Tax The Super Rich NOW, Or Pay The Price

I'd say this article makes some pretty good arguments about why the super rich in this country NEED to be taxed (as if this should even be up for debate. Alas, we live in delusional times and our country is being run by - mostly - delusional people). I'd say a lot of the people who read my blog are part of a young group of highly educated and pissed off individuals who can't apply their talents and hard work to ANYTHING. Plus, they are drowning in student loan debt, and for what fucking reason? So, they can send half their paycheck to Sallie Mae each month? Yeah, I don't think so. This is not how the story was supposed to play out for people here. Institutional inefficiencies can be fixed. But who has the guts to regulate them? Tell me? Who has the guts? If people on the Hill, with all their ueber-rich donors and corps, don't listen up, they will have a revolution here. I don't know what it will look like, or when it will happen, but the super-rich are destroying the country. We are violent people, so who knows what this will look like.

Oh, and on a final note. Outstanding student loan debt has surpassed $900 BILLION. You think those people with all that debt are happy? Do you think they're getting by? Maybe they are, but not with relish!

Gidget Gein's "Capitalist Pig"

Tax Breaks For Employers Who Help Employees Pay Back Student Loans

Rhode Island Legislator Chris Blazejewski has proposed something quite intriguing in RI. Why not offer something like this nationwide? I know that there are so many small business owners who have probably had potential employees turn down their job offer because the pay was simply not enough - in fact, I know of several cases like that. Why not offer employers tax breaks who help pay off an employer's student loans?

The IRS does offer Employer Provided Educational Assistance (section 127 of the IRS code), but there does not seem to be any thing directly related to an individual's debt.

What's Cookin' In Higher Ed? The Race To Become The Stupidest State In The Union

Do I smell a conservative advocacy group in Florida too?

A young friend of ours recently visited a public college which we at Tenured Radical have admired for years.  S/he reported conversations with undergraduates about the effects of the persistent defunding of higher ed in that state, and the ways in which defunding has diminished a quality liberal arts education that people with very little money still have access to.  A prominent problem, in the view of students there, was incessant faculty turnover due to low salaries, poorly maintained library collections and the erosion of benefits. In turn, the constant loss of faculty  made it difficult to establish mentoring relationships, get recommendations for graduate school, or do senior honors work with faculty who had helped them develop the research and had planned to advise it.

The notion that college teachers are as interchangeable as hamburger flippers at Wendy's follows, of course, on the neoliberal notion that secondary school teachers are also interchangeable.  Furthermore, on no evidence, free marketeers have sold the notion that college professors will continue to work cheerfully, and to a high standard, for as little salary and as few benefits as colleges and universities choose to pay us. The only teachers you really want at your school, the logic goes, have the personalities of 18th century Franciscan missionaries in the New World, willing to sign on to thankless, ill-paid labor purely out of love for those to whom they will minister. Although this theory goes unspoken in an increasingly adjunctified world of private higher education, attacks on educational employees in New Jersey, California and Wisconsin seem to be giving new energy to strategies for disempowering and intimidating teachers at all levels.  This is particularly heartbreaking in states that seem to want to break with a long history of providing quality, public higher education to ambitious students with little money.

One problem with free market theories for reorganizing education is that they lead to a free market in educators.  This, in turn tends not to be conducive to what administrators need to deliver a quality education to students:  faculties who commit to a particular school, and create a culture of excellence, over the long term.  Policy makers who believe that free market competition creates better education for the most people have, frankly, never been in a classroom beyond their three-year hitch at Teach for America. While I don't know anyone in teaching who wouldn't consider voluntarily sacrificing money and prestige to make and keep a desired life as a college professor, I also don't know a single college professor who, on balance, believes that year to year contracts, no job security, diminishing benefits and the lowest possible pay are the basis for building a career in education.

Tell that to the Florida legislature.  Florida, of course, has been a leader in defunding education, (recently ranking 36th nationally in per pupil spending, ahead of luminaries like Mississippi) and in pioneering a terrific policy that gives troubled  schools in poor districts even less money to work with (repackaged by the Obama administration as "Race to the Top.")  Now it appears that Florida Republicans now want to do for higher ed what they have accomplished at the secondary level.  Word out of Florida today is that a bill that would prohibit the granting of tenure at state and community colleges went through a legislative committee yesterday and is headed to the state senate.  Faculty would work on annual contracts but administrators would not; only new and untenured faculty would be affected by the law.  As Denise -Marie Balona of the Orlando Sentinel reports,

Opponents argue it would prevent colleges — already strapped by budget cuts and increasing enrollments — from attracting and retaining top-quality employees.

But state Rep. Erik Fresen, who presented the bill at Tuesday's committee meeting, said the legislation is designed to help college administrators.

If administrators had more flexibility with their personnel, Fresen said, they would be able to expand and cut programs to meet student demand, which can sometimes change quickly.

"Oftentimes, the colleges cannot respond in time because of these 'handcuff' situations," said Fresen, a Miami Republican who chairs the House's K-20 Competitiveness Subcommittee that voted 8-4 to approve the bill.

The bill also requires colleges, when facing layoffs, to let go of their poorest-performing employees first instead of basing decisions on seniority.

At least one community college president has already come out in opposition to the bill and, as Balona reports, Florida Gulf Coast University experimented with one year contracts but "had such trouble holding onto faculty" that it now offers multi-year contracts. But he greatest impact will be on community colleges and the students who attend them. According to Univsource.com, 66% of young people in Florida who continue their education beyond high school do so in-state.  Two-thirds of them, even those who plan to take the B.A., will matriculate at community colleges following high school graduation.

So it is no accident that community college presidents, who are protected under the proposed legislation, understand what a disaster this policy is.  It worth emphasizing that the right has produced a new strategy that is remarkably consistent:  going after "workers" in the name of "citizens" and "taxpayers" -- as if they were not all the same people.  In Wisconsin, Michigan, and Florida right wing special interests and their political stalking horses have provoked college professors -- who are already educated, can leave the state and will -- with the hopes of caricaturing them as a bunch of overpaid, lazy babies who are sucking at the public t!t while students languish.  But the people who will suffer, as the little story I opened with argues, are students. Students will have a longer time to graduation, they will have access to less qualified faculty who can't get better jobs, and most of their professors will be stopping off on their way to somewhere else.  This, I am sure, will get lost in the debate as free marekteers replicate the success they have had in transforning the real estate market, higher finance and Iraq in the last decade.

In the coming weeks, we at Tenured Radical will have more to say about disinvestment in higher education in many kinds of schools, as well as its consequences for students as well as faculty.  The management actively solicits guest posts on these issues. Although we have consistently bucked for the reform of the tenure system, the elimination of tenure in a climate in which any protection for public employees, is under attack and any security for the creation and maintenance of stable, dedicated faculties that can guide students through a two or four year degree, is truly unthinkable. We withdraw that position, pending a change in the political atmosphere.

