new year's resolutions

You know why New Year's resolutions don't work. They don't work because momentous declarations of good intent fueled by nostalgia, and perhaps liquid holiday cheer, are flakier than my mom's pumpkin pie crust.

For instance, many years ago, I made a resolution not to make any more New Year's resolutions. So far, so good. It's been I-don't-know-how-many years since I made that resolution, and haven't made another one since. But I'm breaking it.

I resolve to live more joyfully. That was why the pram* I posted earlier.

--
* This use of the word pram is an inside joke between me and my pal Bobo, the Wandering Pall-bearer, from college nights spent watching Monty Python's Flying Circus re-broadcast on MTV. In one of the 1974 episodes, Graham Chapman, dressed up as some kind of aristocrat, and playing (perhaps) drunk, in a scene in which a poetry reading is being held in a backroom of a huge department store, refers to poems as "prams."

NOT the year in review, part 4

I'm thinking about joy and music today. So:

Shakespeare, Sonnet #8

Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy;
Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,
Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?

If the true concord of well-tunèd sounds
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear:

Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,
Resembling sire, and child, and happy mother,
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:

Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'

year in review, part 3

This morning I had an email message with the following subject line:

Tired of staying in a shadow because of your plain watch?

It came from one of those phony email addresses, but this one had the domain name kidshelleens.com

Sums it up, I'd say.

a quick one

And now, a seasonal entry from

Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things

14. Jazz versions of Christmas tunes. I just love 'em.

By jazz versions, I here mean a fairly wide swath in the territory from blues to swing to big band to crooner to hard bop.

A few of these are well-known, of course. For instance, I think most folks know (and if they don't they should) Louis Armstrong's Zat You, Santa Claus?". Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt, Etta James, Ramsey Lewis, and dozens of other jazz or jazz-influenced musicians have recorded joyful, swinging, spiffy X-mas numbers.

We own copies of two of the best jazz holiday albums, Jimmy Smith's rollicking, and sometimes overwhelming Christmas Cookin' and Vince Gauraldi's soundtrack for A Charlie Brown Christmas. I've yet to pick up a new Christmas jazz album this year, but I know which one I want: Joe Pass's Six String Santa. Might need to look that up on iTunes.

year in review, part 2

A momentous, not to say fucking tortuous, 2008 is coming quickly to a close. Having graded all the papers I can for the moment, and seeing as how I'm waiting for the tomato sauce to simmer a bit longer, I thought I'd take this opportunity to look back on the highlights of the past 12 months. Plus, this is the traditional thing to do, and as everyone knows, I'm a stickler for tradition.

With no further ado...

2008: The Best Of The Year

False modesty aside, January was when I received the Cool People Special Award For Being Really Exzeptionally Cool. My loveliest was quite gracious in her introductory speech, especially since she had to compose herself quickly after having been surprised during the same award ceremony with the Cool People Award For Homina-homina-homina-homina.

We celebrated National Poetry Month in April, along with so many others, by burning copies of chapbooks by Billy Corgan and Billy Collins, and smashing copies of cds of the National Poetry Month celebrity poetry readings, held annually. We also ate crullers, but you knew that.

In May we threw a gala to commemorate the 5th anniversary of V-I (Victory in Iraq) Day, but no one came.

Christina and Guerin were also married in May. We were amongst the bridal party, and the bridal party. Before, during, and after the ceremony, the entirety of the party chanted in various ancient languages to give the occasion a sense of weird cinematic foreboding, but no one seemed to notice. In any case, we were somewhat rewarded for our efforts when the married couple suffered a freak Alpine skiing injury in Venice.

The university caught fire in July, and 23 of the 18 buildings burnt to the ground, only to be rebuilt at exorbitant expense by a private donor.

In October, Alexander and Arthur won the Nobel Prize for their General and Special Theories of Looney Tunes Physics. Unfortunately, they lost all the prize money on the stock market. They have no heads for figures.

November: Of course, we all marveled, and some of us marvel still, at the discovery that the number 3 is actually worth only 2. The economic turmoil aside, it's pretty cool to consider the more cosmic ramifications.

