The CSU has proposed a "furlough" plan to their employee unions, as part of a program for dealing with the net half-billion dollar cut to the CSU budget for this coming academic year. The Chancellor's office plan is similar to plans proposed by other state agencies - cutting two days a month from employees' work schedules, without compensation obviously. The Chancellor's office informed the union leaders that the furlough would save about $275 million for the whole CSU. The proposal is to cut two Fridays from each month.
On its face, a furlough plan for the CSU is absurd. Anybody who knows anything about higher education knows that classes are almost always grouped by days of the week. Some classes are taught on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, some are taught on Tuesday and Thursday. On a few campuses, classes are taught only Monday-Wednesday and Tuesday-Thursday, with special all day classes, labs, or other activities scheduled on Friday. In short, cutting two Fridays a month for the academic year would make gobbledygook out of every academic calendar.
My first reaction to this, about a week ago when I first heard about it, was that this was typical of the Chancellor's office: they have no idea how higher education works, and no idea what academic calendars are, or really, what faculty labor is like. For instance, let's compare three faculty members. Faculty member A teaches four classes each day Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. That faculty member would have Friday classes cut two times each month, for around 6 void Fridays a semester. Faculty member B teaches three classes on Tuesday and Thursday, and one on Wednesday night. For that faculty member, the cut to the Friday work schedule means - well, what? Faculty member C teaches only night classes, including one that meets every Friday night. The two-Fridays-a-month furlough means that that faculty members Friday class will miss six sessions over a semester. On our campus, that's nearly half the course.
But this week, I've been getting email updates about meetings between union leaders and campus presidents, and now the CSU administration's strategy for the furlough is more clear: it's a way to cut pay without calling it a pay cut.
The furlough would mean that faculty would have their pay cut relative to the amount of work they do while they are working - during the 10-month academic year. Two days a month from that 10-month year results in around 10.75% cut in salary for faculty. But there can't be any effective way to cut the actual work, and what we're hearing is that the CSU has absolutely no intention of identifying or giving account of the cuts to the faculty work.
Let me put this in context: like most faculty I know, I actually work, during the academic year, at least 6 days a week. That's because I teach Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and need to prepare to teach those classes on days when I'm not teaching them. (Contrary to what some people, notably the Chancellor of the CSU, seem to think, faculty work outside the classroom in order to be able to teach while in the classroom.) They might cut Friday classes twice each month, but there's no way they can meaningfully cut faculty workload during an academic year.
They're simply taking the opportunity of the budget catastrophe to extract more work for less pay. If I was a little more paranoid, I'd suggest that this is also helpful in attempting to undermine the power CFA generated by successfully organizing a contract fight in 2005-2006, or furthering a union-busting effort.
Oh, and what is the carrot in this proposal? The Chancellor's office threatened the employee unions that if we didn't accept furloughs, there would be mass layoffs. And if we do? No guarantee that there won't be layoffs. Meanwhile, of course, the CSU is still not subject to meaningful public scrutiny of its books.
I would have written about this earlier, but I've had this hideous chest cold all week. I haven't had real sleep in two days. But I figured, if I don't write about this, then the chest cold will have won.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
summertime blues
They say there ain't no cure.
So far this has been the summer of miscellaneous busy-ness. The result: I have a chest cold.
It's also been the summer of updating, sprucing, and in general making happy little improvements in the material conditions of life. We bought grass-fed meat. I made a new batch of demi-glace. I have my new contact lenses, which I'm adjusting to fairly well. Lauren has new glasses. I have a new guitar, I'm futzing with several new tunes.
This has all involved a lot of driving hither and yon, culminating in the week of Bobo the Wandering Pallbearer's visit, during which I drove approximately 23,400 miles.
So, as I sit here resting and recuperating, with little energy to do much else, it occurred to me that I do have all that to recuperate from. That makes a little more sense, which somehow makes it a little bit better.
So far this has been the summer of miscellaneous busy-ness. The result: I have a chest cold.
It's also been the summer of updating, sprucing, and in general making happy little improvements in the material conditions of life. We bought grass-fed meat. I made a new batch of demi-glace. I have my new contact lenses, which I'm adjusting to fairly well. Lauren has new glasses. I have a new guitar, I'm futzing with several new tunes.
This has all involved a lot of driving hither and yon, culminating in the week of Bobo the Wandering Pallbearer's visit, during which I drove approximately 23,400 miles.
So, as I sit here resting and recuperating, with little energy to do much else, it occurred to me that I do have all that to recuperate from. That makes a little more sense, which somehow makes it a little bit better.
Monday, June 15, 2009
demi-glace
One of the oddest things about me (if I'm any judge) is that I make my own demi-glace. I don't actually do it right, in part because I don't have a kitchen that makes it possible to do the whole thing right, and in part because my procedures are a bastardization of Escoffier's directions, but the results are not only suitable, they're diabolical.
I finished a batch last night. 6 quarts of home-brewed beef stock, reduced to two trays of demi-glace ice cubes. The ice cubes are a convenient way to store and use the demi-glace, which is an idea I got readingchef whore Anthony Bourdain's book Kitchen Confidential. To make various sauces, I just toss an ice cube of demi-glace into the pan, and simmer away. It's fabulous, and a basic necessity for the various compounds sauces, and simply a terrific way to turn a standard pan sauce into a meat orgy.
Any excuse for a good meat orgy.
I finished a batch last night. 6 quarts of home-brewed beef stock, reduced to two trays of demi-glace ice cubes. The ice cubes are a convenient way to store and use the demi-glace, which is an idea I got reading
Any excuse for a good meat orgy.
Monday, June 08, 2009
everything must go!
The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind.
- Marx & Engels, The Communist Manifesto
We ended up at the mall today, for no really good reason, other than already finding ourselves in Modesto, and thinking of a trip to Trader Joe's. We went to a closing sale at a local department store, a chain with stores mainly in the Central Valley, called Gottschalks. They tried to sell out to somebody last fall, and no one took them up on it. So they're clearing out everything.
And I mean everything: all the stuff on the floor, in warehouses, all the store furnishings and equipment, all the manikins, racks, display tables, fixtures - even the dollies the stock staff (in jeans and t-shirts) were using had price tags on them.
All the desperation of trying to sell the place past, all attempts at dignity, polish and shine ended, the store was reduced to dishevelment, or, to coin an appropriate term, disshelvement.
What was revealed by this series of events are the basic tricks of retail: controlling perception. Because, you see, they'd given up on it. The normal look of a retail department store, which prevents you from seeing in depth, which fills as much of every direction with images, words of inducement, merchandise displays, was gone. All the racks were at the same level, and there were items stacked on floors or behind counters where they didn't belong.
The staff were disgruntled, and joined by this invading army of overly-casual employees (in dress and in work status, no doubt), hired by a group a cashier identified as "the liquidators" to move stock around. The muzak was on a weirdly upbeat channel doing lots of late 70s, heavy on the disco.
