where I've been

It has been an amazingly long time since I put up a blog post. What happened? Well, throughout the month of October, I applied for 45 or so jobs. That was a lot of work. At the end of that, I defended my Dissertation. Now, I have to revise my dissertation and because no one read it before the defense, well...they have a few suggestions. I have to pretty much add another chapter on crazy politics of the 1960s. I'm not sure where to focus because my dissertation committee couldn't make any suggestions. They just said they want something between chapter 4 and 5.

Interestingly, out of three of them, one didn't read chapter 5 and one didn't read chapters 1-4 (out of 5). Ah, tenure. So, basically, the professor of AfAm culture is mad because my dissertation which has nothing to do with the black panthers doesn't include a chapter on the black panthers. So, now I have to go become an expert on the great poetry and drama of the black arts movement. By the way, I am not against the black arts movement. I am against writing another chapter for my dissertation after the defense which is when the dissertation should be done. I am against having to write another chapter because my dissertation advisors, not a single one of them, read my dissertation for more than a year and a half. One still hasn't read it, and one of them read it four days before the defense.

These people suck is I guess what I am saying.

People who live in glass bunkers and stones

I made a promise involving freedom and a bunker. Need I say more than the views expressed in the following audio files do not necessarilly reflect that of Monstro D. Whale, your humble bunker-free narrator.

Enjoy.

money from one generation to the next

I've said it before, so this might be a repeat, but what the hey:

What is an economy? It is a system for the distribution of wealth. What does that mean? Well, it's way to hand money over from one group to the next. Otherwise, people would accumulate wealth and take it with them to their grave at which point it would become part of the public fund. An economy allows the money to pass from the old to the young.

This is pretty simple logic, but you need to imagine that there are problems with this, namely--what does it mean to be young, and what does it mean to be old. See, for my parents, old was 60 and young was 22. So, they hit 22 and began to get the jobs of 60 year olds and began to have access to their things like houses.

Over the years, however, old has come to mean later and later because of medical science and the saturation of the job market with baby boomers. Now, old means 70 and young? Young, in this sense, probably now means 32.

These numbers aren't arbitrary. You can only spend so long training for a career or waiting to get a home so as to start a family. It ins't that the houses don't exist, it's that the wealth and the means for that wealth are tied up. You can't expect people to wait until they are 32 to become economically speaking adults, but that's precisely what this system has done. What's worse, because of the recession, even fewer people want to give up their wealth or access to wealth and so we have people being told that they will have to wait even longer or that the stores of their wealth (like social security) will soon be used up.

There are many ways to conceptualize the current recession. For me, I think the ever widening gulf of one economic generation to the next is a more reasonable candidate than commodity futures and housing bubbles. This is the reason we have commodity futures. This is the reason for the housing bubble.

D and D day at modern myths

Yeah Dungeons and Dragons Day!

The gang and I played down at the store and we had a great time. Modern Myths is a great host and supplied awesome D.M.s.

Loads of fun.

Carter has pills

I read an interesting opinion column in the NY Times today which talked about how we don't need President Carter to tell us that the complaints made against Obama are racist. Hmmm...

You know what, I think we do.

Here's a little something that most non-white people don't know about white people: we know when something's racist. We know it. In many cases, when our black friends are assuring us that something has nothing to do with their race, we hold our tongues, because...well, we don't want to be associated with that kind of racism. We don't want people thinking, hey, the whole white world is against me, since it isn't. We allow the illusion so as to protect the truth I guess.

So, there really aren't too many white people, I think, who didn't know from day one (and I'm talking the election) that a lot of the shit that we saw about Obama being a muslim or a terrorist, or whatever, was motivated by people who basically felt a little held back from simply saying that we shouldn't vote for him because he's black. But then, why say anything? You're not going to change those people's minds, and Obama is going to win the election anyway. So, we kept quiet, mostly.

In any case, there reaches a point where someone has to raise their hand and say, unleash the volley, and that is, essentially, what Carter did. He said, "let's bring race into this because, as we all know, it's part of it and we've been dancing around it." I applaud Obama for saying that it isn't about race, but well...he's wrong. They're basically saying that Hitler's main problem was that he tried to extend universal health care to the Jews. These people are so whacked out by their beliefs about race that...I'd call it Holocaust denial if it made some kind of sense. Instead, it's just crazy talk.

