Open Letter to the Entire French Electorate

Dear France,

Today, I read this in the New York Times report about your upcoming election: "The far-left leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has suggested that there is an equivalence between the two candidates. Some two-thirds of his voters will cast blank votes or abstain on Sunday, according to an internal party survey.”

Mes amis, been there, done that: lots and lots of American progressives, disappointed in their choices, stayed home last November to send a message to the Democrats. As a result, we (and the rest of the world) got the world's most dangerous idiot as president.

I get that you're unhappy with your choices. What I'm saying is that you don't need to try it to see what happens. We got that covered.

Be smarter than us.

Merci.

"European Identity" My Lily-White Ass.

So.

This week, my campus was targeted by a national white supremacist organization as part of a larger national campaign. We found our hallways, library, kiosks adorned with variations on this theme:

The poster in our hall. I've blurred the org. name because F those jerks.

So today, I had to go into two of my classes and address this. There was no internal debate. No should I/should I not -- none whatsoever. Not even for a second. First of all, the issue was a misuse of the very past I was there to discuss, and so it was required that I talk about this, and take a strong stand about the abuses of history. Second, if someone wants to complain that I'm using class time to say mean things about nazis, I'm cool with that. Anyway, I mentioned that these morons were basing their idea of the future being "ours" and belonging to "us" on a bogus claim of the past belonging to "us."

I may or may not have deployed the phrase "ass-ignorant." Reports vary. I am certain that I was shaking at various points.

A representative of our administration made a point about being a public university and thus respecting free speech. Which is true. What is also true is that outright lies are not co-equal with reasonable arguments. Just like it's not "airing both sides" to arrange a debate between a German historian and a Holocaust denier.

It's not so often that medieval history is on the front lines of the fight against nationalism. We tend to get characterized as "esoteric" or even "irrelevant" to the way we live our lives today. But not knowing allows these falsehoods to take hold. And we don't do ourselves, our students, or our society any good by trying to be apolitical in the face of something both historically wrong and morally repugnant.

We have a role to play. Time to step up, be loud, be unafraid and unapologetic. Time for historians to make sure they get right with history.

Resistance Fridays: I wrote a letter

...to Paul Ryan.

A real letter that I have signed and I will put in an envelope and put a stamp on and mail to Janesville, Wisconsin.

No, I'm not a constituent. Nor am I a Republican. But I am someone who is concerned about stuff. And he's in a position in which he can do stuff about stuff. Or not. And if we want stuff done (or stuff opposed), we're going to need to engage with those in position to influence stuff.

That's it. It's Friday.

Do stuff.

While we're burning the system to the ground...

Yesterday, the New York Times posted an op-ed by a Dallas elector who stated why he was going to refuse to cast his electoral vote for... well, you know the guy. The orange one with the alleged "hair." I wrote on the facebooks that I wasn't sure how I felt about this: I would be happy with the result, but this would basically further erode trust in an elections system that is already as frayed as one's gym underwear (come on -- don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about).

But then I got to thinking, and I realized that this is a situation that has some merit to it. Here's my fantasy of how it plays out (and yes, I know this is a fantasy. But let me have it for a few hours):

1. Dallas elector's example is followed by others who are not willing to go public, but who know that the future of the country rest in their hands: Will they turn the country over to a dangerously ignorant narcissist? Okay, I think most of them will. Because most people hate confrontation. Most people are rule-followers. Hell, I'm mostly a rule-follower. But some people will see a crisis. Maybe some. Maybe enough.
2. Agent Orange loses the electoral college vote, and is not president. Who becomes president? Honestly, who cares at this point. Because other than some of the cabinet appointees and their backers, there is no one less qualified or more dangerous. 
3. The GOP members of congress express vociferous outrage! And (here's the key bit) respond by moving through legislation to do away with the electoral college altogether and have presidents elected by popular vote. And the democrats, in a gentleperson's agreement, tactfully do not mention how secretly relieved their GOP colleagues are.

See? This way, everybody wins. Well, everybody except one person. But I could live with that.

Resistance Fridays

So yeah, I'm concerned. And likely to stay that way for a while. I'm concerned that less than a quarter of this country's eligible voters have elected a sexist, narcissist charlatan who has shown a willingness to get into bed with racists, white supremacists, and white nationalists, and who either hasn't read the constitution or doesn't give a damn about things like a free press and the rule of law.

I'm concerned that the president-elect is more interested in appearing before a cheering crowd than actually doing the business of governing, which appears to bore him.

I'm concerned that the president-elect does not read, nor does he care to know anything that does not confirm what he already believes.

So I am resisting.