Aside from the sudden elimination of the usual fetishization of commodities - the pornography that takes place routinely in retail - what struck me was that, with the pretense gone, the impoverishment, callousness, and shabbiness of it was impossible to deny. For instance, in the pile of cast-off and for-sale display tables and racks, without being covered with brightly colored stuff as was their function, you could see how poorly made, how scuffed, how tatty all of it is. The conceits of fashion and elegance, which is the basic come-on of retail seduction, no longer hide this.
Especially thrilling to me was that you could buy literally anything in the store, including giant cardboard hearts covered in red and pink tissue paper roses used as Valentine's Day decorations, metal sign frames with signs still in them, hat dummies, segments of manikins, and those weird partial manikins - just a torso, or just legs, or - the one I wanted most - just a butt (I thought it would make a nice gift). My loveliest (known today by one of my random endearments for her - Pinky) was looking for and buying ladies' unmentionables, and the racks they were on were on sale too. For some reason, the whole thing struck us as hilarious.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
fear and loathing: academic year 2008-09
I'll get to the fear and loathing momentarily. For the sake of continuity, I'd like to remark on the occasion for this bit of reportage.
I think I can, at this point, declare a provisional end to the academic year. The provisions are as follows: (1) I have yet to file final grades, (2) I have a handful of papers and other assignments still pending, but mainly from students I don't expect to hear from.
I started the academic year in my usual fashion. I went to the general faculty meeting, where the campus president announced that Clearwire had given us big bucks, and the university was flush, though looking ahead to uncertain times because of the state budget deadlock (one of these assertions was true, another was more true than anyone imagined at the time, and the third was in most respects divorced from reality).
That week, I sent the academic senate my legislative agenda for the year. I don't think most of the academic senate reps do this, but I do. This year my agenda was to revise the lecturer range elevation policy, to establish a faculty award for contributions to university governance, and to broaden lecturer eligibility to serve on university committees. The range elevation issue took all year to resolve, and that fairly unfortunately because of the compromises I had to make (and even so, it hasn't been signed by the president yet). The faculty and administration approved the faculty governance award, and the committee stuff is all pending. Mixed results, after a year of struggle on all that.
By November, the budget deficit that the president announced was gone in September had somehow re-emerged. Suddenly, the jobs of dozens of faculty were at risk because of an urgent need to eliminate a $5 million deficit (or something like that - reports varied). Over a couple weeks, we activated a fierce resistance to budget cuts that would slash lecturer jobs for Spring of 2009. It looked like we won.
Meanwhile, I was handling a grievance that I ultimately lost for no good reason I can discern, and which I've since been more or less told I handled improperly - even though I followed what I thought the advice I was getting said to do.
The following month I heard from a lecturer who was having a conflict with a student, that escalated into a spurious complaint against the lecturer and an administrative investigation. The investigation turned out to be inappropriately handled, so I tried to pull in the reigns as much as I could on it, with a lot of help from my friends. The interview came and went with no real consequence, perhaps in a small way as a result of our effort. It looked like we won.
Then the budget issue came back, with a vengeance. All Spring I was embroiled in the effort to organize and strategize resistance. The end result was that the full force of the cuts is going to be realized anyway. The lecturer we helped is likely to be out of work next year.
As that was coming to its hideous fruition, my students were starting to submit final papers and projects. Normally this is a somewhat painful process - students misconstrue assignments, or don't do as well as they expect, or their lives blow up on them... But in the context of the end of this particular academic year, it's all hitting me like more tumult, angst, distress and trouble, and in the end, I feel like I've run out of resources to deal with it productively. I'm no use to anyone at this point.
It feels like I've been in conflict with someone, in some way, every moment I've spent on campus, all year. From the moment I wandered into the general faculty meeting, taking notes in my usual suspicious/paranoid fashion on the official administration line on the state of the university, to the last instant I spent today, in an otherwise perfectly ordinary and amiable meeting - constant, incessant conflict.
I'd be tempted to compare it to a play by Mamet or Pinter, but my pal Bobo the Wandering Pallbearer is coming to visit in a couple weeks, and he hates those guys, so instead, I've chosen to misappropriate Hunter Thompson's line instead.
Thompson gets the last word tonight. In a 1990 interview with William Keen, Thompson replied to the inevitable question about the drug use depicted in his work with inevitable cagey avoidance and cruel insight. His finely tuned sense of rage has helped me through a lot of hard times, as has, I'm fairly ashamed to admit, his heroic fatalism. I quoted this in a paper on the decadence of the professions of journalism and academia, presented at a conference a couple years ago.
I think I can, at this point, declare a provisional end to the academic year. The provisions are as follows: (1) I have yet to file final grades, (2) I have a handful of papers and other assignments still pending, but mainly from students I don't expect to hear from.
I started the academic year in my usual fashion. I went to the general faculty meeting, where the campus president announced that Clearwire had given us big bucks, and the university was flush, though looking ahead to uncertain times because of the state budget deadlock (one of these assertions was true, another was more true than anyone imagined at the time, and the third was in most respects divorced from reality).
That week, I sent the academic senate my legislative agenda for the year. I don't think most of the academic senate reps do this, but I do. This year my agenda was to revise the lecturer range elevation policy, to establish a faculty award for contributions to university governance, and to broaden lecturer eligibility to serve on university committees. The range elevation issue took all year to resolve, and that fairly unfortunately because of the compromises I had to make (and even so, it hasn't been signed by the president yet). The faculty and administration approved the faculty governance award, and the committee stuff is all pending. Mixed results, after a year of struggle on all that.
By November, the budget deficit that the president announced was gone in September had somehow re-emerged. Suddenly, the jobs of dozens of faculty were at risk because of an urgent need to eliminate a $5 million deficit (or something like that - reports varied). Over a couple weeks, we activated a fierce resistance to budget cuts that would slash lecturer jobs for Spring of 2009. It looked like we won.
Meanwhile, I was handling a grievance that I ultimately lost for no good reason I can discern, and which I've since been more or less told I handled improperly - even though I followed what I thought the advice I was getting said to do.
The following month I heard from a lecturer who was having a conflict with a student, that escalated into a spurious complaint against the lecturer and an administrative investigation. The investigation turned out to be inappropriately handled, so I tried to pull in the reigns as much as I could on it, with a lot of help from my friends. The interview came and went with no real consequence, perhaps in a small way as a result of our effort. It looked like we won.
Then the budget issue came back, with a vengeance. All Spring I was embroiled in the effort to organize and strategize resistance. The end result was that the full force of the cuts is going to be realized anyway. The lecturer we helped is likely to be out of work next year.