Now here it is, December, in the midst of the conversion of the entire US economy from information-based industry to a bailout-based economy, in which unfettered capitalist competition and the fantastic risk-taking behavior it impels leads to rewards for those willing to engage in the most incredibly insane risks. We're very hopeful that as this transition continues, Alex and Arthur will eventually make us incredibly rich. (Note to Henry Paulson: No, they're not available for consultation.)

a good thing to do

Last night we had a little Christmas party with Lauren's boss Lee, and our buds X-ina and Guerin. I made - hold on to yer ass, kids - lamb shanks osso bucco style. This involves braising the poor little critters' shins in stock, tomatoes, garlic, wine, and then tossing in flageolet or cannelini beans. Total braising time: 2 and a half hours. I bunged all into a ginormous square white porcelain bowl we have. You dish up the shank, cover all with beans and braising liquid. The meat melts off the shank.

And I had the best version ever of the rustic Itie white bread I bake.

In the immortal words of my pal Dave "Dave" Koukal, come to poppa!

Anyway, lamb shanks cooked this way is something I think every right-thinking individual who is not a vegetarian should eat at least once in their lives.

interview meme

I have been actually interviewed twice in my life. I like the idea of being interviewed, so when No Celery Please posted an interview meme, offering to ask questions of anyone who requests it in comments, I had to beg to be interviewed. Here are No Celery's questions and my replies:

Question #1:
Who was the first philospher you read that made you think... "hmmm, this is great! I want to do this for a living!"?

There are two, in two separate events, so I'm gonna pick the one that started me thinking I would enjoy teaching philosophy for a living. That'd be Karl Marx. I was turned on by the section of the 1844 manuscripts on alienated labor, where Marx defines human life in terms of working to produce the world we live in, and the main problem of labor under capitalism being that that work is taken away, divided up, and its worldliness corrupted. I still enjoy that bit of Marx's stuff.

Question #2:
You are having a dinner party at which you are going to present a 12 course meal. Money and FDA food import laws are not a restriction... what are you making?

Okay, this is really very complicated. I spent close to 10 hours figuring out the courses of my last big feed, and that was only 10 courses. The courses have to fit, they have to be at least somewhat seasonal, and they have to allow for a lot of improv. I'm grading finals. So I'll mention some things I'd definitely want to do as thematic elements to build the whole dinner around.

Caviar amuse, for sure, probably in some kind of creme fraiche sort of application, with chives.

Foie gras, which is now basically illegal to possess or consume in California. I had thought a beef Wellington entrée would fit the bill. But foie gras in some other context would also work.

Without doubt, a truffled potato dish, most likely a gratin with potatoes and truffles, seasoned and flavored delicately enough to bring out the truffles in their full glory.

I am fairly certain some kind of vegetable orgy would be one of the dishes. And a croquette of some sort.


Question #3:
If you could suddenly and effortlessly acquire one skill you currently do not have... what would it be?

I'll go with my first thought here: singing.

Question #4:
If you could be offered a position at any university in the world (tenured, of course) - where would you go? Or would you go?

Either San Francisco State University or CSU Long Beach. I want to remain a member of my union, and I want to remain in California.

Question #5:
What one ingredient can you absolutely not live without in your ktichen (OK, not literally - but, ya know).

Aside from mundane things everybody is likely to have? (Salt, pepper, etc.?) Nutmeg. Whole nutmeg, and my little nutmeg grater.

So, the drill, gentle readers, all 3 of you, is to request to be interviewed in the comments. Then I ask you the questions, and the tables will turn! Hah!

year in review, part 1

There be memes for year-in-review posts. I follow one with this post, which has one gather the first lines of each month's first posts from the past year. Here goes:

January

Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things

44. Primary seasons. I just love 'em.

February

I collected Lancelot's remains from the vet's office this afternoon.

March

It's spring here. Neener-neener-neener.

In any case, it's also the time of year when we celebrate a pair of

Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things

April

The kittens now have names. They've also had their first vet visit.

May

My loveliest is off at some sort of bridal brunch kinda thing, so I'm here with the monster kittens (as of this writing, Arthur is in the middle of a freakout session; Alexander is eating us out of house and home) and a stack of papers to grade.

June

At some point, this blog will return to usual programming.

July

One lull later...

Been down to LA and back. We went down to LA for fresh air.

August

I don't want to tip my hand much about the plans for my birthday bash on Saturday.