Part of that resistance is by keeping on doing what I'm already doing: by teaching, by underlining the importance of critical thinking, by refusing to give ignorance a pass. Part is mentally preparing for what I will do if confronted with injustice: mentally preparing myself to intervene. Part is writing checks. Part is volunteering to volunteer. Part is making calls, registering my protest with people who can make a difference. Reaching out to people who might be swayed.

Mostly, I need to make an appointment with resistance, and make it part of my schedule. Because human beings can adapt to the most atrocious circumstances, and decide that the unacceptable is actually acceptable. And it's not.

So I hereby declare "Resistance Fridays." Every Friday, I will report an act of resistance, small or large, a concrete measure I have taken to push back against the unacceptable.  I have no illusions: I know that most outcomes will be losses. But I can't not fight back. And dedicating some time, once a week, to resisting will remind me to stay in the fight.

Here is this Friday's act:

This week, the news is full of reports of how the incoming President's business holdings make him vulnerable to quid-pro-quo arrangements. He will have the power to appoint the head of the National Labor Relations Board, an organization that is currently ordering him to correct violations of federal labor law at his hotels. He will appoint the next head of the Justice department, a federal bureau investigating financial malfeasance of Deutsche Bank, a financial institution holds millions in Trump family loans. He continues to lean on Scotland about wind farms that, according to him, mar the view from the Trump golf course. And, of course, there are the foreign diplomats flocking to stay at the Trump Hotel on Pennsylvania avenue -- a property that Trump leases from the federal government, under a contract that states that no federal employee may profit from the lease.

I would not worry about his dealings now if he had even an ounce of shame. He does not. If he is not stopped, he will continue to bleed the country dry for his own benefit. It's unethical. It's shameful. It's gross.

Yet there have been two rays of sunshine in all this. The first was the Office of Government Ethics' masterful Twitter-trolling of the Troll-in-Chief, right down to imitating his diction and punctuation. The second was that the Senate introduced a resolution urging His Orangeness to divest.

I'm down with that. So my Friday act of resistance was to write both of my senators, thanking them, and my Representative, asking him to sign on if such a thing came through the house -- or maybe to propose something himself.

Resistance Fridays: Make it a thing.

My Day-After Diary

There was an election. And then there was fallout, and trying to figure out what to do. And in the middle of that, there was the flu. But I did write something, on Wednesday, November 9. And now it's time to share it. And maybe other things as well. Because as SquadratoMagico pointed out in our day-after e-mails, one of the things we do is write.

Today sucked. I cried. Literally broke down and heaved great gasping sobs in my office. Online, I wrote about how we need to not give up. And I know I will eventually pick myself up and figure out some way to ACT, so that history isn't just something that happens to me. But right now I can't imagine what it would be.

I want to reproduce the words that my sister wrote to me, about how Emergency Backup Nephew, not yet seven, started the evening excited, and went to bed crying. I can't. Reading those words breaks me in two. I think of the two little girls I saw at the school where I voted, and how their eyes got big and their faces broke into smiles when I answered them ("who are you voting for?") with "I'm voting for Hillary." What kind of morning did two African-American sisters, probably 7 and 9, have this morning? As bad as my nephew's? As bad as the girls at Wellesley who were interviewed on NPR, saying they looked at the map and saw a country that didn't want them? A country that would rather vote for the most willfully ignorant and utterly unqualified dangerous narcissist to be elected by a democratic process?

Students here protested. I am proud of them. I'm worried that they are insisting "not my president" and even more that "the election was rigged." Taking refuge in denial or conspiracy theories is no way to solve a real problem. But they don't need a middle-aged white lady telling them how to run their revolution.

I still don't know what I'm going to do with myself. So far I have made donations, I have sent e-mails volunteering to volunteer (no response yet). I have written to a local Islamic center expressing my sadness at a recent bit of horrible hate mail they'd gotten, and asking if I could help in any way. Other than that... I feel like I should be doing something. But perhaps here, as in other things, I will write my way in.

Welcome to the Beehive

I need to start this story with the Bungal-ette. I moved into it in 2003. Imagine a wood-frame bungalow, built in the late 30s. Imagine wood floors and tile in the bathroom and kitchen and windows everywhere. Imagine it shrunk down to 500 square feet. Imagine it convenient to bike lanes, bus routes, coffee shops, and a body of water. It was a little piece of rental perfection, and was thus my home for the dozen or so years between when I was hired at Grit City and when I went off to my divine year at Fancy-Pants U. And though the owner and I got along famously, "no sublets" was a hard and fast rule. Thus, I knew that I would have to find someplace to live upon my return. And I was pretty sure that I'd get less and pay more -- prices are high here, and Bungalettes are hard to come by.

