitably. Perhaps this record will contribute toward that end.

– Holly H. Childs

I’m so grateful to my mom, and my entire family, and so proud of all of their work.  It’s not done: One, two, three.

You can pre-order Science Fair now, if you don’t have a local retailer that will be carrying it on its release on July 3.  Proceeds will benefit Girls Inc.’s science education programming.

Listen whenever you like at our page at WRSI.com!

Segment 1
TMBG – It’s Spare the Rock
ID
TMBG – O, Do Not Forsake Me
Randy Kaplan – Green Green Rocky Road
ID
Steve Martin & the Steep Canyon Rangers – King Tut
Lead Belly – Red Bird
Charlie Hope – Two Little Blackbirds
ID
Little Mo McCoury – You’ve got a Friend in Me

Segment 2
Papa Crow – That’s the Life for Me
Willie & the Wheel – Won’t You Ride in My Little Red Wagon
ID/prep to rock
TMBG – Don’t Spare the Rock!
Jimmies – Cool to be Uncool
Starfish – My Name is No!
ID
Flaming Lips – She Don’t Use Jelly

Segment 3
Mister G – Run
Primate Fiasco – Apples and Bananas
ID
School for the Dead – Superhero (live at Spare the Rock)
Stan Ridgway – Ice Cream Octopus
ID

Segment 4
ScribbleMonster – Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child
ID
Cat & a Bird – Constellation Bound
Jonathan Coulton – I’m Your Moon (live at Spare the Rock)
ID
The Pop-Ups – Connect the Stars
Prince – Starfish and Coffee
ID

Segment 5
Billy Kelly – Oh My Dog
Rufus Thomas – Can Your Monkey do the Dog
ID
Parker Bent – Scooch Back
Deedle Deedle Dees – Ah Ahimsa
Papas Fritas – Vertical Lives
ID
Ella Fitzgerald – A-Tisket, A-Tasket

Segment 6
Sunshine Collective – I Just Wanna Play
Cults – Go Outside
ID
Secret Agent 23 Skidoo – Gotta Be You
Curtis Mayfield – Move On Up
ID
TMBG – Subliminal
TMBG – Spare the Rock

Listen any time you like at our page at WRSI.com!

Segment 1
TMBG – It’s Spare the Rock
ID
TMBG – Other Father Song
Sarah Lee Guthrie – Bright Clear Day
Dan Zanes – Moonlit Town (live at Spare the Rock)
ID
Brian Eno – I’ll Come Running
Steve Weeks – A Friend Like You
ID

Segment 2
Keller Williams – Hula Hoop to Da Loop
Martin Zeller – Down in the Valley
ID/prep to rock
TMBG – Don’t Spare the Rock!
Apples in Stereo – Energy
Liz Phair – Everything’s Controlled By the Brain
ID
CandyBand – Ken Lost His Head

Segment 3
Southern Culture on the Skids – Camel Walk
George Carver – They Got Feet
ID
Mister G – Grilled Cheese
Moona Luna – H2O (Science Fair)
ID
Toots & the Maytalls – Take Me Home, Country Roads

Segment 4
ScribbleMonster – Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child
ID
XTC – Helicopter
The Not-Its! – Helicopter
Lunch Money – Dizzy
Alison Faith Levy – Like a Spinning Top
ID
Luscious Jackson – Goo

Segment 5
Justin Roberts – Pop Fly
Craig Finn & Baseball Project – Don’t Call Them Twinkies
ID
Visqueen – Centerfield
Deedle Deedle Dees – Bring ‘Em In
ID
Frances England w/ Mates of State – Place in Your Heart

Segment 6
Frank Black – (I Want to Live on an) Abstract Plain
Terrible Twos – Math Stomp
ID
Ziggy Marley – Family Time
Los Straitjackets – Cavalcade
Bari Koral – Kick Drum Heart
ID
TMBG – Alphabet of Nations
TMBG – Spare the Rock.

Listen any time you like at our page at WRSI.com!