As that was coming to its hideous fruition, my students were starting to submit final papers and projects. Normally this is a somewhat painful process - students misconstrue assignments, or don't do as well as they expect, or their lives blow up on them... But in the context of the end of this particular academic year, it's all hitting me like more tumult, angst, distress and trouble, and in the end, I feel like I've run out of resources to deal with it productively. I'm no use to anyone at this point.
It feels like I've been in conflict with someone, in some way, every moment I've spent on campus, all year. From the moment I wandered into the general faculty meeting, taking notes in my usual suspicious/paranoid fashion on the official administration line on the state of the university, to the last instant I spent today, in an otherwise perfectly ordinary and amiable meeting - constant, incessant conflict.
I'd be tempted to compare it to a play by Mamet or Pinter, but my pal Bobo the Wandering Pallbearer is coming to visit in a couple weeks, and he hates those guys, so instead, I've chosen to misappropriate Hunter Thompson's line instead.
Thompson gets the last word tonight. In a 1990 interview with William Keen, Thompson replied to the inevitable question about the drug use depicted in his work with inevitable cagey avoidance and cruel insight. His finely tuned sense of rage has helped me through a lot of hard times, as has, I'm fairly ashamed to admit, his heroic fatalism. I quoted this in a paper on the decadence of the professions of journalism and academia, presented at a conference a couple years ago.
Drugs enhance or strengthen my perceptions and reactions, for good or ill. They’ve given me the resilience to withstand repeated shocks to my innocence gland. The brutal reality of politics alone would probably be intolerable without drugs. They’ve given me the strength to deal with those shocking realities guaranteed to shatter anyone’s beliefs in the higher idealistic shibboleths of our time and the “American Century.” Anyone who covers his beat for twenty years – and my beat is “The Death of the American Dream” – needs every goddamned crutch he can find.
As a journalist, I somehow managed to break most of the rules and still succeed. It’s a hard thing for most of today’s journeymen journalists to understand, but only because they can’t do it. The smart ones understood immediately. (Kingdom of Fear, 187)
Conan O'Brien: Is he Satan?
I've been an on-again, off-again fan of late-night TV since I was 10 or so. I remember fondly when David Letterman was funny.
Anyway, when Johnny Carson announced his retirement, apparently a fairly ugly competition arose between Letterman and Jay Leno. Leno won, Dave split for CBS, and into Letterman's slot NBC hired a weird-looking comedy writer with no interview experience. At first, the funniest things about Conan were his name and his hair.
Anyway, that's been a long time, and somehow O'Brien has managed to cobble together a reasonable facsimile of late-night humor (I wanted to say "jerry-rig," but that isn't ethnically-appropriate). His best bits, from the beginning, have been just like Letterman's best bits from his time at NBC: bizarre, or stupid, or juvenile - and preferably all three.
So we watched the beginning of O'Brien's first "Tonight Show." And we soon started to believe that there was something sinister going on.
Exhibit A: Rumors circulate that O'Brien forced Leno out, by threatening to leave for another gig. I don't really care whether that's true, but if it is true, it's fairly sinister. It has shades of the old Letterman/Leno fiasco. Only this time it somehow looked more like The Larry Sanders Show. Viz.: Andy Richter.
Exhibit B: The lengthy, absurd, forced, and ultimately not funny opening shtick, with Conan running across the country to get to LA for the first show because he forgot to move and couldn't catch a cab. This was the first indication what the show's bass note would be: cruelty. Pain and cruelty. As elements of humor, these aren't at all bad. Some of the best humor is painful and cruel. Viz.: Andy Richter.
Exhibit C: His hair, which was made weirder than normal - presumably to frighten young children and the elderly. Plus, it's red - the color of the hair of evil since time immemorial.
Exhibit D: The show is being filmed on the Universal Studios lot. For a first-night stunt (first of many, no doubt), O'Brien took over the play-by-play duties from a tour guide. He proceeded to have the tram buses run in a circle, while the tourists chanted "Circle! Circle! Circle!" in an offer of praise and an indication of their submission to Conan's authority. He then had the buses drive off the lot, through city streets, to a 99¢ store, where he bought every tourist their own personal piece of crap. Viz.: Andy Richter.
Exhibit E: Will Ferrell.
Anyway, when Johnny Carson announced his retirement, apparently a fairly ugly competition arose between Letterman and Jay Leno. Leno won, Dave split for CBS, and into Letterman's slot NBC hired a weird-looking comedy writer with no interview experience. At first, the funniest things about Conan were his name and his hair.
Anyway, that's been a long time, and somehow O'Brien has managed to cobble together a reasonable facsimile of late-night humor (I wanted to say "jerry-rig," but that isn't ethnically-appropriate). His best bits, from the beginning, have been just like Letterman's best bits from his time at NBC: bizarre, or stupid, or juvenile - and preferably all three.
So we watched the beginning of O'Brien's first "Tonight Show." And we soon started to believe that there was something sinister going on.
Exhibit A: Rumors circulate that O'Brien forced Leno out, by threatening to leave for another gig. I don't really care whether that's true, but if it is true, it's fairly sinister. It has shades of the old Letterman/Leno fiasco. Only this time it somehow looked more like The Larry Sanders Show. Viz.: Andy Richter.
Exhibit B: The lengthy, absurd, forced, and ultimately not funny opening shtick, with Conan running across the country to get to LA for the first show because he forgot to move and couldn't catch a cab. This was the first indication what the show's bass note would be: cruelty. Pain and cruelty. As elements of humor, these aren't at all bad. Some of the best humor is painful and cruel. Viz.: Andy Richter.
Exhibit C: His hair, which was made weirder than normal - presumably to frighten young children and the elderly. Plus, it's red - the color of the hair of evil since time immemorial.
Exhibit D: The show is being filmed on the Universal Studios lot. For a first-night stunt (first of many, no doubt), O'Brien took over the play-by-play duties from a tour guide. He proceeded to have the tram buses run in a circle, while the tourists chanted "Circle! Circle! Circle!" in an offer of praise and an indication of their submission to Conan's authority. He then had the buses drive off the lot, through city streets, to a 99¢ store, where he bought every tourist their own personal piece of crap. Viz.: Andy Richter.
Exhibit E: Will Ferrell.
Monday, June 01, 2009
hot!
I don't know why it took this long, but today, for the first time, I created my own hot sauce.
I've been a fanatic for Melinda's habanero sauce (especially the reserve and the XXXX) for years now. To me, the ideal hot sauce is just like the Figueroa brothers' (makers of "Melinda's"): the heat is esophageal, rather than lingual, dental, nasal, or guttural (okay, frankly, there's some guttural heat as well), and the sauce itself is not just about welt-raising, pain-inducing scorching. It has a delicate balance of flavor, for having the amount of Scoville units it punches.
Theirs is a habanero sauce, and I find I definitely prefer them. But since we're growing serrano chiles, I made a hot sauce from our first batch of those.
