Lumpenprofessoriat

SOPA Strike

2012-01-17T19:49:00.004-05:00

Poor Judgment

2011-12-17T09:24:00.000-05:00

A candidate whose name has come to mean this, really shouldn't be holding up this particular sign.

Remembering Hubert Sumlin

2011-12-07T13:13:00.001-05:00

Hubert Sumlin passed away this week. Best known for his guitar work with Howlin' Wolf, I have very fond memories of hearing this man play during my college years in Austin, Texas. He was a frequent guest on stage at Antone's and always a joy to hear. He'll be missed.

Marxist Rage Comics

2011-11-30T09:11:00.001-05:00

This is a new assignment I began experimenting with this semester. I point interested students to a rage maker site and then ask them to create a rage comic illustrating a passage from Marx for the class blog. So far, the results have made me happy. Here's one student comic on primitive accumulation and the bloody legislation against the expropriated:

I'm particularly fond of the deer in the deer park "lol"ing at the peasant. I'll be doing this again.

Black Friday

2011-11-29T13:51:00.001-05:00

Life is strange. I would have bet just about anything that I would never be found at Macy's in Manhattan on Black Friday. And yet, here's the picture I took:

It was very odd to find myself at ground zero for Capitalist consumption on its highest holy day.

Book Contract!

2011-11-28T10:16:00.001-05:00

Zero Books will be publishing the LumpenProf's book, Reading Capital Digitally!

This does, however, mean I'll have to finish the book now... details, details.

Escher Pepper

2011-11-22T11:51:00.001-05:00

Via:

And via: The UC Davis Department of English Home Page now reads:

The faculty of the UC Davis English Department supports the Board of the Davis Faculty Association in calling for Chancellor Katehi’s immediate resignation and for “a policy that will end the practice of forcibly removing non-violent student, faculty, staff, and community protesters by police on the UC Davis campus.” Further, given the demonstrable threat posed by the University of California Police Department and other law enforcement agencies to the safety of students, faculty, staff, and community members on our campus and others in the UC system, we propose that such a policy include the disbanding of the UCPD and the institution of an ordinance against the presence of police forces on the UC Davis campus, unless their presence is specifically requested by a member of the campus community. This will initiate a genuinely collective effort to determine how best to ensure the health and safety of the campus community at UC Davis.

Pepper Spray in the Park

2011-11-21T09:34:00.001-05:00

Via:

Police Riot at UC Davis

2011-11-19T09:50:00.001-05:00

Below is an excerpt from an open letter by a junior faculty member at UC Davis calling for the Chancellor's resignation over yesterday's police attack on non-violent students.

... Today you ordered police onto our campus to clear student protesters from the quad. These were protesters who participated in a rally speaking out against tuition increases and police brutality on UC campuses on Tuesday—a rally that I organized, and which was endorsed by the Davis Faculty Association. These students attended that rally in response to a call for solidarity from students and faculty who were bludgeoned with batons, hospitalized, and arrested at UC Berkeley last week. In the highest tradition of non-violent civil disobedience, those protesters had linked arms and held their ground in defense of tents they set up beside Sproul Hall. In a gesture of solidarity with those students and faculty, and in solidarity with the national Occupy movement, students at UC Davis set up tents on the main quad. When you ordered police outfitted with riot helmets, brandishing batons and teargas guns to remove their tents today, those students sat down on the ground in a circle and linked arms to protect them.

What happened next?

Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students.Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms linked.

What happened next?

Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.

This is what happened. You are responsible for it.

You are responsible for it because this is what happens when UC Chancellors order police onto our campuses to disperse peaceful protesters through the use of force: students get hurt. Faculty get hurt. One of the most inspiring things (inspiring for those of us who care about students who assert their rights to free speech and peaceful assembly) about the demonstration in Berkeley on November 9 is that UC Berkeley faculty stood together with students, their arms linked together. Associate Professor of English Celeste Langan was grabbed by her hair, thrown on the ground, and arrested. Associate Professor Geoffrey O’Brien was injured by baton blows. Professor Robert Hass, former Poet Laureate of the United States, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, was also struck with a baton. These faculty stood together with students in solidarity, and they too were beaten and arrested by the police. In writing this letter, I stand together with those faculty and with the students they supported.

One week after this happened at UC Berkeley, you ordered police to clear tents from the quad at UC Davis. When students responded in the same way—linking arms and holding their ground—police also responded in the same way: with violent force. The fact is: the administration of UC campuses systematically uses police brutality to terrorize students and faculty, to crush political dissent on our campuses, and to suppress free speech and peaceful assembly. Many people know this. Many more people are learning it very quickly.

You are responsible for the police violence directed against students on the UC Davis quad on November 18, 2011. As I said, I am writing to hold you responsible and to demand your immediate resignation on these grounds.

...

I call for your resignation because you are unfit to do your job. You are unfit to ensure the safety of students at UC Davis. In fact: you are the primary threat to the safety of students at UC Davis. As such, I call upon you to resign immediately.

Wiki Wonderlands

2011-11-18T13:53:00.001-05:00

Via:

The Georgia Institute of Technology has stripped, at least for now, more than 10 years of class work from its collaborative-learning Web sites, known as Swikis.

Following a student’s complaint to the university that his name was listed on the Web site of a public course, Georgia Tech officials decided on Monday to remove all Swikis other than ones from the current semester, said Mark Guzdial, a professor in the School of Interactive Computing, who is a co-creator of the Swikis.

He reported the development on his Computing Education blog this week. (The tech journalist Audrey Watters picked it up on her blog.)

In his post, Mr. Guzdial recounts how he and two Ph.D. students created the Swiki, or CoWeb, in 2000, so that students would have a place to “construct public entities on the Web.” The Swikis served intentionally undefined purposes, such as providing a forum for cross-semester discussions and a home for public galleries of student work. “All of that ended yesterday,” he wrote, because of Georgia Tech’s concerns about Ferpa, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

This seems a case of an administration over reacting to the barest hint of a legal challenge. My best guess is that the only part of this that might be covered by FERPA is identifying student posts by full name on a university course site. Identifying posts by a user handle, initials, etc., would be fine.

If the blogs themselves were public and hosted on blogger or tumblr rather than on a password protected university server, there never would have been a temptation to identify posts with students' full, legal names. In addition, students would maintain full control over what information remained online after the end of the course, not the university. I don't think there is anything in FERPA that prevents students from identifying themselves, their work, or the courses they took online. FERPA simply prevents the institution from publishing this information.

Deleting all the student authored wikis at Georgia Tech seems a very rash act.