Segment 1
TMBG – It’s Spare the Rock
ID
TMBG – Zeroes
Elizabeth Mitchell – The Happy Song
Doc Watson – Green Grass Grew All Around
ID
Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem – They All Ask’d For You
Your Imaginary Friend – Alabama Mississippi
ID
Primate Fiasco – Sunny Side of the Street

Segment 2
Tom Waits – Heigh Ho
Randy Kaplan – Little Bee
ID/prep to rock
TMBG – Don’t Spare the Rock!
Mr. T Experience – Unpack Your Adjectives
Egg – Sunny Side Up
ID

Segment 3
Carolina Chocolate Drops – Country Girl
Jonathan Richman – New England
ID
Frances England – Fast Train to Grandma’s
Kinks – Last of the Steam-Powered Trains
ID
Babe the Blue Ox – Surfin’ Minnesota
Suburbs – Rattle My Bones

Segment 4
ScribbleMonster – Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child
ID
REM – Stand
Always Saturday – Summer Something
Johnny Nash – I Can See Clearly Now
ID
Ray Charles – You Are My Sunshine
We-Bop – It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)
ID
Dog on Fleas – Fortunate Mistake

Segment 5
Thao with the Get Down Stay Down – Bag of Hammers
Billy Kelly – Don’t Worry About the Government
ID
Talking Heads – Wild Wild Life
Aquabats – Idiot Box
ID
Justin Roberts – We Go Duck

Segment 6
Sleater Kinney – Lions and Tigers
Deedle Deedle Dees – Little Red Airplane
ScribbleMonster – Loud and Soft
ID
Nields – Butterfly
Beach Boys – Vegetables
ID
TMBG – Science is Real
TMBG – Spare the Rock

Listen any time you like at our page at WRSI.com!

Segment 1
TMBG – It’s Spare the Rock
ID
TMBG – Fibber Island
Grenadilla – Exactly Where I Want To Be
Jason Mraz – Man Gave Names to All the Animals
ID
Dan Zanes – By and By
Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer – Bye Bye Blackbird/Red Red Robin Medley
ID

Segment 2
Hullabaloo – Road Trip
Okee Dokee Brothers – Haul Away Joe
ID/prep to rock
Royal Order of Chords & Keys – Punk Rock, One Sock!!!
Jimmies – Cool to Be Uncool
Pixies – La La Love You
ID
Matthew Sweet – Scooby Doo (6/17)

Segment 3
Shiprock & Anchordog – Desert Dogs
Dean Jones – Sing Like a Sparrow
ID
Rebirth Brass Band – Take It To The Street
Flannery Brothers – One Wasn’t Enough
ID
Sugar Free Allstars – Put ‘Em Away

Segment 4
ScribbleMonster – Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child
ID
Artichoke – Mary Anning
The Go! Team – Titanic Vandalism
Daddy A Go Go – I Wanna Be An Action Figure
ID
Hipwaders – Geometry
Shins – It’s Okay, Try Again
ID

Segment 5
ID
Michael Franti – Say Hey (I Love You)
Secret Agent 23 Skidoo – Make the Future
Booker T & the MGs – Green Onions
Astrograss – Drunken Sailor
ID
Cab Calloway – Everybody Eats When They Come To My House

Segment 6
ID
Mates of State – I Am a Scientist
Caspar Babypants – All That I Have Got
Billy Kelly – We Could Be Pen Pals
ID
Lunch Money – Original Friend
Gladys Knight & the Pips – Friendship Train
ID
They Might Be Giants – Apartment 4
TMBG – Spare the Rock

Listen any old time at our page at WRSI.com!

Segment 1
TMBG – It’s Spare the Rock
ID
TMBG – One Two Three Four
Your Imaginary Friend – Bicycle Built for Two
The Good Miss Padgett – Little Red Hen
ID
Tom Waits – New Coat of Paint
Mo Phillips – Suction Cup
ID

Segment 2
Hypnotic Clambake – 500 Robots
Okee Dokee Brothers – Small and Simple (w/ Elizabeth Mitchell)
Elizabeth Mitchell – Hey Bo Diddley
ID/prep to rock
TMBG – Don’t Spare the Rock!
Mommie – Dumptruck
Paul Westerberg – Meet Me in the Meadow
ID
Segment 3
Deep Fried Pickle Project – Lemonade Stand
ID
Dog on Fleas – Treehouse
I’m From Barcelona – Treehouse
Space Balloons – If You Want a Mustache
ID
Arlo Guthrie – Bling Blang

Segment 4
ScribbleMonster – Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child
ID
Dr. John – My Children, My Angels
Keith Munslow – Accidentally
ID
Los Straitjackets – The Munsters Theme
Medeski Martin & Wood – Let’s Go Everywhere

Segment 5
Booker T. Jones – Representing Memphis (feat. Sharon Jones)
Dan Zanes & Friends – In the Basement (feat. Sharon Jones)
ID
Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings – This Land is Your Land
Renee & Jeremy – New Soul
ID
Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band – Lil’ Red Rooster

Segment 6
Secret Agent 23 Skidoo – Hot Sauce
Dick Dale – Miserlou
ID
Justin Roberts – We Go Duck
Wee Hairy Beasties – Ragtime Duck
ID
TMBG – The Guitar
TMBG – Spare the Rock