(There's a story behind my affection for serranos. I first grew them by accident, as an unlabeled pepper, in Pittsburgh. The plant doesn't look like most pepper plants, and I was surprised to find it fruited at all. The fruits were short, slightly thicker than crayons, about 2 inches long, and when I casually bit into one from a day's harvest one languid Pittsburgh summer night, I instantly dubbed the unknown beasties "Little Green Hot Fuckers." And so they remain.)
So, today's sauce:
11 serrano chiles (stemmed, but with seeds remaining)
1 large tomato
1/2 a medium onion
3 cloves of garlic
All of the above wrapped in foil and roasted for about 20 minutes at 375˚.
Tossed in a blender with:
kosher salt to taste
black pepper to taste
about 1/2 tsp honey
about 1 tsp double-strength tomato paste
juice of a lime
a tsp or so of white wine vinegar
Liquefied. Shazam.
It's decent. It's hot, but not as hot as I'd like, and doesn't quite have the balance of taste I want. It's still a good first attempt, and promising enough to lead me to think I'll be pursuing this venture.
I've been a fanatic for Melinda's habanero sauce (especially the reserve and the XXXX) for years now. To me, the ideal hot sauce is just like the Figueroa brothers' (makers of "Melinda's"): the heat is esophageal, rather than lingual, dental, nasal, or guttural (okay, frankly, there's some guttural heat as well), and the sauce itself is not just about welt-raising, pain-inducing scorching. It has a delicate balance of flavor, for having the amount of Scoville units it punches.
Theirs is a habanero sauce, and I find I definitely prefer them. But since we're growing serrano chiles, I made a hot sauce from our first batch of those.
(There's a story behind my affection for serranos. I first grew them by accident, as an unlabeled pepper, in Pittsburgh. The plant doesn't look like most pepper plants, and I was surprised to find it fruited at all. The fruits were short, slightly thicker than crayons, about 2 inches long, and when I casually bit into one from a day's harvest one languid Pittsburgh summer night, I instantly dubbed the unknown beasties "Little Green Hot Fuckers." And so they remain.)
So, today's sauce:
11 serrano chiles (stemmed, but with seeds remaining)
1 large tomato
1/2 a medium onion
3 cloves of garlic
All of the above wrapped in foil and roasted for about 20 minutes at 375˚.
Tossed in a blender with:
kosher salt to taste
black pepper to taste
about 1/2 tsp honey
about 1 tsp double-strength tomato paste
juice of a lime
a tsp or so of white wine vinegar
Liquefied. Shazam.
It's decent. It's hot, but not as hot as I'd like, and doesn't quite have the balance of taste I want. It's still a good first attempt, and promising enough to lead me to think I'll be pursuing this venture.
Friday, May 29, 2009
why I'm a better choice than Sotomayor
Dear President Obama,
Now that Sonia Sotomayor's unfortunate statement, in a 2001 speech, that having grown up as she did might make her decisions better than a white man's, has become the big news of her nomination to the Supreme Court, it's clearly time for you to reconsider her as your pick. By Newt Gingrich's logic, her claim is racist, and therefore equally racist to any other racist speech or action - which is to say, the word "better," in this context, is like Sotomayor was lynching all white men. How could anyone deny Gingrich's logic? I mean, he's Newt Gingrich! He has an impeccable record on ethics!
In any case, this nomination-debilitating scandal will no doubt require a new nominee, despite the fact that there's little groundswell of objection other than from people of Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh's ilk. In politics, the loudest voice wins, right?
So, if you're looking for a nominee with absolutely no skeletons in his or her closet, and especially no embarrassing public speaking past, I'm your man. No one records anything I say publicly, and if they did, they'd find a consistent record of saying nothing that would indicate any particular bias against anyone or anything, except marriage, child-bearing, the CSU administration, the Gubernator, members of the California and federal legislatures, Wal-Mart, equal marriage rights opponents, Dodge vehicles, the McDonald's corporation, drivers in Tulare and Madera counties, air travel, and Brussels sprouts.
Furthermore, I myself keep no record of any kind - electronic, analog recording, written, or in memory - of anything I say, in public or private. I am a clean slate. Again, I'm your man.
Enclosed, please find additional materials in support of my candidacy for the position of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. The recipe for mahi-mahi in tomato and cream sauce is excellent, if I do say so myself.
Yours sincerely,
Chris Nagel
Now that Sonia Sotomayor's unfortunate statement, in a 2001 speech, that having grown up as she did might make her decisions better than a white man's, has become the big news of her nomination to the Supreme Court, it's clearly time for you to reconsider her as your pick. By Newt Gingrich's logic, her claim is racist, and therefore equally racist to any other racist speech or action - which is to say, the word "better," in this context, is like Sotomayor was lynching all white men. How could anyone deny Gingrich's logic? I mean, he's Newt Gingrich! He has an impeccable record on ethics!
In any case, this nomination-debilitating scandal will no doubt require a new nominee, despite the fact that there's little groundswell of objection other than from people of Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh's ilk. In politics, the loudest voice wins, right?
So, if you're looking for a nominee with absolutely no skeletons in his or her closet, and especially no embarrassing public speaking past, I'm your man. No one records anything I say publicly, and if they did, they'd find a consistent record of saying nothing that would indicate any particular bias against anyone or anything, except marriage, child-bearing, the CSU administration, the Gubernator, members of the California and federal legislatures, Wal-Mart, equal marriage rights opponents, Dodge vehicles, the McDonald's corporation, drivers in Tulare and Madera counties, air travel, and Brussels sprouts.
Furthermore, I myself keep no record of any kind - electronic, analog recording, written, or in memory - of anything I say, in public or private. I am a clean slate. Again, I'm your man.
Enclosed, please find additional materials in support of my candidacy for the position of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. The recipe for mahi-mahi in tomato and cream sauce is excellent, if I do say so myself.
Yours sincerely,
Chris Nagel
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
wearing latex gloves
It's the start of exam week!
I stay away from the campus as much as possible during exam week. I collect final papers via email, read them on my iBook, and return to campus to file grades (I do it the old fashioned way, on paper).
Unfortunately, it's not going to happen that way this week. I have to be on campus two whole days during exams. Well, okay, for a couple hours each day. Alright, 90 minutes each day. The point is, I hafta be in Ickyschoolblecchfehyuckyland on two separate occasions.
This has been a looooooooooooooong academic year, so if I'm feeling petulant, and a little childish, I think it is understandable.
I stay away from the campus as much as possible during exam week. I collect final papers via email, read them on my iBook, and return to campus to file grades (I do it the old fashioned way, on paper).
Unfortunately, it's not going to happen that way this week. I have to be on campus two whole days during exams. Well, okay, for a couple hours each day. Alright, 90 minutes each day. The point is, I hafta be in Ickyschoolblecchfehyuckyland on two separate occasions.
This has been a looooooooooooooong academic year, so if I'm feeling petulant, and a little childish, I think it is understandable.