I am here to tell you that I had no idea.

In the scant year I was away, rental prices went up about 15%. In a single year. And the vacancy rate fell to below 3%. I looked and looked. One place wanted a two-year lease. Another didn't come with a refrigerator. Another was a whopping twenty-five percent more than I had paid only a year ago, for a smaller and less desirable place. And just about everything already had five applications in.

And then I found the Beehive.[1]

Here's how it went: my former Pilates instructor asked the owner of the studio who had a friend who was moving from one unit to another in a subdivided house, and so the small upstairs unit would be available, and might I be interested? Well, it was indeed small -- 410 square feet, including the closet. And certainly a little more chaotic than my previous place, what with everbody living on top of each other. And there were a few things that Did Not Work that I knew I would have to fix myself or just learn to live with. And the previous tenant had done only a desultory job cleaning. It was not promising at first. But... it was next to the neighborhood I was hoping for. And both the co-owners (one of whom lives in a back unit) seemed pretty cool, and happy to have someone mostly self-sufficient and quiet, as well as to knock off over half of the deposit in exchange for the full day of pre-move-in cleaning I did. And though the unit kitchen can only accommodate one butt at a time (and that only if said butt is not dancing), and a living/dining room that could not fit an actual dining table, it also had a little corner nook under the eaves for an office and my bike. It was still biking distance from work,if in a neighborhood a bit less well maintained. There were wood floors. The other tenants were friendly, and the resident co-owner built conceptual art out of reclaimed wood in the backyard, and was the kind of person who would eventually offer to swap her preserved meyer lemons for my cranberry-apple chutney. The bedroom got tons of morning sunlight. It had a little working gas fireplace in the corner to provide the heat in winter. It rented for 50% below market, enabling me to put well over a third of my take-home pay towards my ever-optimistic house fund. And it was available.


Reader, I rented it.

[1] "Why 'The Beehive?'," you may well ask. Well, in large part because, with four units in the house plus two stand-alones and the owner's workshop/studio -- did I mention she's a conceptual artist? -- in the backyard and half of the units taken up by people who either are related to each other or have known each other for ages, all kind of on top of each other, it's a hive of seemingly chaotic but perfectly cheerful activity. And also, because there is an actual colony of bees that has taken up residence in the exterior wall just below the gorgeous bay window in my miniscule living room. The screens, fortunately, are sound. I checked.

Dubious Investment Advice for Women**

**I am so going to get spam based on the post title alone. So comments stay open only for a week so I don't spend the rest of my life deleting posts by bots.
______________________________

I love a good shoe. Truly, I do. In fact, today, I was walking -- nay, strutting -- through the library at Hogwarts, and in no small part because of the pair of boots I am wearing. They are comfortable yet stylish. They work with skirts and jeans. They are perfect, and I will cry when I inevitably wear them out and can't find another pair like them.

But today, in my social media account, one of those ads popped up. It was from a women's magazine, and it was promoting what its editors thought (or had been paid to think) were the shoes to have this season (Yes, some people buy shoes by season. We call them "wealthy people"). I clicked on it, and found what I anticipated: there was one pair that was reasonably attractive; the others seemed designed to scream out YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE ME BEFORE I AM TOTALLY UNIQUE NO NOT UGLY HOW COULD YOU THINK THAT YOU SHOULD BUY ME RIGHT NOW FOR $800 SO YOU CAN WEAR ME FOR EIGHT WEEKS BEFORE THE INEVITABLE KNOCK-OFFS HAPPEN AND EVERYBODY HAS A PAIR AND YOU HAVE TO DISOWN ME AND BURN EVERY PICTURE YOU HAVE WITH YOU WEARING ME.

For $990 this (and its mate) can be yours.

But it's not that -- the inevitable disposable fashion -- that caught my eye. That's a given, as is the eyeroll that is my standard response. It was the title of the post. Usually, it's something like "18 handbags you can't live without" or "12 smoothies that will change your life" or something equally hyperbolic. This one, however, was called "Sixteen Shoes You'll Want to Invest In This Spring."  And that title raised a few questions for me:

• What is the projected rate of return on my shoe investment?
• Is my shoe-investment tax-deferred?
• Can I roll it over into an IRA?
• What are the investment manager fees for my shoe purchase?
• Will my employer match my contributions?

Oh, wait: by "invest", you mean "Spend the equivalent of 2.5 months' retirement contributions on a pair of shoes that will be fashionable for about the next 5 minutes because poverty in old age only happens to ugly people." Got it.

As the inimitable Twisty Faster used to say, this chaps my spinster hide. First, women are marketed beauty products with food to put on their faces to replace the food that they're not supposed to put in their faces; now, "investment" means "spend money on something whose value depreciates to zero in less time than it takes you to pay off the charge on your credit card."