For homeschoolers, education reformers, and open-minded citizens: a paraphrase of JS Mill

If the general public realized how difficult it is to enforce the idea that every child must go to school and learn what is being taught there, they would not have to constantly discuss what schools should teach and how the schools should teach. If the government would make up its mind to require that every child receive a good education, it might not have to actually provide that education. It could allow parents to get that education for their children where and how they pleased, and only play the role of subsidizing the tuition of those who cannot afford to pay. The problem with government run education is not the requirement that children be educated, but that the government has decided that it should do the educating. No part of education should be run by the government. Because people are different and have diverse personalities and diverse needs, education needs to be diverse as well, with many different options. Government driven education is really just a method of making people exactly alike one another. Every government has the desire to tell students what to think and how to think it and they will do so if given the opportunity.

This is a paraphrase in modern terms of John Stuart Mill's thoughts on education taken from On Liberty published in 1859.

Tuesday Found Objects: What You Need To Subpoena From My Zenith Computer Today

I was hanging out this morning using my university computer to download BDSM pornography and order Angela Davis posters (paid for out of my research account, of course) when I decided to take a break and check up on what my other radical colleagues were doing.

They've been busy!  So without further ado:

• The Facts, Ma'am.  Jon Wiener, from his perch at The Nation, asks:  "What does it take to become the target of this kind of attack?"  Wiener points out that Cronon is "not Bill Ayers," but a self-avowed political centrist who published "a simple fact" that Republicans in Wisconsin did not want revealed:  their close ties to a group that drafts union-busting legislation and creates public relations strategies for passing that legislation. This fact, Wiener argues, "disrupts the Republicans’ explanation of what they are doing in Wisconsin. They say the new law there ending collective bargaining with public employee unions is an emergency response to this year’s fiscal crisis." However, "the goal is not to protect the little guy in Wisconsin but rather to help the big corporations that fund Republican operations."  Read the whole article here.  

• It's Being A Professor Who Thinks That Is The Problem.  One issue that we need to resurrect is the neo-liberal charge that tenure promotes the prolonged employment of "dead wood" professors.  Clearly, it is Cronon's failure to become dead wood that has made him notorious and, as it turns out, dead wood profs aren't the ch!cks and d00ds that some right-winger wants to light up after all.  No, no: some poor, defeated old sot, shuffling off to class with a tattered little set of notes after a nip too many turns out to be our ideal scholar.  Tony Grafton, that guy you saw flying by your office window in a red cape, and with a big "H" on his scholarly chest, nails it in the New Yorker blog when he reminds us that, unlike politicians, historians are responsible for researching and relating the truth, and the truth sometimes hurts.  As Grafton concludes, "the Republicans seem remarkably fragile. A professor writing a blog post gives them the shivers. It’s a good thing they chose politics, and not the kind of career where the going can really get rough. Professors, for example, teach their hearts out to surly adolescents who call them boring in course evaluations and write their hearts out for colleagues who trash their books in snarky reviews. These Wisconsin Republicans may never have survived ordeals like that. Happily, Cronon has been toughened by decades of academic life. He’ll be blogging—and teaching and writing—long after Wisconsin voters have sent these Republicans back to obscurity."  

(Which reminds me that I have students standing around my office door growling in a menacing way and shaking pitchforks at me as a reminder that I should be using my Zenith computer to get their grading done right now!)  OK, one more:

• Yes, Historians Actually Care About The Rights Of All Working People.  Eileen Boris is in the business section of the HuffPo this week, which you probably missed as you were clicking through to the ads for package tours to Cuba.  Boris asks us to celebrate Women's History Month and commemorate the Triangle Factory Fire by reminding ourselves that the vast majority of working class women, and men, are no longer employed in an industrial workplace.  While guaranteeing the basic employment rights of household workers are becoming the subject of new legislation, Boris points out, "one group of household laborers remains apart -- those paid by governments to care for needy elderly and disabled people. The California proposal explicitly excludes In Home Supportive Service workers, the type of worker whose omission from federal law the Supreme Court upheld in 2007 and the Obama administration has yet to rectify through new labor regulations. Meanwhile, Republican governors, as in Wisconsin, are eliminating collective bargaining for home care workers. An irony of current struggles might be that these public employees end up with fewer rights and poorer conditions than those who labor for individual housewives." 

As Women's History Month draws to a close, we at chez Radical admit that we have done little to celebrate it, so here's my proposal:  I would like to nominate Bill Cronon as an Honorary Woman.  This is one of the few awards available to historians that he has not received, and I think it is time.  Do we have a second?  Thank you, Historiann!  All in favor?

The aye's have it!  Sorry, Wisconsin GOP.  You lose again!

Mailing

Thanks again for your generous donations. As you all know, the content at AEM is entirely free, but it obviously takes a lot of time and effort to research and provide vital analysis about the student loan debt crisis. Lobbying costs money as well. I've been invited to a few congressional offices, so I will be raising money for a future trip to D.C. If you can match my $10 (or send more), that will enable AEM to continue advocating for student loan debtors. I'm headed to the post office now, and each donor has received a note from me that includes a symbol of the indentured educated class too. 

Keep your eye out for those stickers. If you haven't donated yet, please do so, and receive a free sticker!

Monday Found Objects: Or, What Wisconsin Republicans Would See If They FOIA'd My Email

Little things come in, and I sock them away.  But so that no one has to file any paperwork, or break my system passwords, here's what's lying around my email box today:

 How do I get these things?  Go here to buy a set of Prince William and Kate Middleton paper dolls, each with fifteen different outfits.  The dolls themselves are in their underwear, which I think is kind of interesting in the sense of what a future monarch and his queen might not have permitted even twenty years ago.   I would have understood if I had received an email soliciting me to purchase the "Past Presidents of the AHA Paper Doll Set," promising hours of fun as we cross-dressed Barbara Weinstein and Tony Grafton, but this one's a mystery, Governor Walker.  My guess is that they bought the American Studies Association mailing list.

 Do the AHA survey, save a tree.  Have you ever wondered -- as I do -- why there isn't an app for the American Historical Association?  Well go to this survey and let the AHA know how you feel about electronic publication.  I think you have probably read gripes on this blog about the high-quality journals that are partially read and have to be taken out for recycling with a back hoe.  What Americanist has time for even the most intriguing article about Byzantium?  What Byzantiumist has time for the labor movement in Victorian England?  And how about those pages and pages of painstakingly crafted reviews of books you will never actually hold in your hand?

From Comradde PhysioProffe (who has recently changed the spelling of his name): "Holy Fuckeoly!"  OK, this came into my non-university account, because CPP is propriety itself when it comes to the boundaries between professional and public.  But for those of you who are as yet unaware of the creative use this scientist makes of the English language, his take no prisoners attitude, and his minute attention to good food and drink, go check in at his house.

Triangle Fire Memories:  Last week, as I was gally-vanting around New England, other bloggers memorialized the anniversary of the lethal 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York's Greenwich Village, still the worst industrial accident on U.S. soil.  Now, from Vineyard Video Productions, we have "You May Call Her Madam Secretary," a documentary film about the career of a woman who was inspired by that tragedy to pursue a life in labor policy.  Frances Sternhagen presents the words of the first woman Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, in a film that gives us the history of a generation of liberals who would have eaten Scott Walker's lunch.  Got any budget left?  The video is a steal at $49.95.