September

The 2008-2009 academic year begins tomorrow, with a day of long meetings of university, college, and department faculty, when we'll all hear about the wonderful plan CSU has for our lives.

October

Is it just me, or does the constant repetition of "Main Street" in financial bailout nooz irresistibly compel thoughts of the Sinclair Lewis novel?*

November

So, Barack Obama.

And, so far, almost assuredly Yes on Prop 8 in California, denying the right of marriage to same-sex couples just months after the California Supreme Court ruled that such a ban was unconstitutionally prejudicial.

December

Dear Mr. Claus,

As you are no doubt aware, our Governor declared a state fiscal emergency today.

what's good for GM is - ahh, to hell with it

So, Ford, Chrysler, and GM walk into a bar...

No, that's not it. Or maybe.

Anyway, GM testified to Congress today that (1) if GM is allowed to collapse, there will be widespread damage to the US economy, (2) GM needs $12 billion to keep afloat, including $4 billion right away, (3) GM plans to cut 20,000 to 30,000 jobs, and (4) GM plans to get concessions from UAW. Like Ford, GM plans to pay its execs a buck as salary, and to quit flying corporate jets around. That, apparently, is management's concession.

Prior to 2005, GM employed 181,000 people in the US. Back then, if anybody remembers, GM had a problem because of rising oil costs and their ridiculous insistence on building gas-guzzlers. But they had a plan to correct their bad financial strain - laying off 25,000 workers. So now, the plan is, with $12 billion from all of us, GM will - do the same goddamn thing again.

In corporate America, incredibly bad foresight is always rewarded by somebody helping you out. It looks like good business, apparently, to cut jobs instead of executive compensation (if you pay your top exec 300 times what a line-worker makes, you effectively cut 300 jobs right there).

All this raises serious question whether the major premise of this (so-to-speak) argument is at all plausible. GM now employs far less than half the people it did when it was a significant part of the US economy. Now that so much of auto manufacturing has been outsourced, GM doesn't really contribute much to employment. Let's take the $12 billion GM wants to spend, while throwing an addition 30,000 people out of work, and instead divide the money among all the potentially affected employees, except executives, should GM go belly-up. $12 billion divided among the remaining 156,000 or so. In fact, I'll round that up to 200,000 people. That gives them all a $60,000 severance package, which they can use to go to college or trade school, live off of while they look for work, pay moving expenses, whatever. GM is out of the taxpayers' hair, no more corporate jet flights because there won't be a corporation, and a handful of failed execs in the street with tin cups.

another open letter to Santa

Dear Mr. Claus,

As you are no doubt aware, our Governor declared a state fiscal emergency today. This will prompt a special session of the legislature to find some solution to the current budget crisis. Unfortunately, as you know, the CSU is one of the few areas of the budget where spending discretion permits the state to slash budgets. The CSU budget represents less than 2% of the state budget, and the state's deficit is projected to be over $11 billion this year - or more than three times more than the entire CSU budget.

This urgent situation demands immediate resolution, and so I am writing to repeat and reaffirm my request for $6 bajillion for the CSU. The justification for this request was detailed in my previous letter. I shall only re-state here the most salient point, which is that the CSU does nice things for the state. I am aware of no reasons why the CSU should be regarded as naughty, and hence no reasons why my request, made in due course and within an appropriate timeframe, should be rejected.

I am sure that you are also aware of the recent decision by the CSU Board of Trustees to increase compensation for executives and hire additional executives. Although this is admittedly awkward timing, given the CSU's decision to re-open the salary article of the faculty contract, and given the shortage of funding in general and the threats of cuts, I categorically deny that this is indicative of naughtiness by the CSU. The university continues to educate hundreds of thousands of students for the good of the public, and this momentary lapse of good judgment is merely incidental and not pertinent. (See Moretti v. Templeton, Ca. Su. Ct. #1909-99-7134.)

Therefore, absent any finding or evidence provided to the contrary, I expect my request for $6 bajillion for the CSU to be fulfilled on or around 25 December 2008.

Sincerely,
Chris Nagel

an open letter to Santa

Dear Mr. Claus,

I am writing you to request, as a Christmas gift, funding for the California State University in the amount of six bajillion dollars. It is my contention that this gift is well-deserved and needed, that the CSU collectively and I personally have met a reasonable standard of being good, and that supplying this gift will promote and provide the resources for the CSU and myself to continue being good.