What. The. HELL.

History without Reflection

Historians are -- some of us anyway -- notoriously bad at names and dates. We know what came before and after and in the midst of what, so we can make some inferences about causality. But what makes a history major or a professional historian different from a history buff is that our main questions are not about  "what" or "who" or even "when," but "why." Why did this thing happen? We also like "so what?": Can our answer to the "why?" question make us understand the past and maybe even the present better?

This is how I encourage students to be history majors: because the study of history, done correctly, beyond being fun, makes you think about how various factors and impulses and circumstances and even chance encounters might add up to Something Important. Granted, not every bit of history is All About Us. Likewise, similarity is not identity: we are not living in the last days of the Roman Empire;¹ no one is Hitler except Hitler. Looking for the lesson can sometimes distort what we see, if we try too hard to read the past through the lens of the present.

But when there is a lesson, we ought to pay attention.² "There," we say, "was a moment where we, as a human race [or country or gender or whatever] were at our best." "There," we say, "is where we screwed up, and we need to take a long, hard look at that, not to beat our breasts, but to become better." We can look at the past and realize that there are factors out of our control, but there are often choices: moments where we, as individuals or groups or societies, have options with how to deal with the circumstances handed to us. And yes, history will judge us. It always does.

And what happens when we don't study history with an eye to the "why"? This:

"Anticipating the criticism [of his proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the country], Mr. Trump compared his plan with former President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s proclamations during

World War II that labeled Germans, Italians and Japanese “enemy aliens” who could be detained in the United States.

"Mr. Trump referenced the proclamations specifically, noted that people were stripped of naturalization proceedings and not allowed to use radios and flashlights and praised Mr. Roosevelt in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” program. 'Look at what F.D.R. did many years ago,' Mr. Trump said, 'and he’s one of the most respected presidents.' ”

Having the facts of history without reflecting on what those facts mean makes us dangerous.


¹ No matter how much Niall Ferguson thinks this is the case.
² For example, I regularly teach courses on the encounter between medieval Christianity and Islam, and am forever trying to dismantle the whole "clash of civilizations" thing. Sometimes it even works.

The Best Advice I Can Give to Women in Academia

Yeah, there's lots of great advice out there about networking and how to navigate sexual harassment and women in academic leadership positions and work-life balance and long-distance marriages and feminist pedagogy and all this. There are special issues faced by women of color, trans women, lesbian women. And probably someday I'll touch on some of these. And if I don't, be assured that there is a cottage industry out there in advice columns (hand over heart for Ms. Mentor, probably our first adviser) and books. And it's all good. But if I had to give just one bit of gendered advice, it boils down to something pretty simple:

Build and treasure friendships -- real friendships -- with other female academics, especially those a few years further down the personal and professional road. [1]

[really large chunk cut out here because I realized in retrospect that I was lecturing, and thus burying the point in excess verbiage]

Of course you should have male friends and non-academic friends (as many of the latter as you can get). But other women in the biz know how the personal and the professional overlap and swallow each other and such in a very special way.

Why write about this today? Because in the past week, I have e-mailed back and forth with Historiann (who I've spend lots of F2F time with), and have spent an hour on the phone with former blogger Squadratomagico (thanks, internets!), and there are the others who don't have online personas so I won't presume to name them (but I hope they know who they are). But after each of these interactions -- ones that are mentorly but also personal and funny and irreverent and snarky and sometimes swear-filled (okay, that's mostly my contribution) -- I remember how profoundly grateful I am to have these wonderful women (among others) in my life, and how we have kept each other sane-ish through some trying professional and personal times.

So, I guess this is really a mash-note to the lifeline that is a circle of lady-friends, a thank you to all you glorious, fun, irreverent, and really intelligent academic women, and a hope for myself that I can be a part of making things better for other women in the way you have for me.


Yours in sisterhood,

--NPhD

[1] Corollary: be open to being that further-down-the-road friend to others.

The Perils of the Public Intellectual

In honor of Constitution day, let's discuss a constitutional controversy. No, not whether the 14th amendment endorses birthright citizenship (duh), nor whether the 10th amendment lets you have your legal weed. Nope: it's the question of whether our country's founding document is an explicit endorsement of racism and/or slavery.

There has been a great deal of consternation on this subject lately, prompted by yesterday's op-ed by Sean Wilentz, in which he argues that the constitutional wording in three important clauses -- the three-fifths compromise, the fugitive slave clause, and the delay of abolition of the slave trade until 1808 -- were actually victories for the anti-slavery delegates.