The H-Net job listing.   That's a joke son -- there are no jobs!

Because We Are All Bill Cronon: An Open Letter To Our Colleague In Madison

Where is this clause in the constitution?

Dear Bill:

Welcome to the blogosphere!  I like the design of Scholar as Citizen, and frankly, I'm also happy to have another age peer in the house.  Although I've never had a whole political party go after me (very impressive, dude!), I did suffer an attack from a fellow historian and his followers that had its hair-raising moments. 

I didn't get the death threats on my voice mail that an untenured colleague at a prestigious flagship received from the Sunshine Band.  However, I got plenty of hate mail, as well as copies of numerous emails sent to Zenith's president, members of the history department, and the board of trustees.  These various communications, and numerous letters, all called for my termination -- something that was, of course, impossible, since I already had tenure. It wasn't covered in the national media, but it was ugly all the same. On the other hand, you are more famous than I am, so it stands to reason that you would get a splashy, welcome Tea Party.

Here's my favorite line from Mark Jefferson, Executive Director of the Wisconsin GOP, who filed the FOIA on your email, quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

"I have never seen such a concerted effort to intimidate someone from lawfully seeking information about their government," Mr. Jefferson said in the statement. "Further," he added, "it is chilling to see that so many members of the media would take up the cause of a professor who seeks to quash a lawful open-records request. Taxpayers have a right to accountable government and a right to know if public officials are conducting themselves in an ethical manner. The left is far more aggressive in this state than the right in its use of open-records requests, yet these rights do extend beyond the liberal left and members of the media.

Chilling.  Just chilling.  I hate it when the big, bad histowy pwofessors go aftah the eeny-weenie iddle politicians.  Pick on someone your own size next time, ok?

What is fascinating to me is that your politicians in Wisconsin seem to be so affronted by the right to free speech.  I thought the Republican party was all about our "freedoms": isn't that why they decided to trash the future of public education by diverting the money to a ten year war in Afghanistan and Iraq? Why we want everyone to have the right to not have access to affordable health care?  Every yahoo conspiracy theorist to have all the weapons he can afford?  Je ne comprends pas -- whoops.  There I go being all socialist and academic again.

Another lesson of this little episode seems to be that when a college professor says something well-researched and true he is on particularly thin ice.  I'm glad we cleared this up, because when Ward Churchill was fired, and right wing gun nuts orchestrated a campaign to force Michael Bellesisles out of his tenured job, I thought that it was poor citation, pretending to be a Native American and having an abrasive way of discussing the global context for terrorist attacks that were the issue.

Anyway, what you have discovered is that for all the trolls that are out there, plenty of colleagues will stand up for you too.  Feels pretty good, even though it is a steep price to pay to have your life disrupted at the worst possible time of year.

Whatever happens next, this episode presents some possibilities for the rest of us that are highly un-funny.  They are the kind of things we tenured radicals know, but never think about.  So for all the bloggers out there, and for all the fans of Tenured Radical, I would like to inaugurate what I will now call the Walker Rules of Electronic Communication and Knowledge (WRECK):

• Your university email account belongs to the university.  While Bill Cronon is being persecuted by a bunch of right wing Republicans determined to reduce the American working class to pre-industrial conditions, technically your employer can enter your email account whenever it chooses.  This means that we should all be careful what we say when we write from, or to, an edu address.  In fact, it isn't such a terrible idea to add your gmail or yahoo account to the signature line of your university account requesting that all personal communication be sent there.
• People (including students) who work in IT can get access to your university email through the web server whenever they want to.  They shouldn't, and they probably don't, but they are capable of it.  Don't put anything in an email that you would not want circulated.  This includes personal matters (sex), conflict with colleagues, and correspondence about personnel cases that reveals any information that you, the department, the referees, or the candidate might consider private.
• The computer you are assigned by the university belongs to the university, and they can search it at any time.  They can also search your office without a warrant.  According to FindLaw, unless you are covered by a state law or a union contract that prohibits such searches, "Employers can usually search an employee's workspace, including their desk, office or lockers. The workspace technically belongs to the employer, and courts have found that employees do not have an expectation of privacy in these areas.  This is also the case for computers. Since the computers and networking equipment typically belong to the employer, the employer is generally entitled to monitor the use of the computer. This includes searching for files saved to the computer itself, as well as monitoring an employee's actions while using the computer (eg, while surfing the internet)."  Does this mean that we should all be thinking about buying a home computer for all activities we wish to ensure privacy for -- downloading pornography, getting divorced, blogging?  Maybe.  And technically, the university could prohibit you from blogging on the computer they provide, although arguably this would be an infringement of academic freedom.
• You can't be sure you have erased something from a computer or a server.  In fact, according to Daniel Engber of Slate, you can be pretty sure that you can't erase anything permanently, even if you use a utility like Evidence Eliminator.  And even if you could, those emails that you sent are now on someone else's computer, someone else's server, and so on.  They are retrievable.
• The Republican Party is owned and operated by vicious thugs who abuse their power to make us all into corporate servants and lackeys for capitalist special interests.  This has nothing to do with computers:  I thought I would just throw this in.  But we are reminded that there is a long  history for this sort of activity in the United States:  in the late 1830s, for example, the southern slaveocracy pushed for national legislation to censor abolitionist literature.  When they didn't get it, beginning with South Carolina, they passed state laws that allowed local officials to seize these materials and open the mail of private citizens.  The parallel is obvious, isn't?  Freedom to have absolute power over labor > constitutional right to free speech.  It's a good thing the Grimke sisters didn't have an email account.

My understanding is that  there is a campaign underway at the public unis to forward all sent mail to Governor Scott Walker (that's govgeneral@wisconsin.gov), Mark Jefferson (that's mjefferson@wisgop.org) and GOP State Party Chairman Brad Courtney (that's State.Chairman@Wisgop.info). Anybody who wants to dialogue with other stalking horses for international capitalism members of the state party leadership can go here for their addresses.  Some people might interpret this as an attempt to crash their servers, but you and I know that it is just an attempt to give them a little historical context.

Anyway, Bill, good luck with this.  I've always enjoyed your work, and while I know you never sought out this kind of notoriety, we couldn't be standing up for a better guy.

your friend,

Tenured Radical

"I Feel All The Time Like A Cat On A Hot Tin Roof"

Received the news while sitting in a restaurant last night: Elizabeth Taylor, February 27 1932 - March 23 2011. I saw this movie for the first time when I was a student at Oligarch in 1976 and still think it is one of the rawest insights into love that has ever been put on the screen.



Go here for a full obituary from NPR.

Mixture Of Happiness And Dread: "My son just got accepted into UC-Santa Cruz, but . . ."

A woman wrote to me last night and let me know that she has mixed feelings about her son's acceptance letter from UC-Santa Cruz. I think her note speaks volumes about the fears that many parents are now having about their kids going off to school, especially when they are aware of the student loan debt crisis. Perhaps I am being presumptuous, but I think it is safe to assume that the kids who are currently sitting with me in this great coffee shop, that's a few blocks from Brown, aren't too concerned about student loan debt. (Although, I will say that I overheard a young woman complaining about her debt - it sounds like she's in med school at Brown. Graduate students are a different crew of people).

