Do not read if you are squeamish! What I did on my weekend that wasn't academic was this. Took the cat to the vet, that is. They did the messy part, but had to put the cat under.

Oh -- I also went to the state caucus. Now I'm a delegate for the next round. Go figure.

Interesting conversation going on over at Invisible Adjunct. It started out as an ethical discussion, but has turned into a bit of a brouhaha.

Speaking of ethical discussions, I now have to worry about this. Washington state taxes are just about the most regressive in the nation -- the bottom 20% income bracket pays approximately 17.6% of their income in taxes while the top 20% pays an average of 6.5%. Now the "Education Governor", aka "the only Republican ever invited to give the Democrats' response to the State of the Union Address," has us over a barrel. We might get some more money, but only if we stick it to the poor. Oh -- and of course, there's nothing in the measure to convert adjunct positions to tenure-track ones. 'Cause in Washington State, we care more about price than value.

My very late thoughts on the the AHA anuual meeting:

People were right. The meat market set-up tends to create a group of job-sekers who exude fear, paranoia, jealousy, and hatred. That said, one of the nicest people I met was interviewing for the same job, and I was glad to have met him. Oddly enough, we actually were vaguely acquainted through the blogosphere anyway.

The other thing is that there aren't nearly enough minorities in History -- I popped my head by the minority historians reception, and it was not very crowded. At the panels I attended, the only person of color I saw was my friend Annette, who gave a great paper on hostage brides. Lots of female medievalists, not many other minorities represented.

Also, conferences are good. Especially for those of us in the world of the two-year institution. Although there is definitely a kind of academic hierarchy (everybody is supposed to want to be at a Research I school and/or Ivy, although most of us get jobs that demand more teaching than research), my ego is such that I have no problems arguing points with my senior colleagues, and I enjoy the buzz I get when people find out I'm "just" a CC person. on a sadder note, I went to the CC reception, and was dismayed to find that there were colleagues who felt the need to have their PhD status listed on their badges. It's kind of like admitting that CC faculty have to prove themselves to the "real" professors. Such nonsense.

So much for New Year's resolutions. I was going to blog regularly, but courses seem to have got in the way. Here's my Resolutions, though:

• Blog more
  
• get the rest of this quarter's assignments up on Blackboard ...
  
• Actually read Matthew Innes' book
  
• Read the book I'm supposed to be reviewing for H-net
  
• do a bunch of job apps by next week
  
• Blog more
  
• not feed the troll known as godless capitalist

Bastards! Things readers should know about me -- I am not a Manchester United fan. I'm especially not fond of their manager, who seems to have blinders on when it comes to his own players' misconduct.

Also, I thank any appropriate deities that my Tuesday class is over. There were some truly cool students, but as a whole, they introduced me to a not-entirely-new concept -- the unwillingness of students to prepare for a class, even when a huge percentage of their grades depend on active participation. Faugh!

Yes, I am ranting. And still not ready to discuss the job market -- instead, I'm avoiding the subject by working on my part of our program assessment (something that elicits interest only in accreditation years) and a proposal to set some sort of guidelines so that students and faculty using Blackboard understand the ramifications of a partially online course. Which us luck -- if you have any ideas on setting student expectations, please share!

Meanwhile, check out the great entries on the changing face of academe via the Invisible Adjunct and some great stuff on the baby gap there and at Crooked Timber. I am simply amazed by these people -- they are productive scholars who blog under their own names ... oh well, maybe after I'm less contingent.

Well -- it's amazing how time flies when all your preps are new! End of quarter resolution -- I will blog more. Reality -- I work for the state, so can only legally blog from home. Blogging -- what one does to avoid the steaming pile of grading that needs doing. Rambling -- what I am doing now.

But seriously, there are some great blogs out there. Current faves are Invisible Adjunct and The Cranky Professor. There's a great conversation on the baby gap at the former, and the latter is a friend. I'm also becoming very fond of this wonderful academic Buffy site because I discovered the wonders of the Buffyverse last summer and am still catching up. The scholarship part makes me feel less guilty, as does the fact that I can talk about Buffy with colleagues who don't think I'm barking!

Next up -- life on the job market -- scary as hell!

Ok, Cranky Professor ... I'm blogging. Well, since last I blogged, I typically missed the deadline to try to write for the
Chronicle of Higher Education"first person" series for money. But that's because I was getting a Full-time Faculty Position!! Woohoo! But seriously folks ... it's a one year visiting position. Maybe two. No more than that, because then I get dangerously close to mandatory tenure-track. So what have I been doing? New faculty stuff.

Gotta say, this may be the best thing to happen -- I get to do all the new faculty stuff, but in a weird, still not really faculty kind of way. So I went to a New Faculty workshop, where we listened to a bunch of really awful people who talked in Edu-jargon (ugh!) and one guy tried to convince us that good teachers and good researchers were in some way mutually exclusive -- and that we Community College professors were in some what morally superior ... The breakaway sessions were pretty good, though, once we got past talk about assessment and outcomes. The crap we don't learn about in grad school ...