Yeah, I know: Weird, right? Friends of mine have referred to it as everything from "puzzling" to "pretty nutty." There's a long-form rebuttal here (EDIT: and, more recently, a counter-argument in the Atlantic).

But here's the thing: it's a rebuttal to only part of the argument. I was actually able to see the whole thing in a nearly hour-long talk in which he presented all of his evidence for the claims in the op-ed, and in which the very claims he makes are properly nuanced. Let me tell you: it made a huge difference. What may have seemed "puzzling" or even "pretty nutty" in the op-ed now looked like a Really Cool Thing when presented in its fullness. Sure, there were a few bits in the argument that I thought were a bit of a reach to make an otherwise cogent point.¹ But the argument as a whole made sense.

And this is the essential dilemma of the public intellectual: you can't make the same argument in 603 words (I counted) as you can in 45-60 minutes with your evidence on slides. This is obvious. You can't honor the complexity that is the hallmark of scholarly historical study. And yet, you're not going to get most of the general public to sit down and read a monograph or scholarly article or even attend an hour-long talk, should they be so lucky to have one in the vicinity. So this is why we have public intellectuals. They boil stuff down.

Of course, anyone who has cooked anything knows that boiling something too long removes all the flavor and texture and nutrition. Likewise, perhaps this topic was too complex to be boiled down. Or maybe Wilentz had an nice, tight 800 words, before some editor insisted that, no really, Professor Wilentz: 600 is all you get. I can just tell you two things:

1. the op-ed in no way reflects the complexity of the argument behind its points; and

2. [point 1] is an example of why being a public intellectual is hard, and the folks who take on this work won't always hit the mark -- even the very smart ones. But that doesn't make it any less worthwhile.



¹ Academic historians like to present things in threes: four supporting arguments may be too much for a listening audience to follow, while two seems a bit thin to really support a Big Argument. But sometimes you have two really strong points, and end up stretching a bit to get the third. And -- pro tip -- if you're ever digesting an academic argument, if there's a weak point, it's usually in the middle.

And the award for best birthday present EVER goes to...

the Supreme Court of the United States.

Seriously, guys: I didn't think you could top your gift from two years ago. I know that technically, this gift's not for me; it's something meant to share with my friends. And I know that some of you only signed the card grudgingly. But it's really, truly, the best thing ever. Better than shoes; better than cheese; better than an all-expenses-paid trip around the world.

Thanks.

Forward goes Backward

UPDATE: This is an evolving situation; I'll post news links at the very bottom as I become aware of them.


If you've been paying attention to the news of academia lately, you can't have help but think that a handful of state governors (most of whom, not coincidentally, are potential or declared presidential candidates) are actively competing to see who can dismantle their state's higher education system most quickly and thoroughly. I'm fortunate that I'm teaching in a state that, while hit hard by the economic downturn (no raises or COLAs for 6 years; furloughs, mass lecturer layoffs), is climbing out of the abyss and currently has a governor who is throwing resources at public education at all levels. But we're kind of the exception.

Close to my heart is Wisconsin. I spent a truly wonderful year at UW in Madison, back when this blog started. I might have been able to finish my book without the resources and scholarly collaboration that that year provided, but it never would have been as good a book as it turned out to be. While there, I got to know the fantastic folks of Wisconsin, learned about the state's tradition of quietly progressive politics, and I even got to meet Russ Feingold. I learned the possibly apocryphal fact that the ass of the badger seated atop the head of "Forward," the female personification of the Badger State spirit, is the highest point in the state.

Something totally cool about higher ed in Wisconsin: the "Wisconsin Idea": a progressive-era ideal that the state should be the laboratory for democracy. When it comes to higher ed, they put it simply: "The boundaries of the university are the boundaries of the state." And the protection of tenure was actually written into state law. Holy moly: now that's a commitment to partnership.

I kept following Wisconsin after I left, and grew progressively more dismayed. Feingold was voted out as senator and Walker was voted in as governor. He quickly moved to crush the unions, despite weeks of heroic protests and sit-ins -- a fact that he actually plays up in his "I may or may not be running for president" stump speeches. Early this year, he attempted to remove a key phrase from the Wisconsin Idea: "Basic to every purpose of the system is the search for truth." The university was for "workforce development," not "truth."

But this week, it moved from the realm of theoretical offense to the pursuit of knowledge to a gloves-off assault on the pesky educators standing in his way. First, the Walker government proposed law that would allow K-12 classes to be taught by people without a bachelor's degree or even a high school diploma -- all they'd need is "relevant experience." Then, the state government inserted language into the budget that allowed it to remove tenured faculty without cause in case of "financial necessity" (and no, they don't define this phrase). And today, the UW board of regents (most of them Walker appointees) just went along with it.