For most parents, I am sure many of them are fretting about sending their kids to school, and wondering how they'll be able to help them manage tuition (which continues to go up and up and up - oh, well, as long as no one asks why), the cost of living, and so forth. On another note, a friend of mine, who is leaving Korea soon, just let me know that he's going to grad school in the fall. When I inquired about the school's whereabouts, he said, "it's in the U.K. It's much more affordable than the U.S." I am glad to hear that he is going to pursue further education but at a much more reasonable price than most schools in the U.S. Any knowledge of the current situation points to how crippled the system has become, at least for student borrowers.

As for the mother I mentioned already, here's what she had to say in her email that was entitled, "A mixture of happiness and dread:"

Hi Cryn, well my son was just accepted to UC Santa Cruz, his second choice to UC Berkeley. He is an extremely brilliant kid, 19 and a Chem major .  .  . I am excited yet I am fearful about his future debts to this backwards educational system (future indentured educated citizen). . . Sometimes I wish we would have stayed in Finland where the Universities are virtually free. Anyway, thanks for all your insight and your writings. 


I exchanged several emails with this mother, and first replied, "Have you read my piece about ways to minimize student loan debt? I am happy to help you brainstorm on how to avoid accruing too much debt. Obviously, you are aware of the situation, and really that is winning half the battle at this moment. Any awareness is a great thing, because so many are not, and that is what pains me for those who are soon-to-be-students."

Are you preparing to see your child leave for school? If so, are you concerned about the amount of debt s/he is going to accrue while in school? Are you fearful, like this mother, that your son or daughter will become part of the indentured educated class?

"Yes, darling! That's wonderful news! It's simply wonderful that you are going to school  . . . but what about the cost? Oh, darling! Yes! Yes! I am so happy, but . . . I fear . . . I fear that you will become an  indentured educated citizen, my dear."

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Please indicate the color that you would like on either your check or on your PayPal order. Please don't forget! I'd hate to send you the wrong color.

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Politicians! Listen Up . . .Student Debtors . . .

are not the same as prospective/current debtors.

Again, current student loan debtors are not the same thing. That's right. Indentured educated citizens - yikes! That's an ole fashioned word, because nowadays we're all just a bunch o' consumers - continue to be ignored when you talk about that other group of potential and current borrowers. Of all people in society, you should be sensitive to rhetoric. Get it straight. Oh, wait . . . maybe you haven't gotten it 'straight' for a reason . . . 

I'd tell you to seek that direction, but that doesn't exist for student loan debtors anymore. Thanks to Buuusch! 

Ask The Radical: Search Committee Smackdown, Part Eleventy

Buy this poster while you wait.

It's that time of the year again.  You've gotten all gussied up in your glad rags.  You polished your power point and talked the talk. You perfected the technique of subtly checking your teeth with your bread knife at dinner.  You left -- well, you left that fly-back academic interview feeling good about yourself.  And then:

Nothing.  They never call, they never write.....

Dear Professor Radical,

I have appreciated your blogs about the job market.   I've tried to follow the rules-- both written and unwritten.

Could you post another one about the rules for search committees? The closer I get to a job without getting it, the more their etiquette seems to break down. I'm a big girl and I can handle rejection. But I don't like this awkward silence for weeks after the interview.  It makes me feel like a dirty one night stand. 

 If a search committee chair doesn't know to write a letter of rejection -- well, no big deal except that neither place I interviewed has had the decency to tell me they've moved on. I'm smart and figured it out. But it just seems decent to tell me before I read it on the Wiki or, God forbid, from another candidate.

 Can't we elevate the job process to a level that is more professional than bad dating ??  Thank God for basketball or I don't know what I'd do.

Well, you should also thank the Goddess that you aren't in my NCAA men's fantasy bracket, because I'm shooting a honkin' 96%!

OK, seriously.  This sucks   And you know it's wrong, but the question is, why do they do it?  I'll tell you the top five excuses for not talking to the candidates.

#5:  "We haven't finalized the deal with the candidate we did offer the job to, so don't alienate the other candidates in case we have to go to our second choice."  You know the worst of it?  They really believe that it would cause an unrepairable breach if, in this crummy market, they offered you a job as the second choice candidate.  This is what often prevents them from making a call that says, "You know, it came down to field, but we've offered the job to someone else and s/he has two weeks to respond.  We'll get back to you the week of the 21st, for sure, and let you know what is happening."  You're thinking, "Those d00ds have their heads up their a$$es!"  Not really -- they have their heads back in the 1970s, when getting the job as a second choice really was a ticket to nowhere and the people who voted against your hire also voted against your tenure case, just on principle.  And they would have been heartbroken to be a second choice, so you would too, right?  Right?  Uh -- I can't hear you, the industrial dishwasher is too loud.....

#4:  "Was that my job?  I thought the dean was supposed to be in touch with the candidates."  At many schools, some people will never run a search in their lives, and in small departments, many people may never even be on a search committee.  I know at Zenith, you have a meeting with administrators prior to commencing your search.  They cover all the parts of the process that  have to do with affirmative action diversity hiring, but there is no instruction, written or otherwise, about how to run a search in a way that is gracious or efficient.  The assumption is that you have learned this by being searched for (the same goes for tenure:  everything you need to know to decide someone else's fate for the first time, you learn by coming up for tenure.)

As an added wrinkle, in many departments, once the candidates are produced, the search committee dissolves, and it may be no one's job to be in touch with the candidates.

#3:  "When the heck are we going to get budget approval for this hire?  Can someone call the dean, fuh Chrissakes?"  Believe it or not, at many small schools, the administration approves multiple searches, but only actually has funding for X% of them.  Departments propose their candidates, and the administration decides which ones are the "best" -- and only those departments get a new hire.  This, and other budgetary shenanigans, can hold up a process for weeks.  Throw a spring break in, and it's a real clusterf**k for the candidates.

#2: "We got our first choice! We got our first choice!  Uh -- What other candidates?"  This is what you fear, and I am afraid it is often true.  Academics can be narcissistic a$$hats, and unfortunately, because you no longer have anything to do with them, it's as if you never existed.

#1:  "That's a really awkward and unpleasant call to make and I would really rather not."  Really, this is the reason that most finalists never hear from anyone.  It's gotten too personal, and they don't want to disappoint you in person.  What they don't get, because they can't cope with this, is that you already know and you would rather be treated like a person!

But seriously, guys. This is the second person I have heard from this week who was told they would hear something in a certain time frame, and they haven't even gotten a call to be told that nothing is decided yet.

WTF, search committees?  Don't you read Tenured Radical?

Quick Question: Net Price Calculators - Used it? If so, any success?

It's that terrifying and exciting time of year for parents and prospective students. The applications for college admission have been sent off, and now it's time to wait, agonizingly so. Tremendous changes are around the corner for soon-to-be college students and their families.