New York, New York

2011-11-16T19:10:00.001-05:00

Occupation and Enclosure

2011-11-15T11:35:00.001-05:00

Here's a very interesting document on the occupation movement and popular economics.

Let's be clear, though, to avoid any confusion: humans have always engaged in diverse forms of production, distribution, exchange, and consumption. What the concept of "the economy" did, in its specific historical form, was to create a kind of conceptual enclosure around a very particular set of human rationalities, motivations, social activities, and ways of life. Economic theory said: self-interest is the legitimate, and natural, economic motivation. Exclusive, individual private property is the legitimate, and efficient, way to organize access to resources and the means of livelihood. Accumulation of wealth (and the fear of poverty) is the legitimate incentive that will generate human well-being. Wage labor (a world divided into owners and workers) is the way to organize effective and innovative economies. Competition is the dynamic that generates efficiency in production and exchange. Bundle all of these things together, publish books about their necessity and build institutions on their certainty, lock the rest of life's complexity and possibility in a closet (or a jail) and call that ... economics.

The physical enclosures that drove people from their common land and forced them into dependence on wage jobs over the course of the 16th to 18th centuries in Europe, and that robbed indigenous peoples of their lives and land, were accompanied and supported by the conceptual enclosures that made the story of "the economy." These are two sides of the same coin. And this process of double enclosure is ongoing. It is called "privatization," "colonialism," "neoliberalism," "development," and "economics 101."v The economy has to be made continually, and it is made by institutions that enforce this story on us, that put us in debt to its dependency-machine, that steal our labor, our ideas and our futures in the name of our own best interests. It is made by convincing us that its story is true, and then punishing us when we fail to act accordingly.

I find this argument about the conceptual enclosure effected by neoclassical economics to be very liberating. And on the day when NYC police used force to re-enlose Zucotti Park, it's good to be reminded of these larger signs of hope.

Happy Nigel Tufnel Day!

2011-11-11T14:11:00.004-05:00

11/11/11 Nigel Tufnel Day

The Beginning Is Near

2011-11-07T09:15:00.002-05:00

photo by Steve Kube

This is one of my favorite photos from my local Occupy Movement.

I'm repurposing the photo, though, to mark my own re-occupation of my blog. I've had a long enough respite from blogging and plan to plunge back in to my former habit of occasional posts on my research, academic labor, politics, and snark. There's much to discuss.

Mirror Stage

2011-03-23T09:36:00.000-04:00

I must remember this photo the next time I teach Lacan's "Mirror Stage."

Attendance Forecast

2011-02-03T10:54:00.000-05:00

How to forecast class attendance by looking out your office window:

When the weather is gray and cold, it will be too miserable outside for students to want to make the trek to class and so attendance will drop off.

When the weather is gorgeous and sunny, it will be too nice outside for students to want to spend time in class and so attendance will drop off.

It's a lose/lose situation. There is simply no such thing as good weather for classes.

Zizek On Egypt

2011-02-02T11:49:00.000-05:00

Via:

What cannot but strike the eye in the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt is the conspicuous absence of Muslim fundamentalism. In the best secular democratic tradition, people simply revolted against an oppressive regime, its corruption and poverty, and demanded freedom and economic hope. The cynical wisdom of western liberals, according to which, in Arab countries, genuine democratic sense is limited to narrow liberal elites while the vast majority can only be mobilised through religious fundamentalism or nationalism, has been proven wrong. ...

The hypocrisy of western liberals is breathtaking: they publicly supported democracy, and now, when the people revolt against the tyrants on behalf of secular freedom and justice, not on behalf of religion, they are all deeply concerned. Why concern, why not joy that freedom is given a chance? Today, more than ever, Mao Zedong's old motto is pertinent: "There is great chaos under heaven – the situation is excellent."

Where, then, should Mubarak go? Here, the answer is also clear: to the Hague. If there is a leader who deserves to sit there, it is him.

How Not To Sound Stupid

2011-02-02T09:38:00.000-05:00

An excellent post on how not to sound stupid when talking about recent events in Egypt:

The past few days I have heard so many stupid things from friends, blogs, pundits, correspondents, politicians, experts, writers that I want to pull my hair. So, I will not beat around the bush, I will be really blunt and give you a handy list to keep you from offending Egyptians, Arabs and the world when you discuss, blog or talk about Egypt. Honestly, I would think most Progressives would know these things, but let’s get to it.
“I am so impressed at how articulate Egyptians are.” Does this sound familiar? Imagine saying this about a Latino or African American? You don’t say it. So don’t say it about Egyptians. Gee, thank you oh great person who is of limited experience and human contact for recognizing that out of 80 million people some could be articulate, educated and speak many languages. Not cool. Don’t say it. You may think it, but it makes you sound like a dumb ass. ...

Freud Lives

2010-12-12T09:43:00.002-05:00

In a previous post, I recounted the sad tale of opposition to a course I had proposed on Freud's Interpretation of Dreams. I predicted eventual success despite this opposition, but that it would require many hours of tedious and contentious committee meetings. This turned out to be the case.

After wending its way through the program faculty, the advisory board, the curriculum subcommittee, the college council, and finally the university policy committee, I am pleased to announce that there is now a course on Freud at my institution. By a single vote, my colleagues decided that perhaps there was still some reason to teach Freud – despite assertions that his theories have been discredited, that his ideas may harm vulnerable students, and that lawsuits against the university would be imminent. It was a sad, frustrating and time consuming series of debates, but at least it is over now.

The process has taken its toll on my enthusiasm, and left yet another bad taste in my mouth concerning campus politics. However, I will strive to enjoy the new course. There are a surprising number of students who seem to be very excited about the class already. I find this charming and I imagine their enthusiasm will soon rekindle my own.

Warhol's Freud

Best Excuse Yet

2010-12-09T11:24:00.003-05:00

This semester I had a student offer me the following excuse for missing class:

He was very sorry, but he had been in a bar fight. He was hit over the head with a bottle and wound up in the hospital with a concussion.

I assume the story is true, since only someone who is concussed would think sharing this story with your professor was a good idea.

Ooh, Shiny!

2010-11-12T10:59:00.006-05:00

I can barely believe this...

Robert Zoellick, the head of the World Bank, kicked it off on Monday. In an op-ed in the FT he called for changes to the the global currency system. Among other things, he wrote:

"The system should also consider employing gold as an international reference point of market expectations about inflation, deflation and future currency values. Although textbooks may view gold as the old money, markets are using gold as an alternative monetary asset today."