TL;DR: your teachers don't need to be accredited; your university profs can be fired at any moment; the "search for truth" can go fuck itself.

Oh, Forward. If only I had the power to animate you and your badger, so you could climb down from that dome. You look like you could kick some ass.

On, Wisconsin.

updates/link-y goodness:

• The state of tenure/faculty governance: what's decided and what's still up in the air (Via the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
• A nice op-ed/call for solidarity (from al-Jazeera America)
• A piece that takes into account the fact that, as Contingent Cassandra points out, our universities have already half-dismantled tenure by their reliance on criminally underpaid adjunct labor (ironically, from HuffPo, which tends to pay their columnists in "exposure.")

44, or, La plus ça change...

...is how old I am today. Some facts about my life at this, the halfway point (if I'm very lucky and the damage hasn't already been done):

• Education/Employment: Gainfully employed in my field, tenured, and about to go up for promotion to full professor
• Housing: a very nice (albeit small) one-bedroom cottage apartment in a good neighborhood within walking distance of half a dozen coffee shops
• Transportation: Trek Lexa entry-level road bike
• Relationship status: happily unattached
• Most recent international trip: Last summer, to Italy, for a yoga retreat and intensive language courses
• Best recent accomplishment: Book award
• Thing that needs to go away: I can't believe I started smoking again. Crap.
• Overall state of mind: utterly content

At 33:

• Education/Employment: Just got a job offer and will be headed out to Grit City next week to look for an apartment
• Housing: Tiny attic studio in the student ghetto that I actually fixed up to be pretty nice... but damn it's hot. And I can be counted on to bash my head against the slanted ceilings at least once every six weeks. And I caught a mouse under the sink -- which is an improvement over the poisonous spiders in the previous place I lived, but still. A mouse.
• Transportation: Trek 530 hybrid bike, about 10 years old
• Relationship status: complicated
• Most recent international trip: Mop-up research trip to Blargistan, during the winter 18 months ago
• Best recent accomplishment: Defended my dissertation!
• Thing that needs to go away: See above, re: "relationship status"
• Overall state: relieved and a bit at sea

At 22:

• Education/Employment: Just completed first year at a fancy four-year college after two years at community college; working two food service jobs (a fancy restaurant and a coffee shop near school) at about 20 hours a week apiece.
• Housing: Downtown puddletown apartment in a great 1930s building, shared with a roommate. In this arrangement, I am in the role of obnoxious slob.
• Transportation: incredibly heavy 5-speed bike (circa 1978) + city bus.
• Relationship status: [redacted]
• Most recent international trip: 7-week solo trip to Germany, Austria, and Switzerland two years ago
• Best recent accomplishment: Accepted to junior year abroad trip to Munich
• Thing that needs to go away: As with most college students recently turned 21, I am drinking far too much alcohol (spoiler alert: A year in Munich is not going to help in this regard...)
• Overall state: Pretty screwed up, though blissfully unaware of how much so.

Looked at that way, it looks like I've done better for myself than I've any right to. Happy Birthday to me.

Regretting the offhand title of the last post

...because frankly, in light of the Isla Vista shootings, the thought of bullets of any kind is making me a bit ill.

Here's the deal with me: I'm not 100% anti-gun. If I ever retire to my dream cabin in the woods, and if it's in a region where there are Wild Things, I'll likely even purchase a shotgun myself and get trained to use it defensively and, if at all possible, nonlethally.

Having said that, I firmly believe that the "no restrictions" crowd is 100% in the wrong, and the Isla Vista shootings make it clear why. What we're seeing here is a toxic mix of unrestrictive gun laws, possible mental illness, and misogynistic entitlement. A person who was mentally ill and/or racist/misogynist/homophobic might indeed do some damage. But the fact that he was able to legally purchase 3 semi-automatic weapons made him ever so much deadlier.

This is not the "well regulated militia" that the second amendment speaks of. This is mass murder driven by misogyny and entitlement and made all that much easier and more efficient by the easy availability of rapid-firing weapons and a culture that equates their use with nationalistic mythos and control over one's own destiny. Too many things in our culture say this kid was doing the right thing. And that's what makes me ill.

BONUS LINKAGE: There are some good pieces being written in the wake of this lobe-melting massacre. Here's one I particularly like, addressed directly to men.

I wish I had time

...to write a real post about yesterday. It was my birthday, and the Supreme Court, who up until yesterday had seemed intent on rolling back civil rights to the 1950s, surprised me by giving me an excellent, excellent birthday present: an affirmation of equality for my LGBT friends.