First of all, it should be plain that the CSU is in dire need of six bajillion dollars. State funding has been decreasing in relation to real financial needs of the University for many years, due in part to the political climate in the legislature. Their intransigence and partisanship, clearly rising to naughty levels, have resulted in chronic underfunding of higher education.

Despite this, the faculty and staff of the CSU have continued to educate more students each year. Our dedication to students and to the cause of education are demonstrated by our efforts to support and defend the CSU. Personally, I have spoken out on numerous occasions and rallied with my colleagues in the California Faculty Association in protest against budget cuts and student fee increases. Meanwhile, I remain passionately devoted to teaching, as you are, no doubt, aware.

I freely grant that neither I nor the University are always at our best. I have made mistakes in the past year, but I maintain that at no time have I acted with malicious intent - not even that thing about the guy and the thing, you know what I'm alluding to. The truth is, I meant well.

Likewise, the CSU always aims at providing the best education it can. Some of our higher level administrators and executives act in ways that are hard to explain; however, I do not stipulate that these actions are in fact or intent naughty. Further, the University's overall level of niceness clearly and overwhelmingly outweighs the alleged naughtiness of a few (see Harper v. Delbon, Ca.Su.Ct. 2001-0104).

Six bajillion dollars is a very large gift, but it is neither excessive nor inappropriate. The University would use these funds to assure access to high-quality education for the public, and unused portions of the gift would be held in reserve to use for later needs. Apportionment and allocation of the gift would be regularly reported through the University's accounting firm, so there should be no question of the gift going to good use.

I advise you that the details, ways and means, and weights and measures of this request are still to be negotiated. I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,
Chris Nagel

an open letter to the governor

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger,

I realize you have difficult choices to make during this fiscal and economic crisis. As a member of the California Faculty Association, and a member of the Alliance for the CSU, I have already let you know that I believe cutting the budget for the CSU is a shortsighted and ultimately destructive move. The CSU contributes to the state's economy. It's the best, most secure investment the public can make.

It's important that you have all the information pertinent to these decisions, and that is the reason I'm writing to you today.

I earned a PhD in philosophy at Duquesne University in 1996. I have taught philosophy at CSU Stanislaus for 10 years. Teaching philosophy may not make any direct, sizable contribution to the economy, and I can't say I'm responsible for much economic growth, but I am at least a marginally functional member of society, and a taxpayer.

Cuts to the CSU budget would threaten my job. Since what I teach is philosophy, I'm sure you'll recognize that I clearly have no marketable skills outside of higher education. Certainly corporate America has no place for me.

I would have no choice but to turn to a life of crime. I would be forced out of quasi-productive employment into anomic, desperate felony. From being somewhat-less-than-thoroughly-useless to the many students at the CSU, I would be thrust out into the world, totally unhinged, having utterly lost any sense of right and wrong, and with no prospects for any job (did I mention: philosophy), would simply have to begin burgling, thieving, and mugging.

I hasten to point out that, although I have no criminal record, I do have some relevant experience, particularly of picking locks, breaking & entering, vandalism, petty larceny, and loitering and vagrancy.

I don't mean to threaten anything, of course. I just wanted to make sure you were properly informed about the potential impact of the fiscal choices you and the legislature have to make.

Thank you for your consideration,

Chris Nagel, PhD

I mean, consider these options:



I don't want any of those. I'm not angry/crazy enough, for starters.

an item from the ongoing series

Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things

15. Collective actions. I just love 'em.

I've spent the better part of the semester, and particularly the better part of the past week, involved in one collective action or another. Most of these were efforts to resist draconian budget cuts at the university - mostly in response to the local administration's decision to cut $1.5 million from the base budgets of academic departments to balance a budget they have been anything but forthcoming about. That effort has apparently led to the restoration of (at last count) about 80% of that budget.

Today I spent several hours helping to gather signatories to faxes to be sent to the governor and party leaders in both houses of the legislature. The university still faces the prospect of around $98 million in cuts during this academic year.

The faculty also face a re-opener of the contract we finally settled after 2 years, and the administration's opening offer was to eliminate the salary raises we spent so much time and effort winning. More collective action on that front, I figure, to follow.