Monday, May 18, 2009
public intellectuals
Today's Inside Higher Ed newsletter published a story about Boyce Watkins, a finance prof at Syracuse who has had a feud with Bill O'Reilly, over some fairly stupid comments by O'Reilly. Apparently, Watkins is a bit of a firebrand. He's also a self-styled "public intellectual."
I believe randomly, this phrase has crossed my path a few times recently, which is a few more times than it usually does. During the last three weeks of sessions, the Cow State Santa Claus academic senate heard a resolution in support of Tom Ammiano's bill legalizing marijuana in California. During the debate over the resolution a couple faculty argued that the senate had no business considering the issue, but they were countered by an unchallenged claim that such matters are the business of the senate, because faculty are public intellectuals with the privilege and duty to speak on matters of public concern.
I don't seriously doubt faculty have the right, as individuals, to speak publicly, in any forum they like, about any issue they like, expressing any view they like. I also agree with the implicit premise that faculty have expertise and ability to think rationally and clarify and articulate issues in ways that could be a boon to the level of public discourse. I do wonder about this public intellectual business, though.
For one thing, there isn't much of a tradition in the US of public intellectualism. The fact that one of Watkins' credentials as a public intellectual is that he has appeared on O'Reilly's show suggests something about how much weight we give to public intellectuals. Their cultural currency doesn't have a high exchange rate.
Watkins' tenure battle might also indicate that those who stake a claim to being public intellectuals aren't terribly well regarded by their colleagues or their institutions. This is dicier, because it isn't so much his being a public figure that's at stake here, as the tone of the nonsense with O'Reilly, and, apparently, his use of the phrase "magic Negro." In the article, Watkins says, "The rules of academia change when you are part of a powerless group." True, and no one knows this better than the 70%+ of college faculty in the US who are not on the tenure track. It's hard to imagine a large number of my part-time and job-security-less colleagues experiencing the privilege and duty to speak publicly about anything. They probably wouldn't be recognized as intellectuals in the first place.
I'm not saying this is the fault of tenured faculty whose privilege it is to determine who has this privilege, what it means, and what legitimately can be done with it. It is largely their fault, but that's not my point. My point is that this ideological self-conception grossly overestimates faculty's political authority, where it doesn't misconstrue public intellectualism as speaking as an expert in a particular, narrow field of specialization. Other than the alleged effect on his candidacy for tenure at Syracuse (and other than the firing of Ward Churchill, to cite another example), it profoundly doesn't matter what the public intellectual says.
(The academic senate passed the resolution in support of the marijuana bill. No word yet on whether, as one faculty senator put it, the local community now regards us as a bunch of pot-heads.)
I believe randomly, this phrase has crossed my path a few times recently, which is a few more times than it usually does. During the last three weeks of sessions, the Cow State Santa Claus academic senate heard a resolution in support of Tom Ammiano's bill legalizing marijuana in California. During the debate over the resolution a couple faculty argued that the senate had no business considering the issue, but they were countered by an unchallenged claim that such matters are the business of the senate, because faculty are public intellectuals with the privilege and duty to speak on matters of public concern.
I don't seriously doubt faculty have the right, as individuals, to speak publicly, in any forum they like, about any issue they like, expressing any view they like. I also agree with the implicit premise that faculty have expertise and ability to think rationally and clarify and articulate issues in ways that could be a boon to the level of public discourse. I do wonder about this public intellectual business, though.
For one thing, there isn't much of a tradition in the US of public intellectualism. The fact that one of Watkins' credentials as a public intellectual is that he has appeared on O'Reilly's show suggests something about how much weight we give to public intellectuals. Their cultural currency doesn't have a high exchange rate.
Watkins' tenure battle might also indicate that those who stake a claim to being public intellectuals aren't terribly well regarded by their colleagues or their institutions. This is dicier, because it isn't so much his being a public figure that's at stake here, as the tone of the nonsense with O'Reilly, and, apparently, his use of the phrase "magic Negro." In the article, Watkins says, "The rules of academia change when you are part of a powerless group." True, and no one knows this better than the 70%+ of college faculty in the US who are not on the tenure track. It's hard to imagine a large number of my part-time and job-security-less colleagues experiencing the privilege and duty to speak publicly about anything. They probably wouldn't be recognized as intellectuals in the first place.
I'm not saying this is the fault of tenured faculty whose privilege it is to determine who has this privilege, what it means, and what legitimately can be done with it. It is largely their fault, but that's not my point. My point is that this ideological self-conception grossly overestimates faculty's political authority, where it doesn't misconstrue public intellectualism as speaking as an expert in a particular, narrow field of specialization. Other than the alleged effect on his candidacy for tenure at Syracuse (and other than the firing of Ward Churchill, to cite another example), it profoundly doesn't matter what the public intellectual says.
(The academic senate passed the resolution in support of the marijuana bill. No word yet on whether, as one faculty senator put it, the local community now regards us as a bunch of pot-heads.)
Friday, May 15, 2009
finally, some good environmental news
Hooray! We're slightly less doomed!
If sea levels only rise 10 feet, rather than 16 feet, well then, everything will be just peachy. I plan to carry this in my heart through the weekend.
That and Governor Schwarzedoofus' latest budgetplan farce. The basic gist here is that he's threatening the folks opposing the nonsensical ballot propositions that were part of the equally nonsensical February budget deal. If those don't pass, the budget is back to the drawing board, almost at the end of the fiscal year, and the Gubernator is antagonizing voters and the opponents of the insane ballot props by offering a new plan (same as the old plan, incidentally).
Hisransom demand "budget proposal" cuts education (including $1 billion from higher ed), releases prisoners, requires every household in the state currently earning more than $45,000 to take in at least one prisoner or one college student without compensation for room and board, and will sequester 37% of all state tax receipts for a special fund with the line-item name "Public Employee Butt-Kicking."
In a few years, we'll all be paupers out here, especially in the Central Valley, but hey, we'll have ocean-front property by then.
If sea levels only rise 10 feet, rather than 16 feet, well then, everything will be just peachy. I plan to carry this in my heart through the weekend.
That and Governor Schwarzedoofus' latest budget
His
In a few years, we'll all be paupers out here, especially in the Central Valley, but hey, we'll have ocean-front property by then.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
a second open letter to President Barack Obama
Dear Mr. President,
I have yet to receive a reply to my letter of 1 May, applying for the position of Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. I am writing today to re-affirm my interest in the position, amid ongoing public and media speculation about potential candidates. Let me be quite candid: I am the best qualified candidate available.
And when I say available, I mean that I may be imminently available, for this or any other position, I mean, like maybe in a week or so. (Many of my colleagues will definitely be looking for work as well, but, you know, screw them. This is a nation built on the principle of competition.)
As a reminder, my qualifications include:
* I am not an attorney.
* Thus, I am not inclined toward legalistic obscurantism.