I tend to agree with Brad DeLong's assessment of Zoellick's claim that markets are already using gold as a an alternative form of money:

They do not. They simply do not. That is not true. Markets are using gold as a speculative asset and a hedge. They are not using it is a medium of exchange, a unit of account, or a safe store of nominal value.

He really may be the Stupidest Man Alive.

Harsh, but accurate. I do find it shocking that the head of the World Bank is this confused about the difference between shiny things and money. When Ron Paul or Glenn Beck makes this mistake, I can chalk it up to ignorance. This is harder to fathom.

If we are going to go back to linking money to some other commodity, I think we should at least pick something more interesting than gold. My personal choice would be bubblegum. I like the idea of money as something you chew up and spit out. I'm also pretty sure the price of bubblegum has been less volatile than that of gold in recent years.

Obscene Litigation

2010-11-10T11:22:00.004-05:00

Via ZDNet: Porn Filesharing Lawsuits Crest 30K Defendants

Last Monday saw numbers skyrocket in porn’s war against piracy and torrent sites when four porn companies filed suits in California to target 9,055 alleged file sharers. That was a week after director Axel Braun filed in West Virginia to sue 7,098 alleged pirates for one film, Batman XXX: A Porn Parody.

This is not to be confused with the seven West Virginia suits filed in late September, suing 5,469. That was just before three porn companies came together to file against 1,100 alleged torrent pirates in Chicago. None of these were filed in conjunction with Hustler/Larry Flynt Production’s now-total of four lawsuits for This Ain’t Avatar XXX, with its own defendant total of 7164. ...

The porn industry is not being shy about using shame over its own product as a threat, and this is particularly troubling. While the defendants initially coming up as “John Does” in filing, companies like Hustler/LFP are working the “name and shame” angle and asked a U.S. District Judge to green light revealing the identities of Does from Internet providers. Another adult company preparing to expose the identities of defendants is Third World Media. Once they are identified, they are more likely to settle whether they are guilty or not because of the content. ...

And just how much can that mean to cash-strapped pornographers? According to Dallas attorney Evan Stone (no relation to adult performer Evan Stone), who is handling a number of bittorrent lawsuits including Hustler/LFP, “We usually ask people for $1,500 to settle out of court.

A Picture Is Worth 10,000 Words

2010-11-02T10:21:00.006-04:00

Here is a wordle picture of the current state of the first chapter of the book project. I find these snapshots oddly helpful. Even when I start to doubt the sense of the words on the page, these clouds display a visually reassuring alternative coherence.

Sanity: Get Some

2010-11-01T08:22:00.001-04:00

Via.

Democracy Is Hard

2010-10-25T10:46:00.000-04:00

As the midterm elections near and we find ourselves deafened by the noise of unending tea-baggery, it seems to me that a brief dose of Jacques Barzun, by way of a W. H. Auden review, may be salutary.

Democracy Is Hard
Of Human Freedom, by Jacques Barzun
Democracy, to maintain itself, must repeatedly conquer every cell and corner of the nation. How many of our public institutions and private businesses, our schools, hospitals, and domestic hearths are in reality little fascist states where freedom of speech is more rigorously excluded than vermin?

We undervalue the comforts of conscience and the power of ideas, while grossly overvaluing our brute strength. ...

In a democracy the great problem is less to educate everyone beyond his intelligence than to make the intelligent feel socially responsible. To think and act socially is not a form of charity to one's neighbors. It is a form of self-preservation.
I hope these extracts are enough to convey an idea of the grace and common sense of this book. ... I do not think that democracy can be sustained or defended unless one believes that pride, lying, and violence are mortal sins, and that their commission entails one's damnation.

With our current spectacle of Christine O'Donnell, Joe Miller, Sharron Angle, Rand Paul and others saturating our national debate with intellectual, moral and linguistic atrocities, it is hard not to see the spread of "little fascist states" and feel the need to "make the intelligent feel socially responsible" once again. Certainly we have seen "mortal sins" aplenty perpetrated against our democracy this election season and I hope a little "self-preservation" may yet emerge.

Strip Mining the Mind

2010-10-21T12:03:00.001-04:00

This is a lovely video of a lovely talk. Here's another equally lovely quote from Robinson:

Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip-mine the earth: for a particular commodity. And for the future, it won't serve us. We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we're educating our children.

Get a Job

2010-10-19T21:22:00.001-04:00

via Slate: Hyper-libertarian Facebook billionaire Peter Thiel's appalling plan to pay students to quit college.

Thiel's latest crusade is his worst yet... The Thiel Fellowship will pay would-be entrepreneurs under 20 $100,000 in cash to drop out of school. In announcing the program, Thiel made clear his contempt for American universities which, like governments, he believes, cost more than they're worth and hinder what really matters in life, namely starting tech companies. His scholarships are meant as an escape hatch from these insufficiently capitalist institutions of higher learning.

I'm simply wondering if professors will be allowed to nominate students for these fellowships.

The Money Trick

2010-10-08T08:26:00.004-04:00

Somehow, I had never read The Great Money Trick before. A friend uses this as an in-class readers' theater for teaching Marx. I tried it out in my class yesterday as a prelude to reviewing for the midterm, and it worked great! The students enjoyed it, plus I had an excuse to feed them all pumpkin bread. I also learned that my students can't fake a good Cockney accent to save their souls. It was both pitiful and hilarious at the same time.

'As the working classes were in need of the necessaries of life and as they could not eat, drink or wear the useless money, they were compelled to agree to the kind Capitalist’s terms. They each bought back and at once consumed one-third of the produce of their labour. The capitalist class also devoured two of the square blocks…'

FML

2010-09-23T10:05:00.002-04:00

Here is the reaction from my colleagues in the psychology department to a proposed undergraduate general education course on Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams:

We would be concerned if students had an academic experience at [our University] that endorsed psychoanalysis as a viable approach to personality and the meaning of dreams in an era where psychological inquiry has for decades relied on scientific methods that have dismissed psychoanalysis along with phrenology, astrology and other invalid explanations of human behavior.

Salvidor Dali's 1939 sketch of Freud.

It's not that the psychology department itself has any interest in teaching courses on Freud. This we knew already. However, the fact that they wish to prevent any "academic experience" of Freud by students anywhere at our university is new.

I don't believe these objections will prevent the course from being offered, but it will consume the time and energy of many people around campus. This is the level of intellectual debate that occupies much of my time as an academic. Some days it strikes me as comic. Other days, it just makes me sad.

Perhaps the next course I propose will be "Psychoanalysis, Phrenology and Astrology." That should make for some entertaining committee meetings at the very least.