Last Saturday, to take a break from all this, we went to a collective action in Modesto to protest Prop. 8. Apparently, it was the biggest such rally in Modesto over the issue of sex-based marriage discrimination. It seemed like the number of people honking car horns and yelling and whooping favorably was about two to three times higher than the number flipping us off or yelling insults.

We may lose all these fights. The Board of Trustees may vote to raise student fees, blame faculty raises (that we may not even receive) for the fee increase, and turn around and raise executive pay. Prop. 8 may stand, despite what seems like obviously unconstitutional discrimination. But what else can I do? Even if I'm going to lose, I have to fight, because there just isn't any other way to try to defend myself and what I value. Grim hope, I suppose.

update on university budget cuts

Friday afternoon, November 7, I first heard about the local CSU campus administration's announcement of budget cuts, mid-year, that would cancel hundreds of classes and put dozens of part-time lecturers out of work. I assumed that this was related in part to the $31 million cut offered by CSU Chancellor Charles B. ("Chuckles") Reed, but it turns out that it really didn't have anything to do with that.

Our campus has been running a deficit, off and on, for several years, and the budget cut was to deal with about 2/3 of that deficit. Now, this seemed odd timing for dealing with a deficit that we've had for a while. Why take this moment, with the CSU system preparing to cope with, and to fight against, the Chancellor's giveaway? One answer that seemed plausible, and which I shared with several people, all of whom thought it was not only plausible but likely, is that the local administration was using Reed's action as a pretext. If that seems paranoid, then you must not be a faculty member at this university, where we have had, for a variety of reasons, an extremely antagonistic relationship with the provost.

[Side note to the provost, or to any of his agents: I acknowledge that I'm part of that antagonistic faculty. While the provost has publicly stated his resentment toward some oppositional action by faculty, and has seemed to me to take much of it personally, I do not acknowledge that anything I've said is meant as a personal attack. I don't know the provost personally. I know he plays the accordion, wrote a book about rhetoric, is good at word play, and has a predilection for suspenders. But I don't know what's in his soul, and wouldn't claim to. I represent lecturers on our campus. An adversarial relationship to administration sometimes comes with the job.]

Anyway, faculty were understandably upset by being told to cut classes from academic departments in the absence of any directly informative demonstration that this was necessary - either in general, or in the incredible urgency of the moment. Departments were given a directive to cut a certain number of dollars from their instructional budgets, given a week to do it, and that was the end of the story.

This is the same strategy employed at Humboldt State a few years ago - which I referred to on our campus as the "Blitzkrieg" model of budget management. (There's room here for using the metaphor of Poland annexation, but I'm not sure how to work it.) There was a big push by faculty, students and staff to demand the administration find another way to fix its fiscal problems, other than cut so much from instruction as to damage the institution's ability to educate, and to damage the institution's ability to make enrollment targets and thus to retain its budget allocation from the CSU system.

I spent a lot of time and energy in the faculty part of that effort on our campus this week. One thing I've done, which I always do, is inform my students what's going on and encourage them to get involved. I saw one of my students at a meeting our dean held, but otherwise I have no idea whether anyone has gotten into the push back.

One key difference between our campus and the Humboldt State situation is that our campus president announced to the meeting of the general faculty in September that the university had a $3 million reserve fund, and that a deal had been made with Clearwire to lease them our TV channels as broadband for a $4.5 million one-time payment plus around $1.5 million a year. At Humboldt, the campus president eventually "found" $500,000 to help reverse cuts. And what do you know, but since Friday our campus president has agreed to allocate an additional $500,000 from the Clearwire funds.

The committee that advises the president on budget issues met the first time in the midst of all this tumult, was given no real information about the budget, and issued a memo to the campus community arguing against the cuts and, especially, the do-it-yesterday urgency.

We still face the proposed cuts totalling $97 million, and a partisan legislature generally incapable of compromise, that must reach a 2/3 majority to pass either a budget or any tax increase (like the sales tax increase proposed by the governor). We also continue to face a university administration which seems hell-bent on acting unilaterally, and then, when faced with strong opposition from faculty, modifying or reversing itself - which strikes me as a very strange way to run a public institution.

redacted

Setting aside, for tonight, the tumult surrounding the quite foul budget slash effort by the Cow State Santa Claus administration, I shall provide, instead, a harmless goof of a meme.