* Which means, I don't buy their mumbo-jumbo.
* Thus, I am not going to be tricked by some fancy-pants who argues in Court.
* My legal opinions, such as they are, shall therefore remain unaffected by sleazy legal come-ons, gifts, favors, offers of free hookers and booze, etc., unlike some Supreme Court Justices I could mention.
* In fact, because I am immovable, I will be able to spend hours in Court doing valuable service for the nation, like polishing the furnishings of the Court and/or Justices Breyer's and Scalia's foreheads.
* In addition, because I am not an attorney, whatever my own foibles, they simply can't compare, right? You've never seen me in one of Rehnquist's private clubs!
Rest assured, I have mastered the essential legal concepts guiding this country, and would be ready, willing, and able to begin applying them to every case that comes before the Court, continuing our nation's history of justice. I am totally familiar with "don't ask, don't tell," "three-fifths compromise," "administrative immunity," "sanctity of marriage," and "separate but equal."
Most of all, I am willing, as I said before, to take the position at a discount. I am now willing to accept $85,000 as a starting salary. You can't beat that with a stick.
The media report that you'll be likely to want to appoint a woman, preferably Latina. I understand that. I can work with that. My partner thinks I look good in a skirt, and I have got long hair, if that helps. I can speak a little Spanish, too.
Yours sincerely,
Chris Nagel
I have yet to receive a reply to my letter of 1 May, applying for the position of Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. I am writing today to re-affirm my interest in the position, amid ongoing public and media speculation about potential candidates. Let me be quite candid: I am the best qualified candidate available.
And when I say available, I mean that I may be imminently available, for this or any other position, I mean, like maybe in a week or so. (Many of my colleagues will definitely be looking for work as well, but, you know, screw them. This is a nation built on the principle of competition.)
As a reminder, my qualifications include:
* I am not an attorney.
* Thus, I am not inclined toward legalistic obscurantism.
* Which means, I don't buy their mumbo-jumbo.
* Thus, I am not going to be tricked by some fancy-pants who argues in Court.
* My legal opinions, such as they are, shall therefore remain unaffected by sleazy legal come-ons, gifts, favors, offers of free hookers and booze, etc., unlike some Supreme Court Justices I could mention.
* In fact, because I am immovable, I will be able to spend hours in Court doing valuable service for the nation, like polishing the furnishings of the Court and/or Justices Breyer's and Scalia's foreheads.
* In addition, because I am not an attorney, whatever my own foibles, they simply can't compare, right? You've never seen me in one of Rehnquist's private clubs!
Rest assured, I have mastered the essential legal concepts guiding this country, and would be ready, willing, and able to begin applying them to every case that comes before the Court, continuing our nation's history of justice. I am totally familiar with "don't ask, don't tell," "three-fifths compromise," "administrative immunity," "sanctity of marriage," and "separate but equal."
Most of all, I am willing, as I said before, to take the position at a discount. I am now willing to accept $85,000 as a starting salary. You can't beat that with a stick.
The media report that you'll be likely to want to appoint a woman, preferably Latina. I understand that. I can work with that. My partner thinks I look good in a skirt, and I have got long hair, if that helps. I can speak a little Spanish, too.
Yours sincerely,
Chris Nagel
Friday, May 01, 2009
an open letter to President Barack Obama
Dear Mr. President,
I am writing to apply for the position of Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. I trust that you will give my application serious consideration, and I thank you in advance for your time and energy.
Because I am not a certified member of the Bar, in any state, nor in possession of a juris doctorate or other law degree, I feel I am uniquely qualified to serve on the Court. Because I have not studied law, I am free from bias with regard to case-law precedent in most areas, which will allow me to weigh the legal issues with greater care. In those areas where I am somewhat knowledgeable of Court rulings (mainly First Amendment rights and certain decisions regarding rights of patients), my biases are informed by my years of having taught philosophy classes, rather than by ideology.
Indeed, after 13 years of college teaching, all of it as temporary faculty, it's no longer possible for me to afford an ideology. I teach whatever I'm required to teach, whether I believe in it or not. Consequently, Senate confirmation will be a breeze: I'll tell them whatever they want to hear.
I understand the meanings of terms like Miranda rights and habeas corpus, ex post facto and gerrymandering. I can both read and write legalese. I can decipher some legislation.
Current salary for associate justices is $208,100 (which is less than each of the 23 Presidents of the CSUs make). I'll gladly accept a discounted salary, which has to help in tough economic times. Let's say $120,000. I think I can live with that, seeing as how it's more than double what I've ever made in a year.
Enclosed, find my curriculum vitae, letters of reference, a writing sample, and 3 8x10 glossies - 1 black-and-white head shot, 1 color posed shot (reclining), and 1 color 1/4 profile.
Sincerely,
Chris Nagel
I am writing to apply for the position of Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. I trust that you will give my application serious consideration, and I thank you in advance for your time and energy.
Because I am not a certified member of the Bar, in any state, nor in possession of a juris doctorate or other law degree, I feel I am uniquely qualified to serve on the Court. Because I have not studied law, I am free from bias with regard to case-law precedent in most areas, which will allow me to weigh the legal issues with greater care. In those areas where I am somewhat knowledgeable of Court rulings (mainly First Amendment rights and certain decisions regarding rights of patients), my biases are informed by my years of having taught philosophy classes, rather than by ideology.
Indeed, after 13 years of college teaching, all of it as temporary faculty, it's no longer possible for me to afford an ideology. I teach whatever I'm required to teach, whether I believe in it or not. Consequently, Senate confirmation will be a breeze: I'll tell them whatever they want to hear.
I understand the meanings of terms like Miranda rights and habeas corpus, ex post facto and gerrymandering. I can both read and write legalese. I can decipher some legislation.
Current salary for associate justices is $208,100 (which is less than each of the 23 Presidents of the CSUs make). I'll gladly accept a discounted salary, which has to help in tough economic times. Let's say $120,000. I think I can live with that, seeing as how it's more than double what I've ever made in a year.
Enclosed, find my curriculum vitae, letters of reference, a writing sample, and 3 8x10 glossies - 1 black-and-white head shot, 1 color posed shot (reclining), and 1 color 1/4 profile.
Sincerely,
Chris Nagel
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
ready to go
The CFA Budget summit is, as of now, prepared.
'tweren't easy. It seemed that, at every turn, one snafu or other emerged. For instance, there have been oodles of delicious bureaucratic madness, topped with whipped cream (okay, actually, it was CoolWhip TM - this is a bureaucracy, after all). There have also been overworked colleagues unable to participate in deliberative processes, essentially leaving me - a mere lecturer - in the uncomfortable position of deciding how my union will put on this function. There have also been the usual thousands of doubts, misplaced anxieties, and so forth, that make events like this, and my life in general, always a little uncomfortable.