Around the time all those new students have settled into their routines on campuses across the country, there will be a new feature on college websites. By October 2011, all colleges will be required to post net price calculators (NPCs) to their sites.

These calculators have been implemented already at a few institutions - 16 schools offered them by January 2011 - so I'm wondering if any of have you used them, and if so, how did you feel about the results and so forth? Also, did you find that the NPC results matched your financial aid award letters?

Related Link

Early Look At College Net Price Calculators Finds Mixed Results

Quick Quote

"True progress quietly and persistently moves along without notice." - St. Francis of Assisi 

Part I: A More Formal Critique

Apparently critiques of President Obama are not popular among some of my readers. In previous posts about the President, here's what a few people stated:

Anonymous, "I don't understand Cryn's harsh treatment of Obama. No one to the left of Obama is electable and even he must move to the center for purposes of reelection. If he somehow loses in 2012, the Repubs will run wild."

Liz, "I am just done with hearing all the complaining from Progressives . . .  You ran against your own party. YOU LOST."

Before I list the10 explicit reasons why I criticize the President and believe it is patriotic to do so, I think it is worth mentioning that I've been thinking a lot about the whole cockamamie saying about voting or supporting the "lesser of two evils." I despise this idea. Max Lerner added a good twist to that adage, "When you choose the lesser of two evils, always remember that it is still an evil.” That's just one reason why I hate it and am fed up with people suggesting that my criticism and stances are dangerous or wrong. As for Liz's remarks, she is quite wrong about the way I voted in the last election (we've already discussed it, too). I went out on the streets for President Obama. I called people and urged them to vote for him. I was there in Manassas on the eve before his election. Not only that, I was part of the actual Inaugural events. My name was drawn out of a hat that was filled with thousands and thousands of others, and chosen to be part of the day he was sworn in. On that day, I stood a few feet from the White House, and when the limousines came by us (I was standing with just two other women), soon-to-be President Obama waved at me. That's right. He waved and he smiled. The power of that face-to-face moment still blows me away. But when I think about that profoundly moving moment, as well as the hope I felt in Manassas, those feelings are now coupled with deep anguish. The sense of betrayal keeps me up at night.

Here are the 10 reasons why I criticize President Obama (mind you, it is not just the man  - that is naïve - but the administration behind the man):

(1) Pfc. Bradley Manning. Manning has neither been tried nor convicted, and yet he is being held in solitary confinement 23 hours a day. He has also been forced to sleep naked and stand outside of his cell naked. Check out the Geneva conventions and see how they describe torture and inhumane treatment. Manning is on OUR land. He is in Quantico, VA.

- "PJ Crowley Resigns After Bradley Manning Comments,", Washington Post, March 13, 2011
- "PJ Crowley: Bradley Manning Treatment 'Counterproductive and Stupid,' Huffington Post, March 11, 2011
- "WH Forces Crowley To Resign For Condemning Abuse Of Manning," Salon, March 13, 2011
-"With Crowley's Ouster, Obama Fully Owns The Torture Of Bradley Manning,"  FDL, March 13, 2011

(2) Ah, yes. Change we could all believe in. Change like . . . the continued surveillance on American citizens? But when it comes to national security policy, I am clearly just a nincompoop. Ethics? Pish-posh! As Tony Soprano would say: "Forgettaboutit, Cryn . . . pass me some prosutt and capacol." (Then he'd take his two paws and wrap them around the back of my neck).

(3) Obama's New Executive Order On Guantanamo - Huh. This kinda reminds me of the guy he replaced. What was his name? Oh, yeah . . . Buuuuusch. But I'm probably just thinkin' like some nincompoop again.

(4) Higher Education - In President Obama's first State of the Union Address, he mentioned the issue of student loan debt and the problems we're facing as a country when it comes to financing higher education at least 5-6 times. I credit the continued work of people and organizations like NCLC (Deanne Loonin, et al.), New America Foundation (specifically Higher Education Watch - Steve Burd has and continues to do superb work), SponsorChange.org, EduLender, All Education Matters, the Scambloggers (such as Third Tier Reality, First Tier Toilet, But I Did Everything Right! , Subprime JD, Esquire Painting, Fluster Cucked, The Law School Tuition Bubble, and so forth), etc., etc. for pressuring the administration about helping current borrowers, and raising questions about the absurd nature of why so many graduates are drowning in student loan debt. These efforts come from the ground up, and I have no doubt that all of our hard work - and that includes all the volunteers who help me on a consistent basis - were a reason for the President's remarks. My favorite one? "In the United States of America, no one should go broke because they chose to go to college."

Now did President Obama make any mention of student loans or those struggling with student loan debt in his latest SOTU? Nope. He made not a peep. NOT. ONE. WORD. Instead, we still hear the same old tired policy claims, exemplified by Heather Higginbottom's remarks when a woman wrote to her about having a lot of student loan debt. I have news for her and the administration: you cannot use current debtors interchangeably with prospective and current students. Those groups of people ARE NOT THE SAME. Plus, I have yet to hear from Roberto Rodriguez. AEM has carried out countless letter writing campaigns to him. At least 40-70 people have sent letters to him, expressing their concern about the student loan debt crisis. We have implored him to listen to our side of the story. Hell, I've even spoken to Mr. Rodriguez on the phone. That was a year ago, and he failed to respond to my question about how the administration plans to help current debtors. But I know that addressing the issue is toxic, because the administration is filled with people who continually talk about the whole 'moral hazard' issue. You owe it to us, Mr. Rodriguez. We deserve a spot at the table.

(5) Entrenched interests vs. the promise to 'clean up Washington.' In 2007, Obama promised to clean up Washington. Criticizing Presidential opponent Hilary Rodham Clinton, he said she didn't understand the problem. He added, "My argument is not that we're perfect [i.e. politicians of any kind]. I suffer from the same original sin of all politicians, which is we've got to raise money . . . But my argument has been and will continue to be that the disproportionate influence of lobbyists and special interest is a problem in Washington (and) in state capitals." He then promised, "The argument is not that I'm pristine, because I'm swimming in the same muddy water . . . The argument is that I know it's muddy and I want to clean it up." How's the clean up going, Mr. President?


To Be Continued . . . 

Why Do The Kids Have Beans In Their Ears? It's Hazing Season Again

I'm sorry - what position do you play?

Years ago, one of my students told me about a team hazing gone wrong.  First year athletes were forced to drink massive amounts of alcohol.  Then strippers, hired by the older students, were brought onto the scene.  The strippers disrobed down to their G-strings and initiated a lap dancing thingie with the team initiates.  But then one of the students being hazed freaked out, started yelling and tried to escape (the doors were locked, of course.) Two other students passing by heard the commotion, called Public Safety, and then broke a window because they thought the person inside was in danger.

Want to know the best part?  The team doing the hazing was a women's team and the strippers were male. The young woman who freaked out, who was also drunk out of her mind, thought she was going to be raped as part of the "initiation."  The student rescuers were also male, by the way, which is a nice part of the story (although the students relating it had a kind of "can you believe those d0ucheb!gs?" look on their faces while relating this portion of the sorry tale.)