Unfortunately, after all the excitement of yesterday, today is the day I head to the airport. In about 7 minutes, actually. But this morning I took one last walk through the streets of Bologna. Even though I was sad to be leaving, I found myself singing under my breath, smiling like an idiot at nothing, and walking with a spring in my step that was just short of breaking into a dance.  So. Much. Happy.

And now I leave, to return to a country that seems, while still highly imperfect, just a little better.

Arrivederci, Bologna.

The Union Makes Us Strong

My faculty union is far from perfect. It often focuses on the wrong things. It misses crucial opportunities. It's sometimes tone-deaf. But it has managed to bind together several campuses, embrace lecturers as well as tenure-track faculty, and make us a force to be reckoned with, rather than steamrollered over.

In the roughly ten years since I have been at Grit City U., we have had two contract negotiations.  Both times, the union has had to vote to strike before we could get a serious contract.  But still, at least we could organize. We are currently ratifying a contract that doesn't include any raises at all, or really, anything to make up for the last three years of stagnation. But we're also protected against losing anything that we've gained, even though the state economy has been in serious trouble for a long time.  In this situation, no loss is very close to a win.

As we celebrate this Labor Day, I think of my friends working in Florida and other states like it -- states where somehow, state university employees have to work on the one day a year dedicated to the worker.  I think of the struggles of the twentieth century, and hope they won't be undone. And I celebrate and support workers (yes, even intellectual laborers!) everywhere. 

The fight is beginning again.  United we stand.

Want to (legally) beat your spouse? Move to Topeka!

Well, actually, you could move to most anywhere in Shawnee County, whose district court, due to lack of resources, no longer prosecutes domestic violence cases, and instead mandates that the (equally cash-strapped) municipalities prosecute them. But Topeka, so far as we know, is the only such municipality contemplating politically pushing back by actually decriminalizing domestic violence entirely, as part of a move to kick back all misdemeanor prosecutions to the state.

I'm not entirely sure what to say about this. What I'm not going to engage in is some knee-jerk Midwest-bashing. I lived in the Midwest on two occasions for a total of over 8 years of my adult life -- long enough to know that every part of the country has good people and bad ones, and most are a mix of both, just trying to get by. But still... on first reading, all I could do was make inarticulate noises in the back of my throat. And even on deeper thought, I'm going to be unable to form a coherent essay with a thesis statement (other than this). So here are my bullet points:

• Budget cuts are bad. Our public resources are strained. But is telling a person who has been brutally beaten by her or his spouse or partner that such conduct is no longer prosecutable where they live really the most sensible way to save money?
• Perhaps Topeka is trying to use this as a lever: "Budget cuts have forced us to immediately release batterers, who statistics show will most likely repeat their behavior. We don't want to do this. This is putting human lives on the line. So we need more resources, or we need counties and the state to step up. We're sending a political message on behalf of women!" But in the real world, messages don't mean shit when you're living in constant fear in your home, if you're not in a hospital bed or in the ground.
• And of the many things that counties and states have shoved off on municipalities (just as the federal government offloads its responsibilities onto the states), why is it women* whose bodies are being put on the line?
• That was a rhetorical question.
• Poverty and frustration with long-term unemployment increases the incidence of domestic violence (especially male-on-female domestic violence). There are complex cultural reasons for it tied up with American notions of masculinity. But the point is that the same massive long-term recession that is behind this move to decriminalize domestic violence is simultaneously going to cause rates of domestic violence to double or triple. So protections for women are disappearing at a time when they are likely to need them more than ever.
  
• The Topeka mayor assures his constituents that anyone who thinks that decriminalizing domestic violence means that said violence will go unpunished is "dead wrong." How, precisely, will punishment be effected if it's no longer a prosecutable offense in the municipal code, and if the D.A. has already taken a pass?
• Why the actual fuck is domestic battery only a misdemeanor? Here's an idea, Topeka: go ahead and save money by refusing to prosecute misdemeanors (not an ideal solution, granted), but legally bundle that decision with another one to reclassify domestic battery as a felony.**

Enough. The upshot is that the Topeka city council is seriously considering making it no longer a prosecutable offense to beat somebody up… as long as it's somebody who lives under your own roof. This is making me sick.

UPDATED: I've just written a professionally-worded e-mail to the Topeka City Council. Their general contact info, as well as contact info for the mayor and individual council members, can be found here. I encourage people to get involved however you see fit. As a suggestion: bear in mind that the most effective political communication is concise, to-the-point, and avoids ad hominem attacks. (So, yes: I wrote them under my real name and took out the swears...)


*Yes, I know that women are not the only victims of domestic violence, and I know that men are not the only perpetrators. But since 84% of spouse abuse victims were females, and 86% of victims of dating partner abuse at were female, I'm gonna go with the argument that women are the ones being treated as expendable here.

