Why I Haven't Been Blogging Lately (A Good Excuse This Time)

Normally when this blog is dormant for long periods it's for some bullshit reason, like work or having a personal life. But this time, it's for something actually worthwhile.

As many readers already know, I'm part of a campaign to win recognition for Grad Student Workers United (GSWU-UAW). This is the 4th attempt to unionize graduate workers here at the University of Minnesota in the past 20 years. While previous campaigns have been defeated by administration misinformation and right-wing think tanks pouring money into defeating the union, this campaign is different.

We studiously poured over all available materials we could find from past campaigns to understand what went wrong and how we could avoid doing the same. And in that regard, we've been incredibly successful. We've had state and US senators and congressional representatives publicly state their support. The campus newspaper has come out in favor of the union. The graduate student government has come out in favor of a union, noting that student government can't negotiate with the university and instead only make recommendations the administration almost always ignores. Even a former Regent of the University has published an op-ed explaining why we need a union.

But most importantly, we've got a broad base of support across all disciplines and campuses. From chemical engineering to gender studies, from economics to aerospace, from sociology to mathematics, graduate workers in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Duluth all demand a union.

And after three days of voting, early results are looking pretty good. But voting is still going on today and tomorrow, so the fight is far from over. Today the voting location is in my little corner of campus, so it's my day to turn out every single person on the West Bank of the University of Minnesota. Although we're all invested in the campaign and have worked all over every campus, there's some pride in making sure your corner of the world turns out in massive numbers, and you can bet your ass I'll make sure that happens.

So I'm off to spend the next 11 hours knocking on doors, making phone calls, and putting what feels like a couple thousand miles on my shoes as I pound the erudite pavement making sure we not only win, but win big and let the administration know it has no choice but to negotiate with us as equals and to respect the massive amounts of work we grad workers do to keep this university running.

I likely won't post again until next Tuesday after all the ballots have been counted and the results are official. I'm pretty optimistic that post will be the happiest I've ever written....

Spring Break! Whoo!

Of the many things that suck about growing up, one of the biggest is losing spring break. Sure, as a grad student I still technically get spring break, as there are no students around so I don't have to teach this week. But I'm well past the point where spring break is anything more meaningful than giving me the 3 hours I would have otherwise spent teaching.

And it's not like I get to use those hours doing tequila shots in Cabo San Lucas, or whatever it is those damn kids do these days with their spring breaks. No, once you get past a certain point in academia, spring break mostly just means a week where campus is a lot more empty than usual. Otherwise, nothing changes about my week.

Granted, I know the entire rest of the world gets no spring break, so it sounds stupid of me to complain. But what gets me is that people still think I get a spring break, so while I'm stuck in my basement pounding out dissertation pages like I am any other week, everyone I know outside of academia assumes  I'm sitting on a sunny beach sipping pina colodas or some such thing. Not that I don't want to be, mind you.

So all of this is just to complain about the fact that I'm busy as ever, but for this week, the rest of the world thinks I'm on an awesome vacation. Nuts to that.

But since I'm well aware of the fact no one gives a shit about my petty problems, here's a picture of A-Rod taking his official publicity photo in the men's room:

This so excellently sums up all my feelings about the Yankees

I've Always Thought Of Beer Drinking As A Religious Experience, Too

Regular readers will remember last year this time when I wrote about the story of J. Wilson, the man who went on a beer-only fast for Lent, a fast which he broke in the most bad-ass way possible by having a bacon shake.

And while it sounds like a frat boy's dream or a funny prank, it's actually well inline with the practices of monks of old, who would brew and drink an especially heavy beer often referred to as "liquid bread." This liquid bread would be all they subsisted on for the entirety of lent, an especially intense understanding of what it means to fast. Also something that's relatively hard to get away with in today's world.

But Wilson not only got his employer to agree to allow him to drink at work, he completed the entire fast. But again, it wasn't simply the act of drinking beer for 45 days, but instead a time to reflect and all of that other boring religious stuff. Now a year later Wilson isn't doing another beer fast, but has come up with some pretty interesting insights from the experience.

Who Deserves Compensation For Their Work?

I haven't blogged about it much because I don't want the annoying people who find everything written about it so they can troll their little hearts out to come squat all over my blog, but I'm one of the thousands of graduate assistants at the University of Minnesota who supports unionizing. After a strong majority of grad assistants at the U signed union authorization cards, we asked the University administration to accept our majority and file for a union with us, since they have repeatedly said they respect grad students (just not enough to listen to us, apparently).

As in any movement to improve people's lives, there's always a few sour jerks who can't stand the idea that someone's life may be improved. These folks, predictably, have argued that we're lucky to get what we have, and besides, there's a recession going on and the university doesn't have any money. So union supporters such as myself have responded that, sure, we're lucky to be employed in this economy, but that doesn't mean we don't deserve basic respect. And as for the recession part, well, the U always seems to have money for football stadiums and whatnot, but not for the people doing the research and teaching that I would argue are somewhat more fundamental to the mission of a university.