But the planning is as done as it can get. After 1:30 tomorrow, by the time the dust has settled, for good or ill, no matter who I've pissed off or how much, the thing will be well and completely done.
Then the question will be whether it did any goddamn good at all. The answer to that won't come for at least a couple weeks, I surmise. Which means I'm not really done, because I can't really afford to stop organizing in whatever way I can. People's livelihoods, students' educations, and the university's future seem, to me, to be very much at stake, in how the budget crisis is handled.
I enjoy reading Marc Bousquet's blog about academic politics. I think, in the main, his analyses are spot on. Somehow, though, his post today didn't help.
'tweren't easy. It seemed that, at every turn, one snafu or other emerged. For instance, there have been oodles of delicious bureaucratic madness, topped with whipped cream (okay, actually, it was CoolWhip TM - this is a bureaucracy, after all). There have also been overworked colleagues unable to participate in deliberative processes, essentially leaving me - a mere lecturer - in the uncomfortable position of deciding how my union will put on this function. There have also been the usual thousands of doubts, misplaced anxieties, and so forth, that make events like this, and my life in general, always a little uncomfortable.
But the planning is as done as it can get. After 1:30 tomorrow, by the time the dust has settled, for good or ill, no matter who I've pissed off or how much, the thing will be well and completely done.
Then the question will be whether it did any goddamn good at all. The answer to that won't come for at least a couple weeks, I surmise. Which means I'm not really done, because I can't really afford to stop organizing in whatever way I can. People's livelihoods, students' educations, and the university's future seem, to me, to be very much at stake, in how the budget crisis is handled.
I enjoy reading Marc Bousquet's blog about academic politics. I think, in the main, his analyses are spot on. Somehow, though, his post today didn't help.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
party time for Arlen Specter
I'm not all that surprised.
Arlen Specter has never struck me as a particularly party-line kinda guy. He was a pro-choice Republican when Republicans routinely made anti-choice a national party platform plank. One year when Specter was up for re-election, pro-choice women in Pennsylvania (who'd normally swing liberal, hence Democratic) voted for him in droves.
He's always struck me as a bit of a flake, too.
But now he's a Democrat. So there you go.
Specter is losing to a right-wing-backed candidate in the Republican primary, Pat Toomey, so his party switch is clearly tied to his political ambitions. But as much as the Republicans are exaggerating this claim, Specter's own claim that the Republicans have moved too far to the right is also suspect.
What's really happened is that the Democrats have moved so far to the right that the party platform of the Republicans, circa 1984, now looks like the Democrats'. The Republicans may have left Specter behind, but the Democrats have moved right into his lane.
Which means that there's almost no discernible ideological divide between the parties. They vie for power, party power, and really, nothing else.
Coke or Pepsi?
Arlen Specter has never struck me as a particularly party-line kinda guy. He was a pro-choice Republican when Republicans routinely made anti-choice a national party platform plank. One year when Specter was up for re-election, pro-choice women in Pennsylvania (who'd normally swing liberal, hence Democratic) voted for him in droves.
He's always struck me as a bit of a flake, too.
But now he's a Democrat. So there you go.
Specter is losing to a right-wing-backed candidate in the Republican primary, Pat Toomey, so his party switch is clearly tied to his political ambitions. But as much as the Republicans are exaggerating this claim, Specter's own claim that the Republicans have moved too far to the right is also suspect.
What's really happened is that the Democrats have moved so far to the right that the party platform of the Republicans, circa 1984, now looks like the Democrats'. The Republicans may have left Specter behind, but the Democrats have moved right into his lane.
Which means that there's almost no discernible ideological divide between the parties. They vie for power, party power, and really, nothing else.
Coke or Pepsi?
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
word of the day
The word of the day is "boilerplate."
I subscribe to Merriam-Webster's word of the day email service, basically because it supplied me with wordplay fodder. I haven't done much with it for a while, for a number of reasons.
Beyond that, the service is pretty much useless. I don't mean that I already know what "boilerplate" means, so I don't need the M-W people to tell me it means a standard text that you repeat. I mean that the definitions and sample usage sentences they come up with are frequently so twisted as to render the word of the day unintelligible.
("Tartlets? Tartlets? Tartlets? No, the word's lost all meaning.")
Today, f'rinstance, the derivation of "boilerplate" included this gem:
(It goes on to tell us that the material was supplied on "boilerplates." In case you were wondering.)
Of course, this practice is no longer followed, now that there are computers. Nowadays, local newspapers consist of almost nothing but material supplied by large publishing syndicates. Just read the Modesto Bee some day. Better yet, don't.
I subscribe to Merriam-Webster's word of the day email service, basically because it supplied me with wordplay fodder. I haven't done much with it for a while, for a number of reasons.
Beyond that, the service is pretty much useless. I don't mean that I already know what "boilerplate" means, so I don't need the M-W people to tell me it means a standard text that you repeat. I mean that the definitions and sample usage sentences they come up with are frequently so twisted as to render the word of the day unintelligible.
("Tartlets? Tartlets? Tartlets? No, the word's lost all meaning.")
Today, f'rinstance, the derivation of "boilerplate" included this gem:
In the days before computers, small, local newspapers around the U.S. relied heavily on feature stories, editorials, and other printed material supplied by large publishing syndicates.
(It goes on to tell us that the material was supplied on "boilerplates." In case you were wondering.)
Of course, this practice is no longer followed, now that there are computers. Nowadays, local newspapers consist of almost nothing but material supplied by large publishing syndicates. Just read the Modesto Bee some day. Better yet, don't.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
you know, sometimes, I just don't know
My entry titles are getting more and more elliptical.
But that's beside the point.
I have been toying around with writing new news satire for a while. I last wrote stuff about the early days of the Bush administration and a series about the 2000 election. Then it seemed that the Bush people would be self-parodying. Then it all just got too depressing. I mean, I've been watching the Daily Show, but even that's pretty painful sometimes.
Now that Obama is president, for whatever reason a bunch of people have decided to convince themselves and others that he's a crazed socialist maniac, when in fact his actual policies are marginally different from Bush's on the economy and the middle east - a point that escapes most of what is sold as political commentary these days. Anyway, the level of unhingedness of these Obama-mad weirdos has got me writing a bit.
It started with Michele Bachmann (R - Crazyville), and I had to make up something about the "tea party" protests that have been referred to by Fox News commentators as "teabagging" - to the great delight of people who think that kind of thing is funny. Which I do.
Anyway, I followed the recipe for political satire type 3 (inflate cockamamie idea to the point of grotesque, absurd excess, for comedic effect and fun and profit) on the whole teabagging fiasco. Both these entries I've written as a blog that I'm calling "The Real Story." I think the conceit of it works pretty well. Lauren wants me to invent a history of the reporter, Neil "Red" Perskit, to explain that his previous blog was suddenly deleted under mysterious circs, etc., etc.