Climate Change For Gardeners

2010-09-22T09:10:00.001-04:00

These maps are from the Arbor Day Foundation. They show the gardening zone changes in the US from 1990 to 2006. If you follow the link, you can see a nice animation of shifts.

Since gardeners are everywhere, I would have thought that such easily visible changes in the zone maps at your local nursery would be simple evidence for climate change that cut across ideological boundaries. Evidently, not.

Fight For Your Long Day

2010-09-21T07:33:00.000-04:00

Via.

Duffleman (or "Duffy," as he is called) is the creation of Alex Kudera, a longtime Philadelphia adjunct whose novel, Fight for Your Long Day, is about to be released by Atticus Press. Duffy's narrative on this long day catalogs a list of the kinds of insults that are part of an adjunct's daily existence -- and documents, too, his continuing sense of obligation to his students.

Get Over It

2010-09-20T10:37:00.003-04:00

Here's a picture of actor Ian McKellen at a protest over Pope Benedict's recent UK visit. Most of the protesters' shirts read "Some People Are Gay. Get Over It." Sir McKellen's is wonderfully different.

What We Used To Remix Before The Internet

2010-09-13T08:48:00.001-04:00

Via.

Blake It Yourself!

2010-09-10T14:15:00.003-04:00

I may have to try this. I think an authentic Nayland Blake hanging on the wall of my office would be pretty kickass.

Two phrases any contemporary artist is apt to hear are “That costs how much?” and “Hell, anyone could do that!” and what the hey, sometimes it’s true. There’s a lot of art out there I’d love to own, but can’t afford, and I have a lot of friends who can’t afford to buy my work. So here’s my solution: once a month I’ll give you step by step instructions for a piece that I have specially designed for this website. You can make your very own Nayland Blake, with a certificate of authenticity. I’ll try to keep the material costs low, the skill level easy and once you’ve got your finished piece, you can send me a picture of the results and I’ll post it here for the world to see.

Floydian Slip

2010-09-03T07:45:00.002-04:00

LOL Jenkins

2010-08-29T07:44:00.001-04:00

Puppet Portrait

2010-08-26T11:41:00.000-04:00

This looks fascinating. It seems to be an adaptation of Cixous' "Portrait of Dora" with puppets. I wish I could understand it...

Wilde Zizek

2010-07-30T06:47:00.002-04:00

From Oscar Wilde's essay, "The soul of man under Socialism:"

The majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism - are forced, indeed, so to spoil them. They find themselves surrounded by hideous poverty, by hideous ugliness, by hideous starvation. It is inevitable that they should be strongly moved by all this. The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man's intelligence; and, as I pointed out some time ago in an article on the function of criticism, it is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought. Accordingly, with admirable though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see. But their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease.

They try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by keeping the poor alive; or, in the case of a very advanced school, by amusing the poor.

But this is not a solution: it is an aggravation of the difficulty. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible. And the altruistic virtues have really prevented the carrying out of this aim. Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good; and at last we have had the spectacle of men who have really studied the problem and know the life - educated men who live in the East End - coming forward and imploring the community to restrain its altruistic impulses of charity, benevolence, and the like. They do so on the ground that such charity degrades and demoralises. They are perfectly right. Charity creates a multitude of sins.

There is also this to be said. It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. It is both immoral and unfair.

Marx, Marxist, Marxian...

2010-07-29T10:05:00.002-04:00

... Marxitudinal, Marxical, Marxal, Marxidinal, Marxican, Marxicano, Marxy, Marxial, Marxupial, Marxinally, Marxiness, Marxiginous, Marxissity, Marxiginal, Marxicality, Marxolydian.

I've been doing some writing lately and I've been feeling the need for some alternative ways of writing about Marx in order to avoid sounding repetitious.

I'm over that desire now.

FTW

2010-07-26T17:13:00.004-04:00

Librarians rock. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington, recently announced six new revisions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, including:

(1) Motion pictures on DVDs that are lawfully made and acquired and that are protected by the Content Scrambling System when circumvention is accomplished solely in order to accomplish the incorporation of short portions of motion pictures into new works for the purpose of criticism or comment, and where the person engaging in circumvention believes and has reasonable grounds for believing that circumvention is necessary to fulfill the purpose of the use in the following instances:
(i) Educational uses by college and university professors and by college and university film and media studies students;
(ii) Documentary filmmaking;
(iii) Noncommercial videos
(2) Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset.
(3) Computer programs, in the form of firmware or software, that enable used wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telecommunications network, when circumvention is initiated by the owner of the copy of the computer program solely in order to connect to a wireless telecommunications network and access to the network is authorized by the operator of the network.
(4) Video games accessible on personal computers and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully obtained works, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing for, investigating, or correcting security flaws or vulnerabilities, if:
(i) The information derived from the security testing is used primarily to promote the security of the owner or operator of a computer, computer system, or computer network; and
(ii) The information derived from the security testing is used or maintained in a manner that does not facilitate copyright infringement or a violation of applicable law.
(5) Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete. A dongle shall be considered obsolete if it is no longer manufactured or if a replacement or repair is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace; and
(6) Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling either of the book’s read-aloud function or of screen readers that render the text into a specialized format.

This is great news for bloggers, teachers, and civilization in general. Prior to this, circumventing the copyright protection on a DVD was always a felony regardless of its purpose. This caused me a twinge of concern whenever I assigned video work for my classes where using clips from other videos might be appropriate. I had vague visions of my entire class being busted for digital piracy. Now, no more worries about encouraging students to do video mashups for class!

Redacted Racism

2010-07-24T09:31:00.002-04:00

I Read Some Marx And I Liked It

2010-07-08T21:42:00.000-04:00

This is brilliant! I will be using this on this first day of class in the Fall.

Crisis Cartoon

2010-07-07T11:24:00.000-04:00

Animated David Harvey!

A Panel of Experts

2010-06-09T16:53:00.000-04:00

Spillcam

2010-06-05T15:49:00.003-04:00

And here's the worst option I've seen yet for dealing with the spill: the nuclear option. Literally.

The Russians previously used nukes at least five times to seal off gas well fires. A targeted nuclear explosion might similarly help seal off the oil well channel that has leaked oil unchecked since the sinking of a BP oil rig on April 22, according to a translation of the account in the daily newspaper Komsomoloskaya Pravda by Julia Ioffe of the news website True/Slant.

Live Streaming by Ustream.TV

All Grading And No Play

2010-05-03T09:27:00.000-04:00

All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All grading and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Happy May Day!