But here's the thing. I think race is something we need to discuss, but I don't think it's actually at the heart of these people's complaints. That is, if Obama were a woman, they'd hate women, and if Obama were a Mormon, they'd hate Mormons, and if his most salient feature was that he was a Texan, they'd pick on him for being a Texan. That's the extent of what they're doing. It's just that making fun of someone for being black carries a heavier weight than making fun of someone for being Texan. You know what I mean.

The real news here is that they don't want Federal Health Care, but the problem is, we'll never really hear why. They're so busy beating the one drum they got that they never say: hey look, the federal government fucks up everything else, why wouldn't they fuck up this? That never gets to be part of the debate because they're too busy drawing Obama as Hitler, the Joker, or Al Jolsen.

I do think we need universal health care. I think its morally imperative, but mostly I think that the 60 million people on record as unemployed and the countless others who are either underemployed or who have fallen off the grid and are no longer being counted in that figure are going to need some health care, especially after they've been allowed to become addicted to Prozac, Ridalin, and Percocet in a country that will allow anyone to buy a gun.

To be honest then, I hope the opposition keeps playing the race card, because they've never played that hand against other white people, and we know how to beat them at that game better than anyone else. If the health care debate wins or loses on whether or not the opposition doesn't like black people, then it will probably get through on that strength alone.

Townhall moment

I...had...a...townhall...moment.

That's awesome. That's just like, "hey, I don't know where I'm at AND I don't know where my dumbass comments are appropriate. Got to remember: don't shout shit at the President; shout stupid shit at Senators!"

Knock Knock

Knock Knock
Who's there?
The interrupting Kanye
The interupting Kenye wh....
Hold on before you finish this joke you should know that Beyonce Knowles....

The Day of the Moron

It is 10:35 in the morning. Already, my email box is filled because someone sent out a mailing list email and, for some reason, all the requests to unsubscribe are going out to everyone as well. So, the box is filled with emails with re's like, "unsubscribe me" and "don't hit the reply all, you illiterate moron."

I went to the dorm life center in 20 story dorm to get my parking pass so I wouldn't get towed while teaching and there is no sign telling me on which floor the Residential Life offices are located. I went to the door of the Associate Director for that dorm and said, "Hi, I'm teaching in the dorms this year and I need to get a parking pass, on which floor do I go to see the people in charge of the Residential Academic Programs."

"Teaching in this dorm?"
"No, Field."
"That's up the hill."
"Yes, I know, but I need to talk to the person who runs the programs in order to get a parking pass."
"That's not in this building."
"Really, because it's been in this building for the past five years, did they move it? It used to be on floor 7 or 11" (everything's always 7 or 11 with me).
"Oh, fifth floor."

What the f did he think I was talking about.

I went to career services where a woman standing in front of 3 forms (!) was waiting to help me.
"Hi, I'm going on the job market this semester, so I need the form I give to the professors who are writing me letters of rec."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Do you handle grad students going out on the market?"
"Yes, do you have a file with us?"
"I think so."
"Do you want to read your letters of rec?"
"No. I don't have any. I'm trying to get them."
"Okay."
"Look. Isn't there a form that a profesor needs to fill out, I give it to them and they send it in with their letter?"
"No."
"Maybe I'm not describing this right, because I know there is and I've gotten them here before."
"Well, what it is it now?"
"It's like..." She only has 3 fucking forms to choose from. "I say that I won't read the letter..."
"Oh an evaluation form."
"Yes, that's it."
"You fill out, not the professor."
"Oh."
"...and then the professor fills out the bottom half."

Thank you Captain Dipshit.

I'm really hoping the rest of the day goes better.

I Recommend

Today I asked my guy who my three people for my rec letters should be. He told me that it's three minimum. That 10 people saying I'm a genius is better than 3. I asked him if 50 people saying I'm 1/5 of a genius would work. Play the odds, 'sall I'm saying.

In any case, I've now asked 9 people for Rec letters and I have two more in mind, and two more after that if needs be. It's very therapeutic to think of people who might speak well of you and to make a sizable list of them. I don't know if it will help my job prospects, but it is very therapeutic.

Life aint fair, bubchen

The children woke together at around 2 and gave us an entire afternoon with which to deal with them, together. I'm trying very hard not to turn my life into a one note...thing. Like, I realize I have to do a lot of work to get out of here and have a job come this time next year, but I also don't want that to become my life, so I decided to go along with my wife's plan to go to the fair which, by the way, I hate fairs.