Read the comments on the teabagging story. Tell me I'm wrong: these people don't understand that it's a joke.
But that's beside the point.
I have been toying around with writing new news satire for a while. I last wrote stuff about the early days of the Bush administration and a series about the 2000 election. Then it seemed that the Bush people would be self-parodying. Then it all just got too depressing. I mean, I've been watching the Daily Show, but even that's pretty painful sometimes.
Now that Obama is president, for whatever reason a bunch of people have decided to convince themselves and others that he's a crazed socialist maniac, when in fact his actual policies are marginally different from Bush's on the economy and the middle east - a point that escapes most of what is sold as political commentary these days. Anyway, the level of unhingedness of these Obama-mad weirdos has got me writing a bit.
It started with Michele Bachmann (R - Crazyville), and I had to make up something about the "tea party" protests that have been referred to by Fox News commentators as "teabagging" - to the great delight of people who think that kind of thing is funny. Which I do.
Anyway, I followed the recipe for political satire type 3 (inflate cockamamie idea to the point of grotesque, absurd excess, for comedic effect and fun and profit) on the whole teabagging fiasco. Both these entries I've written as a blog that I'm calling "The Real Story." I think the conceit of it works pretty well. Lauren wants me to invent a history of the reporter, Neil "Red" Perskit, to explain that his previous blog was suddenly deleted under mysterious circs, etc., etc.
Read the comments on the teabagging story. Tell me I'm wrong: these people don't understand that it's a joke.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
irksome
I'm grading a set of Professional Ethics papers. I have received about 10 from students who are not attending, or not attentive, and who evidently believe that they can write nonsense, throw in the word "ethical" a few times, along with the names of a couple authors they were required to read, and that I'll see those words and let it pass.
It's driving me a little crazy this evening, because these crappy papers were, randomly, predominant among the last 20 or so I graded.
And I don't mean these are papers by folks who tried and failed, because they don't understand the language or they can't wrap their minds around the concepts, or because they just blew it interpreting the question. These are people who have decided that they will sign up for the course, not come to class, not do the work, and then try to trick me by writing things they think I'll skate over or will flatter what they wrongly imagine to be my prejudices. I've given them grades like 29 and 38 out of 100, but frankly, I don't think that's quite low enough. They deserve grades in negative numbers.
It's strangely like the end of the Flyers-Penguins game tonight, which the Pens won 4-1. With the game out of hand, the Flyers did what the Flyers always do - take cheap shots to try to injure or just to vent. With less than 30 seconds in the game, two Flyers took penalties on the same play on the ice, and another took a penalty while sitting on the bench during that play. Right off the next faceoff, another Flyer took another penalty. All three on-ice penalties could easily have resulted in injuries. They somehow deserve to have their goal taken away, and another one for good measure. Final score: Penguins 4, Flyers -1.
And it's for the same reason, really: disrespect, manifested as an obvious, lame attempt to get away with whatever they can get away with.
It's also strangely like the neo-conservative political maniacs lately, but that's another story.
It's driving me a little crazy this evening, because these crappy papers were, randomly, predominant among the last 20 or so I graded.
And I don't mean these are papers by folks who tried and failed, because they don't understand the language or they can't wrap their minds around the concepts, or because they just blew it interpreting the question. These are people who have decided that they will sign up for the course, not come to class, not do the work, and then try to trick me by writing things they think I'll skate over or will flatter what they wrongly imagine to be my prejudices. I've given them grades like 29 and 38 out of 100, but frankly, I don't think that's quite low enough. They deserve grades in negative numbers.
It's strangely like the end of the Flyers-Penguins game tonight, which the Pens won 4-1. With the game out of hand, the Flyers did what the Flyers always do - take cheap shots to try to injure or just to vent. With less than 30 seconds in the game, two Flyers took penalties on the same play on the ice, and another took a penalty while sitting on the bench during that play. Right off the next faceoff, another Flyer took another penalty. All three on-ice penalties could easily have resulted in injuries. They somehow deserve to have their goal taken away, and another one for good measure. Final score: Penguins 4, Flyers -1.
And it's for the same reason, really: disrespect, manifested as an obvious, lame attempt to get away with whatever they can get away with.
It's also strangely like the neo-conservative political maniacs lately, but that's another story.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
marriage fear, etc.
I have not had the stomach to watch any of the crazy people's ads about same-sex marriage. I didn't have the stomach to read all of this San Francisco Chronic op-ed piece about the ads.
However, I can inform all who blunder across this page about the homosexual agenda. You see, I've known several actual gay people. I know what the homosexual agenda is.
Ready? Sitting down? Seriously, I'm about to reveal the deep, hidden perversion of the homosexual agenda.
Okay, I warned you.
They want to lead their own lives and to be left alone by crazy intolerant people.
Disgusting, isn't it? Yucky yuck yuck!
Also in the news today: the shocking revelation that a woman from Tracy who has been arrested for murdering her daughter is a Christian who taught Bible study.
I believe these are related stories.
However, I can inform all who blunder across this page about the homosexual agenda. You see, I've known several actual gay people. I know what the homosexual agenda is.
Ready? Sitting down? Seriously, I'm about to reveal the deep, hidden perversion of the homosexual agenda.
Okay, I warned you.
They want to lead their own lives and to be left alone by crazy intolerant people.
Disgusting, isn't it? Yucky yuck yuck!
Also in the news today: the shocking revelation that a woman from Tracy who has been arrested for murdering her daughter is a Christian who taught Bible study.
I believe these are related stories.
Friday, April 10, 2009
spring=broken
It's spring break.
I have, lessee... 120 papers to grade. The last regular-season NHL games happen tomorrow and Sunday, and the playoffs start Wednesday - during spring break, which is deeply weird to me.
It's also time for a bit of a break from this year's CSU Budget Crapfest, and all that comes along with it (just this week: lies from the administration about a CFA grievance, in an attempt to make it seem CFA is causing budget problems, when, obviously, CFA doesn't decide how to spend the CSU's money, the CSU does - [rant omitted]).
I'm gonna try to actually, you know, take a break. I played a couple guitars for about an hour this evening, and may hit a few others. Why not?
And at some point, I intend to get back to writing anything of substance. I'm just fresh out of substance at the moment.
I have, lessee... 120 papers to grade. The last regular-season NHL games happen tomorrow and Sunday, and the playoffs start Wednesday - during spring break, which is deeply weird to me.
It's also time for a bit of a break from this year's CSU Budget Crapfest, and all that comes along with it (just this week: lies from the administration about a CFA grievance, in an attempt to make it seem CFA is causing budget problems, when, obviously, CFA doesn't decide how to spend the CSU's money, the CSU does - [rant omitted]).
I'm gonna try to actually, you know, take a break. I played a couple guitars for about an hour this evening, and may hit a few others. Why not?
And at some point, I intend to get back to writing anything of substance. I'm just fresh out of substance at the moment.
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