2010-05-01T04:25:00.000-04:00

Waiting for the great leap forward...

David Harvey and the Enigma of Capital

2010-04-29T05:15:00.000-04:00

Via. David Harvey's Enigma of Capital Lecture at the London School of Economics.

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

"Debt encumbered home owners don't go on strike" (3:50-5:00 in the video). This is the most cogent one line explanation of the roots of the current crisis I've heard.

Reading Heidegger

2010-04-28T08:24:00.000-04:00

Via Posthegemony and Quick Study:

Art!

2010-04-27T00:15:00.000-04:00

Via Logical Regression:

I find this juxtaposition absurdly wonderful:

What I do like the idea of though is perhaps claiming such constellations as ‘readymades’, in the way that Duchamp once famously claimed a urinal to be ‘art’ (Fountain, 1917). Though the Carina Nebula declared as ‘art’ arguably has the opposite effect of the urinal declared as ‘art’. Where the latter gesture confounded the judging panel at the exhibition to which Duchamp submitted the urinal, as it was deemed to bring art down to the level of the toilet – the pissing bowl – it is more likely, when applied to the Carina Nebula to confound the kind of people who want everyone to be equally enthused by the enormity of the Universe. At the least, it seems to reduce, make palatable, the Universe, rather than demeaning art.

Fair Hitler Use

2010-04-26T06:23:00.005-04:00

Via abject learning:

And here is a meta-parody of these recent events:

Pure Poppycock

2010-04-22T10:31:00.003-04:00

Auto-Tune the News:

Good Charlotte singer Joel Madden and Matt Drudge. Separated at birth?

"I do it all the time. Making up shit is so sublime." Evidently, this line when sung by a man in a fedora means that you must be doing a Matt Drudge impersonation. Even the Drudge Report thinks so. And they would never make shit up. This is despite the fact that Madden wears a fedora in public almost as frequently as Drudge. I love how this "news" story resonates with the Auto-Tune lyrics about being pulled under by the "riptide of lies" online. Life imitates art.

In other news, Matt Drudge and Nicole Richey are now engaged:

Music Roulette

2010-04-14T08:15:00.003-04:00

This is by far the best use of ChatRoulette I've seen...

Outsourcing Grading

2010-04-13T10:11:00.002-04:00

This idea is almost tempting at the end of semester with term papers piling up...

Corporations have taken advantage of outsourcing for decades; the process lowers costs and often allows services to be provided which could not be otherwise accommodated. Now some university faculty believe the same principle can be applied to the task of grading papers written by undergraduates. The graders working for EduMetry, based in a Virginia suburb of Washington, are concentrated in India, Singapore, and Malaysia, along with some in the United States and elsewhere. They do their work online and communicate with professors via e-mail. The company advertises that its graders hold advanced degrees and can quickly turn around assignments with sophisticated commentary...

On Power Point Usage

2010-03-21T19:46:00.003-04:00

Via.

Digital Humanities and the Third Reich

2010-01-24T10:00:00.000-05:00

From Critical Commons:

Beatles 3000

2009-11-30T07:58:00.000-05:00

Week 1

2009-11-08T11:26:00.004-05:00

Here are the results from the first week of InaDWriMo. Off to good start, but I'm behind already. I'll need to pick up the pace if I'm going to make it to 10k this time around.

Jaydiohead

2009-11-03T10:47:00.001-05:00

This mashup of Jay-Z and Radiohead by Max Tannone is part of the current writing project. But it's also really good. Take a listen to Change Order.

Write or Die

2009-10-30T16:41:00.001-04:00

InaDWriMo 2009 is upon us! Repent! Flee! Or Write!

Net Neutrality

2009-10-28T08:01:00.004-04:00

Blogging's Barbarisms

2009-10-22T10:38:00.001-04:00

In his "Theses on the Philosophy of History," Walter Benjamin writes:

There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism. And just as such a document is not free of barbarism, barbarism taints also the manner in which it was transmitted from one owner to another. (Illuminations, 256)

I'm interested in the ways blogging also exhibits this barbarism. Discuss.

Virtual Sedition

2009-10-19T08:34:00.000-04:00

Here's a link to an icky story about an online wingnut game called 2011: Obama Coup Fails. In the game players battle out a new American civil war after the overthrow of the Obama administration. The game comes complete with its own fake history leading up to the war:

Back in 2007, one brave newscaster was the first in what used to be called the 'mainstream media' to ring the alarm bell. That man was Lou Dobbs of CNN. Lou Dobbs was reported missing during the media purges of January and February 2011, when Mark Lloyd and the FCC, on Obama's orders, cracked down on all dissent in broadcasting. Glen Beck, another broadcast media personality who rang the alarm bell before the coup, was found dead of an 'aspirin overdose' in late 2010, after the devastating elections in November.

And its own "future news stories" from the war itself:

Omg.

Marxism 2009: Harvey and Zizek

2009-10-10T10:02:00.002-04:00

From July's Marxism 2009 festival:

Marx Reading Group: The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation

2009-10-02T12:16:00.003-04:00

I've been wanting to join in the Marx Reading Group on Chapter 25 of Capital, Volume I organized by Nate, but haven't been able to focus enough time and energy in that direction yet. In the meantime, I thought I could contribute Hugo Gellert's wonderful 1934 lithographs of Chapter 25.

Thanks to the working of this law, poverty grows as the accumulation of capital grows. The accumulation of wealth at one pole of society involves a simultaneous accumulation of poverty, labor torment, slavery, ignorance, brutalization, and moral degradation, at the opposite pole -- where dwells the class that produces its own product in the form of capital.

Alienation and Happiness

2009-10-01T12:14:00.000-04:00

Via. From On Being Postacademic by Kenneth Mostern:

The scariest thing a young faculty member experiences is not, as is conventionally supposed, the “need to produce” and therefore her/his experience is not aided by the “mentorship” of an experienced scholar. Rather, the young scholar’s fear stems from the fact that no one in the department is talking to each other about scholarship. Faculty are socializing, going out, schmoozing all the time, and the ideas that supposedly drive the work they do are not being discussed. The mentor, if assigned, will try to teach the young faculty member how to navigate the minefield of the department, but that is exactly what is alienating. The mentor, especially when well-intentioned, may be the model for what is wrong, not an aid in coping. Indeed, if the mentor is really similar to the young faculty member in terms of ideology or social identity, the mentor may be a model for what the young faculty member does not wish to become.