Let's leave aside the kind of money that is spent on these teams to have the whole enterprise be damaged, not only by the drinking and brutality itself, but by canceling the season when it is discovered, firing athletes from the team, and having a scandal to deal with as the coaches try to recruit other athletes.  What is so agonizing about this little Lord of the Flies scenario is that at Zenith, like all other schools, hazing is illegal and those who do it theoretically subject to severe penalties.  Students know this.  Each team gets a little talk from the athletic director at the beginning of the season explaining this in graphic detail:  I am the faculty adviser to one of the teams, so I've heard the talk that every team gets, and there is nothing unclear about the policy.

Then students go out and haze new team members anyway.  And students agree to be hazed, having been told it is dangerous and wrong, but leaving that information at the door because it is the kind of thing dumb grownups talk, talk, talk about.  (Note:  the incident I described above did not happen on the team I am connected to.)

Fast forward to the swim team scandal at Middlebury College reported by ABC News yesterday:

Little is known about what happened in early February at a swim team party. The event was designed to welcome first-year swimmers onto the team, but the school newspaper the Middlebury Campus reported that the party "crossed the line from innocent initiation to hazing."

This isn't the first time the Middlebury swim teams have faced tough punishment for hazing. In 2006, the men's season was canceled due to a hazing incident that involved alcohol. In 2003, the women's team missed two meets for hazing related offenses.

My question is:  why do people have to be initiated into athletic teams at all?  Isn't coming to practice enough?  And why does the discussion about sexual violence on campus not get connected to the fact that women are brutalizing each other too but calling it something else?  As a relevant aside about the willingness of students to participate in dangerous and painful acts that are the price of "belonging," click on the link above. After viewing an ad about psoriasis, you can see a short news item about a branding scandal at Texas Christian University, which the boy's parents only know about because the burn is so severe that he will require several surgeries to repair it.  Look at the $hit-eating grin on the face of the kid who was branded, and compare it to his parents' outrage.

Middlebury isn't saying what happened, probably on the advice of  their attorneys (the men's team was briefly pulled from competition too, but has apparently been permitted to continue their season.) Since Vermont has laws against hazing, if I were a local prosecutor I would start dumping paper on them right now since this is the second swim team scandal that has become public:  the men's team had its season cancelled in 2006.

But I think Middlebury should say what happened, because it is happening at other schools too.  I became privy, because of email address confusion and the tendency of angry people to hit "reply to all," to a second athletic scandal some years ago that resulted in a number of upper level students being tossed off the team mid-season.  I was stunned by the nature of the behavior being disciplined and the large numbers of people who must have known about it prior to it being discovered by administrators.  Furthermore, although it was probably a parent who blew the whistle in the first place, I was shocked by the number of parents who didn't think what had happened was such a big deal and that the punishment was out of line with the behavior (which was clearly illegal and a potential expulsion offense at Zenith.)  They were outraged that the administration even thought it was their business that this thing had happened on school property. Several emails said pointedly that the abrupt termination of their progeny's athletic career was a punishment to them because of all the sacrifices they had made in helping to develop that child as an athlete (which would make a lot of illegal behavior acceptable because.....?)

I may be one of fewer than five people left on campus who actually knows what happened, and this is because, like rape,  colleges balance the probability that this behavior will continue regardless of what they do against their strong desire to manage public information about the school.  The secrecy of college judicial boards undermines a critical function of punishment, which is to deter future behavior by making it clear to the larger community what constitutes unethical behavior and why it is unethical.  If Middlebury is distinguishing between "initiations" (which are OK?) and hazing (which is not), but being mysterious about the difference between the two, they aren't acting effectively to prevent future violations.

Take My Phone. Please.

"Why don't you try two Dixie Cups and a string!?"

A couple years ago I began to receive e-mails from a dear friend in the University of California system; in the signature line, the e-mails said: "ACADEMIC OFFICE PHONE DISCONNECTED DUE TO BUDGET CRISIS."  The first time I got this message the initial, draconian cuts had just been announced. Students and faculty were in the streets in California.  Many of us at private institutions were waiting for the ax to fall.  Later, we were accepting the news that there would be no raises the following year, and that by doing this our institutions might be able to avoid the layoffs of adjuncts and staff that many of the public unis were enduring.

Fast forward three years to where we are at Zenith, as far as I can tell.  We ended up laying off lots of those people, and allowing other positions to go unfilled. At street level, things are horrendously disorganized, and you have to make a special call to get someone to vacuum your office.  We have not received a raise that was not instantly swallowed by the increased cost of our benefits.  In real dollars, our pay is static and losing traction; research and conference dollars tend not to meet expenses incurred.

The health insurance situation is pretty scary too.  All employees are being asked to carry a greater share of our health insurance premium this year than last. Full professors are being asked to consider helping the administration to compensate associates and assistants by taking on the largest premiums, which is a major policy shift. Associates are not getting more than a salary bump at promotion, and are being asked to consider subsidizing in the compensation of assistants by paying larger premiums than they do, essentially nullifying much of the raise.  Staff have actually had their total compensation cut as a lesson to all of us about what the future holds.  Furthermore, everyone who works for the university is being asked to accept cuts in compensation so that the university can build endowments to pay for unlimited student financial aid and shave a percentage point off next year's tuition increase.  This will make us the second or third most expensive liberal arts school in the nation, as opposed to the most expensive (which means it is still inaccessible to the vast majority of Americans.)

Now, lest you think I am a lunatic, let me just say:  the fiscal health of the institution might require these things.  I don't really know:  I am surviving these changes by tuning them out and putting my queer shoulder to the wheel of my writing.  Because the misfortunes at chez Radical are slight this year, I also feel that the salary I am not getting could be interpreted as a kickback to the administration in exchange for having not been put in the position of making these decisions and becoming the object of outrage.  They are difficult decisions, with no easy answers, and universities being what they are, would have drawn criticism from some quarter whatever shape they took.

And yet, after almost two decades in which we have repeatedly been promised that Zenith will do something about a compensation rate that lags far behind our peer institutions, one can't help but feel that they have thrown in the towel without admitting that they have done so.  You wish they would bring that big girl out and let her sing so you could stop thinking about it.

But here's the good news.  Austerity has produced some moments of breathtakingly simple, but shining, intelligence, that may pave the way for a leaner but smarter budget.  For example, someone in the Zenith administration had the bright idea of phoning around to ask those of us who had not used the entire budget allocated for conferences already attended if all of our receipts were in.  If so, could we release the money to replenish the budget line so other colleagues might be funded for conference attendance?  My source tells me that they reclaimed $10K this way that otherwise would have been slushed into next year's budget.   I think they should use $500 of it to give whoever thought of this a bonus.

In the spirit of accentuating the positive, I have a suggestion:  why don't you take my phone?