CHeck back later for the motivational speaker who drove many of us to question our self-worth and sent us into a lithium-needing downward spiral!

Woohooo -- finding the cool sites this week! First, an online journal that hits close to home. Then (thanks to one of my employers, I can read the Chronicle of Higher Education online, to see what interesting things the government has planned. New attacks on us liberal college intellectuals, apparently. That's kind of funny, seeing as how most of my fully-employed grad school friends (like this guy and this guy) are all pretty conservative. But hey -- what can we expect from a man who acts as though a "C" average means that his education was worth anything?

Still, all these exciting happenings in the hell of adjunct world are nothing compared to THE BEST of all -- the hell of Bad Baby Names!! What are these people thinking???

SquawkBox again not working ... ok -- it is now -- please someone else leave a comment, so I can test ...

Ok -- thought it was working correctly. We'll see. Happy to say that the ever-awful Tim Eyman got no ballot initiatives in this year. So you know, Tim Eyman is to me the antithesis of everything the founding fathers wanted. His entire raison d'etre seems to be to do end-runs around the people elescted by a majority and get taxes abolished. Good for him -- he's already had to fess up to the public about embezzling from his first non-profit -- and now he's soliciting donations for his legal defense fund. What a jerk. This is where one wishes instant karma were part of the Gospels. Don't know what Jesus would drive, but Tim Eyman drives a big-ass SUV. He even convinced the taxpayers of Washington State to repeal most of the tag fees on car registrations -- flat rate now, folks. Apparently, Mr. Eyman and his ilk have somehow convinced folks that graduated taxes hurt the little guy. Just one word here -- "Bastards."

Oh Joy -- my comments are now working. Firmly resolve to blog more -- especially as I am now discovering more to blog about.

Ok -- Squawkbox doesn't work. Still working on it. Also using a crap book for a Summer World History course. Guess which one!

Well, I'm not sure about the "powered by squawk box tv" thing -- it doesn't seem to be working. Oh well -- blogging more later, I suppose. Oh -- and memo to all -- the WIkipedia is no longer one of my recommended sites. It's a great concept -- an open content encyclopedia. However, there is a great tendency for people with expertise in a subject to be "shouted down" by people who know "the Truth". More importantly, there are articles on the site that might be age-inappropriate for kids -- or that one might feel uncomfortable if one's parents were to stumble across. A debate is currently raging over whether to put a neutral advisory on the site's main page, and the "all information is equal and advisories are a form of censorship" brigade looks to be winning. Mrs. Thatcher once said there was no such thing as society. The Wikipedia seems bound and determined to prove her right and 4500 years of human history wrong. Bastards.

I have blogged since last week -- really! Something went very wrong, though on my post on the new weird Matrix Reloaded links to Michael Baigent's Holy Blood, Holy Grail by way of a character called The Merovingian. I have to say, this is too odd -- except, of course that it's almost commonplace these days. After all, you can find out about this particular esoteric conspiracy theory (Merovingians, Jesus, and the Templars) via Sierra's Gabriel Knight 3:Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned. Or, you can read Katherine Kurtz's fantasy novels about modern Templars, or her "how the Templars and the Loch Ness Monster put the Bruce on the Scottish throne" books. Great fun, but then, I don't believe in any conspiracy theories except the one where historians are kept from teaching History because a Vast Government Conspiracy wants to keep the same old folks in power by convincing the public that History isn't important. Give me a full-time (or even tenure-track) job, and maybe I'll stop believing this!

Oh -- I'm trying a New comment thingie. 'Scuse, please, if it takes a bit to work out the bugs!

I have clearly not been in blogging mode lately. Perhaps I should leave this on in the background? Since last I blogged, many things have happened -- or at least, I've become aware of them. The most interesting to me is still the Traditional Catholic Church that Mel Gibson is building. Call me crazy, but if you want to be a traditional Catholic, shouldn't you be going back to, Constantinople? Or maybe Nicaea? I may be crap at being a Papist, but Trent seems an interesting choice. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Trent strengthen the idea of obedience to the Pope? But, as you can see, it's not really about the important things like doctrine -- at least to some folks. It's about appearances. I'm with the
the Cranky Professor on Denny's architecture and penitential guitar mass, but isn't there something fundamentally post-Vatican II about a bunch of lay people deciding that they know better? Is this what people mean by "How Ironic"?

Well, I have to say, my mind has been changed. At the University where I sometimes teach there is a modern chapel dedicated to St. Ignatius, that I thought was awful. My colleagues have changed my mind. We went in the other night after a very nice lecture on the Pilgrimage to Compostela, and the chapel was lovely. A wonderful, serene, space, lit from all sorts of interesting angles, some of the lights colored. A person could happily go to mass there.