**Joel, who knows about such things, notes that the power to do this does not lie with the municipalities. Fair enough. But I still maintain my original outraged question: Why the actual fuck is domestic battery only a misdemeanor -- in Topeka, or the state, or anywhere, for that matter?

Cuteness, Related to a Relation

I do love all the assorted nieces, nephews, both blood and fostered, who each bring their own brand of awesomeness to the table. But on my most recent visit to Puddletown, the quotable quotes came from the newly eight year-old Mr. B:

Example 1, while he was reading:

Me: So, do understand what's going on in the story so far?

Mr. B.: I think so...

Me: A "looking glass" is an old-fashioned word for a mirror. And Alice fell through the mirror, and found out there was another world on the other side.

Mr. B.: Yeah, that happens sometimes.


Example 2, after handing him his stuffed animals, which he proceeded to arrange around his freshly-made bed as he saw fit:

Mr. B.: Do you like how it looks?

Me: Yeah, it looks good.

Mr. B.: I watch a lot of design shows.

The Unsinkable Mr. B.
(younger nephew sold separately)

Yes, that's hard work, too; or, the Sunday Style section is a barrel of neverending fish.

The Sunday Style section of the New York Times is the eye-rolling gift that keeps on giving. Today, it's a story about downsized or disaffected white-collar professionals who dropped out to start their own service or labor or artisan businesses, only to discover that this, too, was hard, demanding work. Or, as the article's author puts it, "Many are surprised to find the hours and work grueling."

::headdesk::

I think that many of us, ten years or so into one career, have fantasized at least once (and sometimes once a week) about greener pastures where we could pursue a passion without having to bring our work home with us. Just last year, I was thinking about walking away from academia entirely, moving somewhere closer to friends and family, and trying to support myself through writing popular nonfiction.* But there also seems to be an unrealistic component to the fantasies in the article: that somewhere out there, there is a job that provides a decent amount of cash, unlimited personal fulfillment, and lots of free time. Believe me, I've had those same fantasies about the job I currently have, from time to time, and the disjunction between fantasy and reality is what brought me to the breaking point last year. In fact, some of the quotes in the article, with only a few minor tweaks, could easily be written by someone with academic fantasies:

• "This was supposed to be her Plan B: her chance to indulge a passion, lead a healthier life and downshift professionally — at least by a gear. Instead, Ms. Economou finds herself in overdrive."
• "He daydreamed of an unfettered life at his kiln, creating Bollywood-inspired teapots and butter dishes. [...] Now, instead of spending his free time absorbed in visions of clay, he spends as much as 70 percent of his day on administration."
• "She had envisioned a life of 'workouts, getting lots of sleep and blogging every day about health and fitness.' Instead, her classes start as early as 6 a.m. and she feels wiped out by day’s end, which can be 14 hours later."
• "A few years ago, she moved to Paris to apprentice with a master chocolatier. Visions of decadent bonbons swirled in her head. Instead, she felt like a modern-day Lucy in the candy factory, hunched over in a chocolate lab packing chocolates and scrubbing pots. If she wasn’t doing that, she was sweeping floors, wrapping gifts, answering telephones or shipping orders."

Of course, the article also points out the important positive side: that sense of personal fulfillment is there. And that's true of most academic jobs, too. When I was going through my crisis last year, fellow bloggers and friends Historiann and Squadratomagico advised me (gently) to let go of the fantasy and remember that it's a job. I do love what I do. I just don't love it all the time. I'm coming to it a bit later than I probably should have, but I'm really working now on appreciating the good or even great things about my job, accepting the not-so-great, keeping an eye on the truly intolerable,** and making space to grow the rest of my life.*** And I'm slooowly coming to realize that expecting to love every aspect of even the thing you like to do best is more than a little unrealistic. There's a reason, after all, for the phrase "dream job."

And I think that last bit is what left the sourest taste in my mouth (next to the condescending idea that people who work in non-professional jobs really don't have to work as hard****). Because the title of the NYT piece? Yep: "Maybe it's time for plan C."

::sigh::


*At least I hoped that it would be popular.

**If a job -- if anything in your life -- is making you truly miserable over the long term, then I say it's time to let it go.

***This process of acceptance and boundary-setting is a work in progress, of course.

****This is a common fallacy, and I think it can be boiled down to the laughable belief that pay and effort are always commensurate. Scratch the surface of that idea, and you quickly find the assumption -- and I guess now we're getting at what was really the sand in my sandwich when I read the article -- that people with little to no money are that way because they don't work as hard as their socioeconomic betters.