I'm serious.  I don't know how much my phone costs, but whatever it is, it is not worth it.  Here's why:

• I don't think a student has called me on my land line in over three years.  Students always contact me by email, grab me after class, or drop by my office. Since teaching is 1/3 to 1/2 of my job, and students do not telephone me, this means most of my work would not be impacted by the loss of a land line.
• In the past year, I think I have received fewer than five telephone calls from administrators or colleagues outside the department and program in which I am appointed.  They contact me by email too.  Those people who know me, or like me, well enough to call me on the telephone, call me on my mobile.  Those people who call me on my office phone often do not get that call returned for several days: I don't check my messages at the office because hardly anyone ever calls me.
• In the past year, I have probably made ten phone calls to administrators, all of which have been to deans, regarding a student in crisis.  If they are not there, I ask them to return the call to my mobile.
• In the past three years, I have initiated exactly one conference call from my office phone.  I can now accomplish this on my iPhone.
• I used to use the university WATTS line for work-related long distance.  I no longer need to do this, as unlimited long distance in the US and Canada is now part of a standard home telephone package and I have unlimited minutes on my iPhone in the US.
• Because the university stopped printing an annual telephone directory, and fired or reassigned the telephone operators, I have no idea what most people's extensions are and getting them is a tedious task involving the online directory.  Worse, we have a voice recognition directory that gives you the right person about 40% of the time.  "TENURED - RADICAL," you find yourself enunciating into the receiver, for the fourth or fifth time. "Ringing - Benjamin - Clavical," the robovoice intones primly. In addition, because our landlines do not have speed dials, it is just easier to program colleagues' mobile phones (and the office extensions of administrators) into my own mobile. 
• When I want to talk to colleagues in my building, I get up and stroll down the hall.  Since over half of my colleagues are junior to me, talking in person seems like the more civilized choice.  Furthermore, people under the age of 35 don't even have land lines at home.  Why would they need them at the office?
• Here is who calls me most regularly on my office telephone:  robocallers and textbook sales people.  Far off in second place are colleagues and administrators; and in a close third are parents, to whom I am mostly not permitted to speak.  In total, I would say I receive ten telephone calls a month on my land line, of which 1-2 are real people; I make about 3 calls a month.

So take my phone, Zenith.  Please.  By doing this, you could free up some money in our zero-sum budget game to reduce the cost of my benefits or bump up my research money.  Or give me a tiny bonus to subsidize my cell phone costs.   Or keep the money and allow me to deduct the cost of my mobile from my taxes as a legitimate business expense.  And it would clear a lovely space on my desk where I could put a vase of spring flowers -- or a box of Kleenex, to prepare for the next round of budget cuts.

Killing Two Birds With One Stone: Tea Party Candidate Solves Social Problems, Shoots Self In Foot

Tea Party social welfare program?

In case you were wondering why we haven't solved the problem of how to get cheap food on the table without large numbers of undocumented workers who will work under substandard conditions for no money, it's because wussy liberals won't bring back the chain gang.

Okay, Jack Davis, who wants to run for the vacant seat in New York's 26th congressional district didn't quite say that.  But this is what the Tea Party candidate did say, according to reporter Jerry Zremski, as he was being screened by the GOP in that state:

that Latino farm workers [should] be deported -- and that African-Americans from the inner city [could] be bused to farm country to pick the crops.

Several sources who were in the Feb. 20 endorsement interview with Davis confirmed his comments, which echo those he made to the Tonawanda News in 2008, when he said: "We have a huge unemployment problem with black youth in our cities. Put them on buses, take them out there [to the farms] and pay them a decent wage; they will work."

Since Davis has been articulating such views publicly for at least two years, so the shock being expressed by the New York Republican Party leadership means little else than that they aren't doing their homework.

"I was thunderstruck," said Amherst GOP Chairman Marshall Wood. "Maybe in 1860 that might have been seen by some as an appropriate comment, but not now."


Davis spokesman W. Curtis Ellis acknowledged that Davis' comments "may not be politically correct and ... may not be racially correct."

Yes, Mr. Ellis, we can start there.  Davis's comments are also really st00pid.  One wonders how far the Tea Party tolerance for come one, come all freedom of expression will extend in the next election cycle if upstate New York Republicans (who are about as conservative as God makes 'em and not your normal bastions of political correctness) are running for the hills on this one.

Hat Tip.

“Don’t worry, he will go to college”

Someone I know had their three year old son, who was acting oddly, evaluated by a psychologist. He was diagnosed with something that translated as a mild kind of autism. The psychologist then said: “don’t worry, he will go to college.”

I found this remark hilarious at first but now see it as a very sad commentary on our college-obsessed society. The same day that I was pondering this, The Chronicle of Higher Education ran the following story:

Nearly a Third of College Students Have Had Mental-Health Counseling, Study Finds

“About a third of college students have sought mental-health counseling, but they are much more likely to say they experience anxiety and stress than they are to report trouble with more-severe problems like violence or substance abuse.

When responding to statements about academic distress, more than 70 percent of students reported a positive attitude about their academic ability, but 21 percent of students agreed that "I am not able to concentrate as well as usual" and 25 percent agreed that "It's hard to stay motivated for my classes."

32 percent of students have attended counseling at some point.

The report also included statistics about suicide: 9 percent of respondents reported that they had seriously considered attempting suicide before college, and 7 percent said they had considered attempting suicide either after coming to college or both before and after coming to college. Five percent of students reported that they had made a suicide attempt.”

In general, as anyone who has been there can attest, college is a stressful experience. It is an experience that doesn't necessarily result in a better job at the end, and one that allows students to major in subjects that in no way lead to a career. The social anxiety at college is palpable. Students are worried about classes and grades, but not so much they actually show up to all their classes or do the work expected of them. They are worried about their social relationships, but it is rare for them to actually be taught about such things in college.

But yet, going to college is seen as the ultimate issue. As long as the kid can go to college, he will be fine. How sad that we actually believe this.

A Casualty Of The Archives: Put Me On Research Injured Reserve, Please

You did it again, Charlie Brown.

Two days ago I woke up with a slightly sore back.  I did what I normally do with back pain (other than worry that my advancing age is causing my arthritis flareups to accelerate):  pop two Advil and flex in the shower while hot water pounds on my lower spine.

It got worse.

Four hours later, I got up from my computer and was seized with paralyzing pain extending in a band around my spine.  Such pain, at that central location of the body, causes involuntary gasps that sound like this: "$hi-hi-hi-hi-hitte!"

I couldn't think what I had done to cause this problem.  I haven't been rowing (the recent flooding blew away our club dock, and you can't erg on the road.) The only exercise I have had during and after my travels has been my normal regime of weight lifting and a daily, sedate turn on the Exercycle.

I took two more Advil. And a Valium. No dice.

I'll spare you the rest of my treatment program (oh, hell -- why should I?  I use the Valley of the Dolls method: codeine, vodka, more Valium to stop the spasms and ice packs.)  However, as I lay in bed catching up on my grading, I had plenty of time to think.  As the pain receded and localized to a small spot on the right side of my spine, I realized that the problem was my old friend:  Archives Back.

Yes, Archives Back.  I first developed this problem three years ago after a long research trip and realized that the only way I could have hurt myself was through the twisting motion that is required to get a very heavy archive box off the cart when in a seated position and bending from the waist.  Your standard archives cart has three shelves, and torquing the spine repeatedly from a position in which arm strength is all but irrelevant puts enormous strain on said spine.  I suspect that on that original trip I damaged a disc that is easily re-injured when I do the same stupid thing all over again.