If you saw ME in a police car, what would you think I got arrested for?

Answer me, then post to your own blog and see how many crimes you get accused of.

CSU budget cuts, class cuts, faculty cuts, student cutswon't somebody get that razor away from him?!

California's economy and state budget are in the toilet.

The CSU is facing midyear budget cuts, and the administration's response has been to freak the heck out. The Chancellor's office just announced last week that for the first time in its history, the CSU system will turn away eligible students. I think this means the CSU is violating the education code of the state, which specifies that the CSU's mission, as the people's university, is to teach the top 1/3 of high school graduates across the state. If CSU turns away eligible students, I think it could be legally liable. I'd be really interested to see someone sue over it.

Apparently the plan of action on our campus, presented by the administration, is to cut part-time faculty. The part-time faculty teach 315 classes this year, mainly general education classes required to graduate, rather than in majors. Furthermore, the plan is being hatched in secrecy, which is partly why I'm writing about it here. I figure there are CSU lurkers.

The administration has been holding meetings with department chairs to tell them to cut sections of classes and eliminate part-time faculty. But, and here's the tricky part, they have to keep teaching the same number of students. They'll achieve this by stuffing more students into remaining classes.

But there are freaking obvious problems with this plan. For one thing, many classes are being taught at capacity for the classroom. When everybody shows up for my morning Professional Ethics classes, there are no empty seats. I can't accommodate more students in those classes. Plus, as my colleagues Dan pointed out this afternoon, there are fire regulations at stake here too. If the room has a capacity of 45, it has a capacity of 45, period.

It also makes little sense to think that tenure-track faculty will really be able to teach more than they already do. In most departments, they teach 8 courses a year, which is really high for college teaching by tenure-track faculty (my teaching load is 10 per year, but CFA buys 1 of my classes from the university in exchange for the vastly more work than a course would require that I do for CFA).

And then the big one. Our students are not "traditional" four-year college students (almost no students in the US are, any more). They typically have work and family obligations, commute to school either 2 or 3 days a week, and need their class schedules to fit their lives' schedules as well as their academic needs. Cutting class sections will make it more difficult, and in some cases impossible, for them to continue to advance to their degrees.

Plus, plus, plus: While it's taking them longer to graduate, they may be asked to pay non-state-support fees for the same classes, taught off the state books. AND AND AND the longer they take to graduate, the more it costs them, and the longer the credit crisis goes on, the less access they have to student aid or even loans.

So there you have it. The university plans to fix their budget problem by way of an unworkable solution based on faulty assumptions about scheduling, the lives of students, the work of faculty, the ongoing state budget and financial crisis. Aside from that, of course, it's perfectly alright, provided you're completely uncaring about the people who work for you.

post-election post

So, Barack Obama.

And, so far, almost assuredly Yes on Prop 8 in California, denying the right of marriage to same-sex couples just months after the California Supreme Court ruled that such a ban was unconstitutionally prejudicial. Simple solution: legalize discrimination. I can't say very much with intelligence for very long on this issue, before the rage overtakes me, and I've spent all my intelligence on it today talking with students.

It's intellectually so damaging and painful even to think through the arguments that I've blown a gasket. In sum: no one person or group's moral or religious conviction gives that person or group moral authority to impose their will. That's the tyranny of the majority, not democracy. Further: every argument for Prop 8 was both based on a false premise, and intellectually dishonest. To wit: the claim that Prop 8 was needed to avoid having clergy being held legally liable for choosing not to marry same-sex couples. (1) Legal same sex marriage does not impose legal demands that any clergy member marry anyone against his or her will. (2) Any clergy member could be sued by anyone for anything at any time, so Prop 8 will not protect them from this. In effect, then, Prop 8 does not do what the proponents claim it would do. Since it will not do this, it only achieves one, simple, legal effect: to discriminate against same-sex couples.

That's it on this one, for now. I'm done. Ask me again, and I'll start insulting breeders.

Back to Barack Obama. Aside from my feeling like he's going to be a good president, I'm proud we elected him. I think the effect on "race" issues is being overblown, but electing a black President is clearly historically important.