The one conversation everyone is having incessantly is the one about the micropolitical maneuvers within the department. This conversation is, of course always done with armor on, with an eye toward alliances and enemies already made, with everyone watching to find out which camp the new faculty member will join. And while there is a relationship between micropolitics and geopolitics, it is far more tenuous, far more mediated by local institutional conditions, than the new faculty first imagines.

Because no one is talking about substance, only alliances, and because alienation is general, a vacuum exists at the center of institutional power which is not filled by talent or argument, but by those who feel most comfortable or justified taking advantage of it. For those in power, and for those who hope to attain power, the arrival of a new junior faculty member is to be watched closely for his/her schmoozing choices. As a result, it is not simply the case that junior faculty fear senior faculty, but that the senior faculty fear the junior faculty, walking around wondering whether this new person will contribute to their already hatched plan to take over the curriculum. The fact that the new person was hired with accomplishments and expectations much higher than so many senior faculty members does not help this form of fear, of course.

While it remains true that the power differential between tenured and untenured faculty makes the ubiquity of fear particularly threatening to the careers of junior faculty members, the longer one stays the more one discovers that one’s unhappiness is simply an example of the larger misery of faculty members. Senior faculty don’t exactly help or support one another either. Tenure might lead to a sense of security; it surely does not breed happiness.

Happines remains a very odd thing to to try to find through work. But this description of academic life is far too accurate. My own days are filled by interminable discussions of internal politics of interest to no one but those directly involved. Discussions about ideas are something that happen more often in my classes than with my colleagues.

Rest In Bits

2009-09-30T14:55:00.002-04:00

Via.

"For my recently departed brother (long illness, don't smoke!), I thought this nice SPARCstation would be a cool place to spend eternity. Yes, he's really in there (after cremation). I kept the floppy drive cover but for space reasons removed the floppy drive, hard drive, and most of the power supply. I left behind the motherboard and power switch and plugs to keep all openings covered. The case worked quite well at his memorial party. His friends and family were able to leave their final good-byes on post-notes. Anyone who wanted to keep their words private could just slip their note into the case through the floppy slot. All notes will be sealed in plastic and placed within the case. There has been one complication. His daughters like the look of it so much they aren't now sure if they want to bury him. One more thing: the words on the plaque really do capture one of the last things he ever said. Of course as kids we watched the show in its first run."

Lumpen Web Comic

2009-09-29T11:35:00.005-04:00

Here's today's odd internet artifact. It's a web comic called Goodbye Chains:

"Colin Lord is a cheerful Boston Communist, and Banquo White is a cranky half-Mexican with no philosophy beyond hedonism. Somehow they have become partners in crime, spreading a reign of terror and dialectical materialism across the plains of Colorado. Follow their adventures with explosives and ladies -- and, possibly, men."

The web is a very odd place.

Resisting Infinity

2009-09-28T06:59:00.006-04:00

Dead Voles has nice post on the Infinity Standard.

1.) In the work of doing good, effort causes good. 2.) All possible good should be done, and 3.) all foregone effort is foregone good. 4.) In principle, there is no condition one can be in where slightly more effort is not possible. 5.) With infinite effort, infinite good can be done. 6.) Therefore, infinity is the standard. Anything short is deplorable dereliction.

Reading this sparked the post below on the need for a personal mission statement. My current academic unit has recently been remade by upper-level administrators. What this means in practice is that everything needs to be redone now. The absence of very basic things, like faculty governance, promotion and tenure documents, student degree-checks, and even computer support for faculty, are all starting to become acute. Every one of these gaps is a crisis that needs immediate attention. Part of restructuring of my unit entailed streamlining, so we are now an eighth the size we used to be. This means that all the details of running an academic program have to be recreated by a very, very small group of faculty. We are busy reinventing many wheels.

The infinity standard resonates for me right now. Like the vast majority of academics, we care about our teaching and our students and our research. They are important to us beyond simply being our jobs. This creates many problems, but right now it means that everyone sincerely wants to fix everything and they want to fix it now. It will in fact be good to fix these things, and there is nothing on our to do list that can't be accomplished by just a little extra effort. The problem is that our to do list is so long and we are so few that all those extra efforts add up to more than can possibly be done this year. Trying to prioritize and resist some things in favor of others can feel like, and be perceived as, a dereliction of duty.

I Need A Mission Statement

2009-09-25T08:52:00.000-04:00

My university has a mission statement. My college has a mission statement. My (former) department and (current) program both have mission statements. These documents all tend to be vaguely noble, yet also strangely nebulous. However, that doesn't seem to stop all manner of policies from being implemented in the name of these mission statements.

I think I need a mission statement too.

I need a mission statement that "encourages and fosters the growth of" my sanity. A mission statement that "advances the twin goals" of lowering my blood pressure and calming my nerves through the "creation and cultivation" of peaceful working environments. I need a mission statement that "recognizes the continuing importance" of my ongoing financial well being and "seeks to achieve these goals through the development and implementation of creative and innovative policies and practices."

Do you think I should post my mission statement on my door underneath my office hours?

Facebook International Politics

2009-09-24T11:50:00.000-04:00

Via. Excellent internet snark from the Maila Times:

Islamabad, Pakistan: A diplomatic scandal erupted online yesterday when the Foreign Office of Pakistan found out that China, Pakistan’s so called “BFF,” de-friended Pakistan on Facebook. Initially, Pakistan thought that it was just an error, but senior ISI officials, after logging into Facebook through another account, confirmed that China had indeed removed Pakistan as a friend on Facebook.

Reports indicate that China is upset at Pakistan because they have started to become jealous of Pakistan over recent wall posts written by US diplomats on Pakistan’s wall. There were also questionable and scandalous photographs of Pakistani diplomats and US officials flirting in a night of debauchery in a local Chinese restaurant, which may have offended China.

Tensions have recently been high with the “Friends of Pakistan” group, as several of them have started to put Pakistan on limited profile and have ignored reciprocal ‘poke’ requests by Pakistan. Saudi Arabia complained a few days ago that Pakistan just ‘likes’ everything that the USA posts. The Saudi Foreign Minister has characterized Pakistan’s Facebook antics as “whorish,” and thinks that Pakistan is too much of a stalker.

We're #37

2009-09-23T08:35:00.002-04:00

Happy Birthday Internet!

2009-09-02T11:50:00.000-04:00

Via:

"I'd like to wish a happy birthday to the Internet! Today marks its 40th birthday! In fall 1969, computers sending data between two California universities set the stage for the Internet, which became a household word in the 1990s. On September 2nd 1969, in a lab at the University of California, Los Angeles, two computers passed test data through a 15-foot gray cable. Stanford Research Institute joined the fledgling ARPANET network a month later; UC Santa Barbara and the University of Utah joined by years end, and the internet was born."