Fairs to me seem spots of total mediocrity. All throughout my young life I was getting honorable mentions when, and I'm sorry maybe I was an arrogant kid, but I think I deserved a hell of a lot more. Looking back, I have no idea how all of that played out. I once figured out how to explode hydrogen gas using soap or some such shit. Maybe they figured my mom helped me too much, but come on. Half those kids couldn't cut a f'ing straight line and their presentations looked like they were fashioned together using a modeller for an architectural firm. Who the hell knows.

In any case, I always figured that when my crappy fourth place thing went to the fair, somebody would happen upon it and wonder why in the hell it got fourth rather than first, but no one ever did, they just sort of accepted my mediocrity. Oh look at me, I turned a fucking potato into a battery and what's that...oh snap, lost out to a crappy volcano. Look, I make volcanoes for a living now, and believe you me, they were crap.

But the worst was wondering the halls of crap at a science fair, moving among projects that someone had lovingly worked on and which seemed to me, abandoned there, almost hopeless among the multitude of their peers from five school districts, and then suddenly, like a ninja or something, my project, which I've since long forgotten, jumps out at me and I get Honorable Mention yet again. Fuck I hated that.

The rest of the fair is the smell of cow shit and rides that are only half put together. I took my eldest on a ferrous wheel which could, for no explained reason, only be filled half to capacity. Beat that for, "holy shit, they brought the wrong bolts." No seriously, and I rode it, which makes the bravest person in the whole world...with my child, which makes me the worst father.

He got me back, of course. He's at the right age that if I pick him up while he's pitching a fit, he kicks me directly in the balls...twice. Oh my god that hurts, but I'm like...Dad, so I can't even flinch, I just drag him along with this sting in my balls like they've been hit with a wasp, and popped. That was us trying to make it past the bungee jumping trampoline.

Let me back up though because the greatest moment at the fair today was the ride in. Bumper to bumper traffic and some guy just f'ing cuts me off. I keep thinking to myself that wherever we end up, he'll be next to me and I am totally going to key his car. I may even write a message, and it's all I can think about as my youngest starts screaming and we slowly creep up the hill, passed by people who were smart enough to park way the hell away and walk it on in. I'm just filled with it. Then we're at the top and just about to pass the official parking lot that's closed, and boom they open it up and I get to turn into it, and that guy in front of me didn't because he cut me off. My god is an awesome god. I realize that you probably don't see this experience as religious, but I most certainly do.

I saw a woman at he fair with a tattoo of an open straight razor running across her neck, and it was big enough that it covered her entire neck. She had kids. How f'd up is that. That's the kind of people you see at the fair.

All in all, I give the Franklin County Fair a 2 out of 4. All it had was rides. It didn't even have a whole bunch of fair food, which is just ridiculous. I didn't see any of the school projects from the region. They were shit for livestock (though they did have turkeys). On the other hand, they didn't just take crap that had been in the field for the past ten years and turn it into an "exhibit" so that's worth at least one star.

Oh I forgot to tell you, I kept seeing people with open sores and gigantic tumors. There'd be some kid playing and all of a sudden you'd see some kind of giant purple hackey sack hanging from his cheek, or some large guy would walk by, and his calf would look like...you don't want to know, but he shouldn't have been wearing shorts. I don't know, maybe we showed up at Franklin County on Leper Day. As the place was crowded, it made it extremely hard to keep the children away from people who I thought might be infectious, but I did my best. Knock on wood.

Nazi--not a Nazi

So, many many thousands of people marched on Washington complaining about health care. They did that yesterday, as I understand, because they still have jobs. Did you know that 500,000 people were laid off last week adding to the 6.1 million people in this country still collecting (and able to collect) unemployment? Makes you think (if you're able). That's more than 6 million people who need healthcare but who couldn't afford a bus ticket so as to go to Washington and bash in some...err... give their opinion.

In any case, these protesters again called Obama a Nazi. Now, I'd like to retort.

There they are, all of them, sitting on the lawn and complaining. I ask, 'What Would Hitler Do?' Because I'm pretty sure that if Obama really were like Hitler, those people wouldn't need a bus ride home.

How about we let that be our temperature gauge on this thing. If you call someone a Nazi and they don't immediately shoot you in the face, then they are, in fact, not like Nazis.

If you elect someone who you think is like a Nazi, and they allow members of the opposing party to stand up and spit out, "you lie," and that guy isn't taken out and shot, then they're probably not a Nazi.

See Nazis...kill people. That's what they do. It's like...their thing.

Here's a film that might help.