On the way home from night class, I remembered two presidential political comments I'd made in the past. One is that Obama fits the pattern of the last 48 years of TV presidents: better hair wins. (Seriously, somebody should be studying this.) The other is that I randomly remembered a satire I wrote November 7, 2000, the year Bush was not elected President, but later selected by the US Supreme Court. It was a satire mainly of US narrow-minded political life, and of US newz media. It was also, in the context of that year, a satire of the result of that election, to wit, that there was no result on November 7. It's titled White Guy Wins Election. And you know what? It's not going to be funny any more.

spreading the good nooz

There is a rather polite evangelist* on campus today, urging people to come and pray with him for peace, tranquility, etc. One of his promptings was that people should come and talk to him if they wanted to "learn more about this Jesus."

I suppose it's part of the traditional patter of evangelists, the pose of being an apostle and bravely trekking out into unknown territory with an unheard-of message, that leads them to make ridiculous statements like this. You can't really be part of US culture without knowing who "this Jesus" is, or what Christians believe about Jesus. And this campus is in the Central Valley, in one of the most Christian and church-going regions in the US.

This also seems to presume that the primary reason people don't believe in Christian faith is lack of exposure. Most atheists I know were raised Christian. They didn't fail to hear about it, they failed to have faith in it.

Nor does it strike me as particularly likely that this will sell Christianity to religious non-Christians, though I can't be certain of that.

It's just odd, to me, to think of someone having the - I dunno, chutzpah? - to believe that he can just walk onto a campus and inform people about a 2000 year old religion, as though they've never heard of it, and sell it to them.

Plus, I'm always tempted to walk up to the guy and say something like, "oh, that Jesus! I thought you meant Jesus Gomez, and I was thinking, geez, I thought he was just a pharmacist!"

* As far as that goes. Some people would consider any evangelist to be rude as hell, because they believe religion is private and not something you should be yelling at people about, or even speaking calmly through a microphone at people about. I don't know from rude. I do, however, markedly prefer the obnoxious fire-and-brimstone screamer types, because it's so much more volatile and dangerous when they come around. There's a little bit of Nietzsche in me, too, that says "Yep, that's what it's all about" when they scream about everybody going to hell.

what's in a name?

Walking around town, I see a lot of signs urging people to vote no on Proposition 2 this November. Prop 2 would require farms to have enclosures large enough to permit hens, veal calves, and pregnant sows to stand up and turn around. Enclosures that tight make it easy to spread disease, and particularly salmonella in eggs is a concern.

The group opposing Prop 2 calls itself "Californians for Safe Food."

This got me wondering about other California advocacy groups, who they are, and what they stand for. Here's a short list:

Californians for Safe Streets. This group proposes to amend the constitution to eliminate and prohibit any law restricting, regulating, or licensing any form of firearm.

Californians for Yummy Ice Cream. As supporters of an assembly bill titled "California Ice Cream Quality And Distribution Act," they make the case that immigration should be completely restricted, and that ethnic or religious groups with a cultural proclivity to eat more ice cream should be ejected from the state, in order "to preserve the supply of this precious and delicious commodity for true Californians."

Californians for Public School Success. They support broad reforms of public schools. Primarily, they propose to eliminate the Department of Education, as well as funding from tax or other government-gathered sources. Instead, students or their families would directly pay costs of education, which will assure that they have more of a stake in education. In addition, all students would take a standardized test at the end of high school. Any student who does not pass the test would not be granted a diploma and would have no further opportunity to re-take the test. Also, schools where less than 75% of students pass the test would forfeit their funding to pay for a job-growth program of tax breaks on investments in corporations.

Californians for Family Values. They propose a constitutional amendment defining families as "children and their mother, under the unquestionable rule of the father as head of household." The amendment would further ban any legal restriction on the father's right to establish rules, and to punish violations, and prohibit any legal prosecution of any father whose actions in enforcement of his own rules lead to any injuries or deaths of mother or children.

momentary lack of charity verging on Schadenfreude

In brief:* I find it hard to sympathize with the stock brokers depicted in so many recent media images, head in hands, pained expressions on their faces, phone headsets on, reacting to stock prices falling. I think it's because there's something about them that looks surprised.

If you play roulette, you can lose. It's part of the game.

* Recovering from Pittsburgh. Slowly. Tired. Teaching. Tired. Reading papers. And tired.