Porn and Activism

2009-08-28T08:11:00.006-04:00

I plan to use Ethan Zuckerman's wonderful paper in class this semester.

"Web 1.0 was invented to allow physicists to share research papers.

Web 2.0 was created to allow people to share pictures of cute cats."

"I’d offer the hypothesis that any sufficiently advanced read/write technology will get used for two purposes: pornography and activism. Porn is a weak test for the success of participatory media – it’s like tapping a mike and asking, “Is it on?” If you’re not getting porn in your system, it doesn’t work. Activism is a stronger test – if activists are using your tools, it’s a pretty good indication that your tools are useful and usable."

The tension between the consumption and production of online content is shaping much of the current struggle over what the internet will become. I'm attracted to this simple litmus test of porn and activism as the twin signs of a progressive medium.

My guess is it will provoke some interesting class discussion.

A Simple Explanation

2009-08-25T09:56:00.004-04:00

Via. Christopher Hayes, Washington DC editor of The Nation, explaining health reform at a Netroots Nation panel.

No Coffee For You

2009-08-24T10:41:00.003-04:00

Today was our beginning of the semester General Faculty meeting where, due to budgetary constraints, there was no coffee.

That pretty much sums up the message of the meeting as well: expect more nothing this year.

Faculty Handbook

2009-08-19T11:17:00.003-04:00

WTF?! This is what I get when I click on the link to the faculty handbook at my bizarro university. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

YouTube on YouTube

2009-08-17T06:22:00.001-04:00

Another talk by Michael Wesch about the history and impact of YouTube. Very nice. How best to use this in class though... any ideas?

Perseid?

2009-08-14T08:07:00.003-04:00

If you look very, very closely... in the bottom left hand corner of the photograph... I believe there may be a meteor from Wednesday night's Perseid meteor shower. Looking less closely, it's a pretty picture of the big dipper which is also nice.

Recycled Sex

2009-08-12T11:35:00.005-04:00

Recycling Your Sex Toys
Finally, there’s an environmentally friendly way to dispose of used or broken vibrators, dildos, plugs, or any other sex toy you may have. Our Sex Toy Recycling program offers you a way to recycle sex toys that you no longer want or use.

It is Simple and Easy
Simply drop your clean used toy(s) in the mail, when we receive it in our warehouse we will have it cleaned and disassembled. The rubber, silicone, hard plastics, metal, e-waste and motors will be sent to recycling facilities that process the materials for reuse. Did you leave the batteries in? Don’t worry, we dispose of them responsibly..

Help Your Planet
Now, when you get rid of that old, broken or unused sex toy, you will be helping our environment. You can feel good that you have done one more thing to cut consumer waste, reduce landfills and help eliminate the toxic chemicals that seep into our soil and ground water.

Rip: Remix, Chapters 1-3

2009-08-06T11:59:00.003-04:00

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

2009-07-30T21:01:00.004-04:00

For those of you who enjoyed Pride and Prejudice and Zombies...

Summer School

2009-07-30T09:01:00.005-04:00

I'm finishing up my first ever semester of summer school teaching and I've been pleased with how things have gone. It has not been as grueling as I feared for either the students or myself.

One of the surprise hits of the semester has been using Zizek's The Pervert's Guide to Cinema in class. The movie is very long - almost 3 hours - but is split up into three parts each of which provides a nice framework for class discussion. Talking about movies seems to open up discussion much more quickly than simply reading Lacan's "Mirror Stage."

The only downside is that it means I have to inflict on myself almost every disturbing scene from every David Lynch film ever made. That's a lot of disturbing scenes.

Buddy Guy

2009-07-29T12:09:00.002-04:00

Nostalgia. I was at this show way back when.

A Discovery

2009-07-16T06:27:00.001-04:00

Lacan is much more pleasant to read while smoking a good cigar. He even seems clearer.

I think this may have something to do with the fact that he no doubt wrote while smoking. Perhaps it helps produce some sort of chemical affinity with the text. Then again, perhaps it just helps ease the pain.

In either case, it is an excellent discovery.

Happy 4th!!

2009-07-04T22:59:00.006-04:00

Here's a pic I took tonight at my local fireworks display. And just for fun, here's some music for the day from Fry and Laurie as well. Happy 4th!

Unknown Zizek

2009-07-03T09:45:00.003-04:00

Here is a video of Zizek speaking on ideology to Google workers. I hadn't seen this one. It repeats much of the material from other talks Zizek gave last year on the heels of his Violence book. But I find the setting of this one at Google's New York offices strangely compelling.

Synchronicity

2009-06-27T10:49:00.005-04:00

One summer, I really want to make the trek out to the Smoky Mountains to see this: synchronous lightning bugs.

Academic Squalor

2009-06-18T10:04:00.010-04:00

Inspired by Sisyphus' musings on office decor, I've started the task of cleaning out, redecorating, and steampunkifying my office. This is clearly all still part of my ongoing post-tenure and post-sabbatical recovery process, but I think it will help me and I may even enjoy the project.

Over the past 14 years, I've had 10 different offices. Before that, I had moved offices yearly for 5 years. That's almost 20 years of moving offices. I'm really good at moving now. I've had lots of practice. What I'm terrible at is unpacking. I've had no real practice at that. I have boxes which I still haven't fully unpacked from grad school. Partly, this behaviour is simply practical. If you know you'll be moving in a semester or two, then leaving some things packed will simply save time. The boxes will be ready and waiting for the next move. Partly, this behaviour is simply neurotic and my own personal physical symptom expressing the uncertainties that haunt contingent academic labor. Fine. With tenure, though, and with the recent threat of moving buildings yet again lifted, I'm determined to actually unpack and make my office my own. In order to help motivate myself to finish the job this time, here is a "before" picture of my squalid office as it looks today:

Awful. Note the generations of dead computer equipment and office furniture underfoot; the piles of papers; and the clutter on every possible surface. I must fix this. Here is my goal:

This is Freud's Vienna office circa 1938. I'm particularly fond of his desk chair. I don't think I'll quite make this goal, but any small steps in this direction are all to the good.

I'm going to try to be very intentional about the things I include in my office, and ruthless about the things I throw out. I have various objets d'art that I've acquired over the years that have never found a home. Some are very nice. Some have more sentimental value than artistic merit. Others are simply too horrendous to be welcome at home and so have been banished to my office.