So in the spirit of sharing, here are three common health problems arising from archival research.

Back and Neck Pain.  I've already discussed how you get it and treat it (I also once pulled a bicep picking up a box from an awkward position.)  But how to prevent it?  My guess is that each full archives box (I'm talking the acid-free gray ones that meet NARA specifications, now, not the banker's boxes which are much larger) weighs about 20-25 pounds.  My suggestion?  Treat every box as if it is much larger, particularly if you are moving fast through a lot of boxes, as I was:  get up, bend your knees, and lift straight up with your knees.  A few stretches several times a day might not be such a terrible idea either; and I just get up and walk around the room every hour or so. 

Paper cuts.  I pulled a file that had a smear of blood on it, and the color indicated that there had been a casualty in the not-so-very-distant past.  As everyone knows, paper cuts are the most unexpected of injuries:  they happen in a perfectly unlucky moment of contact between finger and paper, bleed like a pig, and -- like a splinter -- are disproportionately painful.  One of my co-researchers who joined me for lunch one day had sliced a finger open, which had turned so sore she felt it every time she turned over a document.   My advice?  Bring band-aids.  But the only way to prevent paper cuts is be wearing those little white cotton Mickey Mouse gloves, which some facilities require.  They are hard to get used to, but better for the documents and for you.  (Evening addendum:  check out some of the comments.  Apparently gloves are no longer state of the art.)

Dust.  One of my favorite books, ever, is Carolyn Steedman's Dust:  The Archive and Cultural History (Rutgers: 2002), in which she speculates that the mal d'archives, or archive fever (that Jacques Derrida bloviated about in this book) might have been caused by anthrax spores surviving in the bindings of ancient leather books.  But even short of anthrax, dust is a problem, particularly for those of us who have allergies already.  I keep on top of my allergies (which at their worst cause asthma attacks) with drugs I take daily, but I still suffer from an ongoing drip throughout a trip to the archives.  This was all the more noticeable on my last trip because whatever affects me in the general atmosphere in Connecticut was not present in Southern California, so every time I emerged from whatever library I was in the sniffles went away.   What to do?  After a couple days, I doubled my medication, which helped only because it is of the non-drowsy variety:  falling asleep won't forward your research agenda.  Bring one of those cute little packs of Kleenex so that you don't have to cast your eyes about furtively to make sure that no one sees you wipe your nose on your shirt.

I also advise against wearing contact lenses in the archives:  wear glasses for a day, see how much dust they pick up, then imagine that gluing itself to your eyes.

Hand and Wrist Pain.  The two days that I was in the no-copy, no-photography archive reminded me that typing for six to eight hours a day is not something your average archive table and chairs are made for. The tables are the wrong height, and the chairs are often gorgeous, hard wood works of art with no back support whatsoever.  I once saw a famous feminist historian walk into a manuscript room with a pile of couch pillows, which I suppose is one solution, although it is awkward and a little goofy.  My approach is to sit up as straight as possible, keep my hands parallel to the keyboard, and stand up to shake my hands vigorously every 30-45 minutes.  In this latter move, you drop your arms straight down, relax them and shake. It makes you look like you are doing the Hokey-Pokey, but so what?  At my age I fear carpal tunnel syndrome more than I fear charges of eccentricity.

A note:  I am glad to be done with Xeroxing, which is hard on the documents, environmentally unsound, and always caused me to worry about radiation.  That said, other than the logistics of getting your material organized after the trip, photography has its physical hazards.  Although I advocated for the cheap digital camera in this post, the truth is I took my expensive Nikon on this trip to see if it made a difference (particularly in reproducing feminist posters and graphics from conservative direct mail that would be at least usable in a Power Point, if not in the book.)  The wrist that bore the weight of the camera was persistently sore.  Now I know why other people use tripods.

Unrelated Coda:  Check out Caleb McDaniel's instructions about  how to grade papers using an iPad.  Caleb, an assistant professor of United States history at Rice University who is writing a book about transatlantic abolitionism, has himself a a nice new blog called Offprints.

What The Protests In Wisconsin, Ohio, And Indiana Mean For The Indentured Educated Class

Class Warfare And Exposing Lies

If you decide to declare class warfare on the poor and the ever-shrinking middle class (soon to be extinct, or so it seems), and yet insist that austerity measures are the best for everyone, you will end up paying a heavy price. Take a look at this chart that shows class warfare. What a perfect display of how unjust and inequitable our society has become. I have news for those of you who think that we all believe that tax cuts, and budget cuts, and all other kinds of what-what cuts are for the common good. A large majority of Americans know those claims are bullshit. We're onto your lies, and that is because so many of us have worked our asses off to help our communities, to help ourselves, and to be a part of the democratic process, and yet we're slipping of the societal grid. We're disappearing.

We're not able to pay our student loans and have money left over. We are not able to pay our mortgages and have money left over. We are not able to pay for good health care and have money left over. We are not able to pay our grocery bills and have money left over. That is because there is no money left over. Even worse, our most vulnerable - children - are suffering. So what about this winning the future, Mr. President, when there are more children in poverty now than there were in 2000? Some of my readers will accuse me of placing too much blame on your shoulders. I understand the history of deregulation well enough to know that you, Mr. President, did not start the process of disassembling the federal government and undermining our most sacred democratic institutions. However, you have been in office long enough to be culpable, and I am particularly disgusted by your outright refusal to acknowledge the student loan debt crisis. People may think that the crisis only affects student debtors. But they are wrong.

Higher education is under assault, and it has been for a long time. It has adopted the worst models from the corporate world (so the institutions themselves are also to blame for the crisis). There are things that ought not be a part of the market or the private sector. Of course, you, Mr. President, wouldn't agree with that. That is because you are a victim of neoliberalism. It's shocking to think that at one point you were a community organizer. Does your old self ever come to you in dreams and ask you why you betrayed the people who put you into office, and why you betrayed your previous values? (Perhaps you are merely a political animal, so your old self, even if he does ask you such questions, means nothing to you).

The Awakening 

These last few weeks have been astonishing. Wisconsin is not the only place where people are raising hell, and we stood and watched in awe at what happened in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East. You see, we're tired of seeing our future and country (as well as countries) being stolen from us. The youth are especially angry. You have no right to take our futures away. No right.

So what do these protests mean for the indentured educated class?

It is perhaps too early to know, but something dramatic is happening. Never in my life could I have anticipated a revolutionary spirit like this one - it is something I hoped for in my early 20s, and now I think it is finally happening. We are realizing that our America is being taken from us, and people aren't going to stand by and let it unravel. It is exhilarating to know that so many Americans want something better - they desire equity. Sadly, the desire for things to be fairer for all is regarded nowadays as radical and threatening. Well, we're going to change that attitude. Welcome back, working-class America! I sure have missed you.

On that note, I want to give a special shout out to the farmers of Wisconsin who rolled in on their tractors today to support their teachers, police officers, fire fighters, and other union workers.