FINALLY back to blogging, I hope! The Cranky Professor has been blogging, even though in Rome, and I feel the need to catch up. I'm happy to announce to all of you non-Washingtonians that the (in my own opinion, to which I am entitled) Spawn of Satan known as Tim Eyman has lost at least the first major round in his campaign to undermine the ideals of representative democracy. Meanwhile, it's not just the schools in Germany that are having trouble. (Dinner calls -- to be continued ... )

Well -- just thought I'd mention how nice it is to have a Leader of the Free World who can't bloody pronounce the word, "nuclear." On the other hand, maybe Saddam Hussein really has a new Nook-You-Lur weapon, and we should be afraid. It would be nice if Dubya would stop talking to the lowest common denominator -- it makes it sort of pointless for me to try to teach if one can be president and talk like an illiterate...

Speaking of teaching, keep an eye out for my next rant...it will be on the horrors of part-time employment. At least, it will be on that subject if I can figure out how to teach four classes and still blog. But just so you know, I'd have to work this same load every quarter AND summer, just to meet what I made in private industry -- and I'm not in the Sciences! Oh, well...back to the grind. Thank goodness I have many lovely students this term. .

Jeepers -- It's been a while, hasn't it? One would think quitting the Wikipedia would have given me more time to blog. I suppose it has, except that I'm madly preparing for this quarter's courses. And painting. And trying to get the yard ready for Autumn.
Meanwhile, the NFL season has begun. This is not a particularly big thing for me -- I don't care all that much about which overpaid athletes win. On the other hand, it is Football Season, where Football = Association Football, i.e., soccer. This is a good thing, if only because the football news is generally fun to read. I'm looking for fun these days -- especially as we come up on what is bound to be one of the worst days of the year (Da-Da-DUUUUMMM!!!) The Media Anniversary of 9/11.
It's not that I think the day should pass without some kind of memorial. In fact, I'm planning on attending Mass here, where I teach. Apparently, there will also be a Requiem concert at Safeco Field and another concert at Benaroya Hall. These types of things are fine, I think. But to me, the hype that the media have begun (broadcasting LIVE from event x) is fairly disgusting. If anything, one would think that the day be spent in reflection. Or maybe in getting on with one's life. Instead, we'll be treated to another self-indulgent orgy of ME, ME, ME --

"where were you, sir, when you heard the news?" "Well, I was in the middle of ordering a Grande, non-fat, hazelnut double shot latte...?" "And how did you feel when you heard the news?" Y'all know the rest ...

I'll be very surprised if we see any real news. There will be no answers to questions about whether attitutes towards the US and her policies have changed, no updates on the people being held in Guantanamo Bay -- what is their legal status? Instead, we can celebrate the incredibly badly titled Patriot Day. You can even buy a recording of the Patriots Day Anthem -- two new (and in my opinion embarassingly bad) verses to be added to the Star Spangled Banner.
Call me silly, but I don't think that the people who died that day died for their country. I don't think their deaths were patriotic in the least. Most of them were people in the wrong place at the wrong time. They didn't have a choice, and I'd bet that, given a choice, most of the people on those planes and in the WTC would have chosen not to participate. As for the people who had the choice -- the people on flight 93 (sort of), the emergency and rescue personnel (or whatever we call cops, firemen, EMTs, etc.), the normal folks who jumped into the fray to help out -- did they help for America? I think not. I certainly hope not. They were just good people, doing what good people (especially those who make it their profession) do. I'd be surprised if they thought, "Hey, there are American lives at stake -- I must do something!" I think it far more likely that they went in to save people, regardless of citizenship. So I think it appalling, disgusting, and tragic that their deaths, which in many cases were simply heroic, be used to fuel another spate of meaningless flag-waving. Should a day when tragedy brought out the kind of good and selflessness in people that transcends silly earthly concerns really be used to rally a nation into an "us vs. them" mentality? To ask a question that many in the current administration appear to hold dear, "What would Jesus think?"
I wonder..

Is it just me, or are there tons of Catholic blogs out there? Does anyone know why? I'd ask you to comment, but I haven't got that particular technology yet. You can e-mail me, though. It's a very strange thing... do Catholics have more time? I certainly enjoy many of the sites, especially Catholic Light and Holy Weblog. Me, I'm a fairly secular Papist. Probably comes from the anti-organized religion upbringing. That, and I live with (in a non-canonical but legal marriage, thank you) a lapsed Catholic. His idea of being a good Catholic seems to be based on the pre-Vatican II Church in which he was raised. Still, I try to do my part -- at least my students at the state schools come out of freshman history knowing that Catholics are Christians, that Jesus was raised a Jew, and that, for a very long time, to be a Christian west of the Adriatic pretty much meant being a Catholic (or a heretic). Not a bad thing in a state where a very large number of kids come straight to college as Running Start students, after being home-schooled for (usually) religious reasons. Needless to say, there aren't a lot of Catholics being home-schooled -- that's why there are parochial schools.. Plus, once one gets to high school age (in Seattle, at least), the schools with the best reputations for college prep are Holy Names Academy -- all girls, and Seattle Prep -- co-ed and Jesuit. So, in a weird twist of fate or individual rights politics, there are a lot of kids out there getting pretty Conservative Christian educations for the first 10 or so years, and then thrown into a diverse, multicultural world. Talk about culture shock!