I've also given up on having my university buy any furniture for my office. Even in times of flush budgets, that has been very hard to do. Now, it's simply impossible. Plus, institutional furniture is always too ugly anyway. So, instead, I will spend a little money of my own here and there to help things along. Wish me luck. I will need it.

Very Modern Times

2009-06-01T06:06:00.002-04:00

This isn't new, but it's new to me. It's an updated version of Chaplin's wonderful nonsense song from Modern Times. I like it.

This video has inspired me to show Modern Times in my Marx class in the Fall. The feeding machine scene, the red flag march, the infamous prison cocaine scene, as well as the classic assembly line breakdown scene are all good grist for taking about capital. In the past, I've shown just pieces from this film, but I plan to indulge myself this time time around and watch the entire movie in class.

As a side note, the dark haired woman in the video with the flower in her hair is evidently Dolores Chaplin, Charlie's granddaughter. Nice touch.

Travel In The Time Of Swine Flu

2009-05-01T06:16:00.000-04:00

Our three months in Mexico ends today and we're heading home. I'm not sure what to expect from our border crossings today never having traveled during a pandemic before. I assume we will receive some special attention at customs because we are coming from Mexico, although the state of Quintana Roo where we've been has not had any swine flu cases so far. Going through customs is never my favorite thing, but I imagine we'll make it through eventually. More posts once I'm settled back home. Happy May Day!

Cecilio Chi Elementary School

2009-04-30T07:54:00.000-04:00

This is Cecilio Chi Elementary School on the town square of Laguna Bacalar.

Cecilio Chi was a leader in the Mayan rebellion during the Caste War in the Yucatan in the late 1800's which was very nearly successful. That there is an elementary school named after Cecilio Chi seems to me a little like passing by Nat Turner Elementary in rural Virginia. I wish I knew more about the local politics that brought this about. I'm sure they are very interesting.

Daniel the Manatee

2009-04-29T07:13:00.000-04:00

This is Daniel the Manatee.

He is adorable. He was rescued as an infant off the coast of Belize and fostered by faculty and students at ECOSUR. He's living now in Laguna Guerrero and is almost an adult.

I really wasn't expecting such charisma from an animal called a sea cow. Daniel is more alert, inquisitive, and playful than most dogs I know. He's clearly smarter than any dog I know. He's also beautiful and incredibly graceful. Sadly, habitat destruction is taking its toll on these amazing creatures.

For those of you who can stand the cuteness, there are also baby pictures of Daniel available online. ZOMG soooo cute!

Kohunlich

2009-04-28T08:51:00.003-04:00

Taken at the Temple of the Masks at the Mayan ruins of Kohunlich:

These masks were covered over when the temple was remodeled at some point during the centuries Kohunlich was occupied. Because of this ancient makeover, these masks are wonderfully well preserved with even some the colors still visible.

Time To Publication

2009-04-23T08:46:00.005-04:00

What is the longest time you know about for a journal article to appear in print?

I just had an article come out. I had submitted the article back in 2005 (and just to make me feel better, let's ignore all those years this particular article spent on my desk in the form of various drafts and conference presentations shall we? kthnx.) That's 4 years from submission to publication. This is certainly longer than usual, but I doubt I broke any records.

The article actually whizzed through the initial peer review process at the journal and was accepted pending revisions after only about 6 months. The review process for the revisions took another year. So far, this seems about par for the course to me, although it is probably a little on the long side for the revisions. One of the two reviewers hadn't cared for the article and probably wasn't very interested in reading it a second time around knowing that it had already been accepted over their initial objections. Journals rely on the kindness of faculty to serve as referees and this is exactly the sort of work that is easy for professors to put in the "doesn't have to be done today pile" on the corner of their desk which can then be safely left to gather dust for a year. Still, after 18 months the article had finished its sojourn through the hands of reviewers and the revision process and been given final acceptance for publication.

I truly wasn't concerned that I didn't hear anything more from the journal over the next year.

I did finally send a polite email query about the status of the article. Six months later I received a somewhat chagrined reply apologizing for the delay. It seems they had lost my article, and then lost my email query about the article. Then they were both found again. Then it took close to another year for the article to find its way into print.

Not very graceful, but it worked.

Are there other stories out there about interminable time to publication? I'm guessing I'm not alone.

Pica

2009-04-19T06:23:00.001-04:00

When this was put on the table, the waiter made sure to make eye contact with me, the obvious gringo, and say very seriously, "Pica."

Yucatecan food is typically not terribly hot as compared to say Northern Mexican cuisine (or Southern Texas food for that matter). The one exception to this rule, though, seems to be Yucatecan salsas. This particular batch of salsa was basically just shredded habanero chiles and is among the more ferociously hot things I have ever put in my mouth. I imagine the stern warning was directed at me because once upon a time some poor unsuspecting German tourist mistook the small dish for carrots or coleslaw and ate a big forkful. It does look mostly harmless. I liked the heat, but I also appreciated the warning too.

Handshake

2009-04-18T09:14:00.004-04:00

This is one of the most fascinating news photos I've seen in a long time:

Writing Technologies

2009-04-09T10:50:00.000-04:00

This is just a quick note about the new word processor I've been using while on sabbatical. I really like it. It's called Bean and it's a free, open-source word processor for Macs. Microsoft Word has gotten so large and slow and complicated that it makes me sad just to click on its icon these days. This word processor makes me happy. I find that's important since there are so many other ways for writing to make me sad it seems silly to start down that path just by opening the word processor.

I will date myself here by confessing that I started writing my dissertation using Microsoft Word 1.0 on a MacPlus. That sounds ancient. No doubt it is ancient. In human years, that would be about 1990. I remember really liking Word 1.0 though. It was very simple and very easy to use. Bean takes me back to those halcyon days of my youth when word processors were easy to use. I like this, and not purely for reasons of nostalgia. Time spent wandering through menus is not helpful to the creative process, nor are crashes and freezes. Bean is also easy on the eyes. Literally. One feature that my recently bifocaled eyes appreciate is the simple slider at the bottom of the window that changes the size of the text in the display. Brilliant! I can read what I'm writing again. I'm sure this is an important step forward in the quality of my writing as well. Bean is also free. I like free. If you drive a Mac, check out Bean. It may make you happy too.

By Special Request

2009-04-08T12:37:00.004-04:00

Another soothing, stress-free beach pic. Plus, a bonus iguana shot.

Lumpen Cats

2009-04-01T12:25:00.009-04:00

I've decided to stop blogging about Marx, academic labor and the state of higher education. It's all just too stressful. Instead, until further notice, I will be blogging exclusively about cats.