Well, in the midst of this on-going argument over unionization, here's yet another example of how administrative compensation is way out of control. If you don't have time to read the article, it notes such things as how the out-going UMD chancellor was handed well over a half-million dollars on her way out the door as she retired, because she's just a cool person, I guess.

Those same people who argue against unionization tend to argue that admins receive these absurd retirement packages because they're necessary to draw the top talent. Not only has this never been proven (or even attempted -- show me a university that has tried hiring admins without ridiculous pay and bonuses), it's funny how this argument only applies to administrators. When grad assistants ask for some more crumbs, we're told to shut up and be grateful for what we have. When admins are handed over a half-million dollars just because, we're told this is absolutely necessary and only an idiot would argue against it.

But what these huge (and hugely unnecessary) admin bonuses and retirement packages demonstrate is not market values or other such nonsense, but that the University's funding problems (much like the nation's at large) are not really about the amount of money in hand, but the priorities for using said money. The half million dollars given to this former chancellor would easily pay the salaries, tuition, and fringe benefits for well over a dozen grad assistants, who will provide much, much more than that for the university in the form of teaching and research. As opposed to that chancellor, who will provide nothing to the university, seeing as how she's leaving and all.

But then again, what would I know? I should just shut up and be happy that there's still plenty of money to make sure my social superiors continue to live in the lap of luxury...

Conditioning You To Laugh

Early television had a problem -- it was really new and weird. People were used to radio shows, but those required you to imagine everything that happened, not watch it happen for you. People were also used to plays, but those were seen in the company of many others, an event to leave the house for, not to slump on the couch and mindlessly watch.

People just really didn't know what to do with television, so t.v. producers quickly realized they were largely going to have to tell people what to do. And one of the most direct ways this was accomplished was in telling you when to laugh, by supplying an audience to laugh for you. In many ways, this recreated the theater experience, in which there were a lot of cues about when it was ok to laugh, right in your home, in which there usually weren't too many other folks around to supply such social cues. It says something powerful about the social effects of the behavior of our peers, but that's yet another post.

Nowadays laugh tracks are sneered at by the television intelligentsia, who have moved on to their fancy single-cam shows filled with snarky references to current events. But this being America, there are a lot of people scared by such developments who prefer the comfort of a pre-recorded audience telling them when to laugh.

The people turn to places like CBS, where everything is designed to primarily appeal to people over 75. But to not completely denigrate these laugh-track shows, they do require a certain talent. Much like the theater, the actors have to learn to allow for pauses as anything they might say would be overpowered by the audience's laughter (although in the theater, it's actual human beings laughing). As such, they really do need to develop a certain kind of comedic timing. A type of timing that is completely creepy without the canned laughter filling the spaces.

Take for example this clip of the Big Bang Theory (which, all told, is really not that bad a show), presented with only the laugh track missing (embedding for some reason disabled). It's eerily compelling...

What Makes a Rival?

The sports world is fueled by rivalry. Sure, there are plenty of other reasons people follow sports, but rivalries are what really make them interesting. And once enshrined, rivalries are often desperately clung to -- witness the upheaval over college football realignment.

But how do rivalries become enshrined? And what makes for a rivalry? Some come about naturally, like the Vikings and Packers. As everyone knows, 'Sconnies make for the natural enemy of the Minnesotan. It's like a mongoose-snake thing.

But some come about through a shared history of hatred and contempt, like the Twins and the White Sox. There's nothing about the match-up that really makes for a natural rivalry; there's no history of competition between Minneapolis and Chicago (Vikings-Bears is no big deal), the White Sox have been around a lot longer, so it's not like there's some crazy-long shared history.

Rather, the Twins and Sox rivalry seems to have come about mostly in the last two decades or so, especially the last 10 years in which the Twins have come back to relevance. Since I've been living in Minnesota, it's become one of the preeminent local rivalries, ranking right up there with Pack-Vikings in terms of hatred, invectives, and calendar-circling games.

And if you need any further proof the Twins and White Sox are rivals of the highest order, it's now a matter of legal precedence. Not sure how many rivalries, no matter how heated they may be, can claim that...

Man, I'm Really Unoriginal

Consistent with my theme of not having enough time to write long-winded blog posts on my out-of-touch political positions, I've been pretty light on the original content lately.

As an apology to you, dear faithful readers, here's an awesome video recreating Jay Z's hit "99 Problems" entirely using film clips to comprise the lines. Watch it, and while doing so, please think about the various ways Western capitalist global hegemony is destroying our planet and all who inhabit it...


99 Problems In Film (EM) from Eclectic Method on Vimeo.

Post-Valentine's Blues Got You Down?

Maybe you had the world's best Valentine's day yesterday, filled with love, confectioners sugar, and incorrectly-shaped heart themed gifts. Or maybe you had a terrible Valentine's day, full of self-loathing and depression, sitting in front of the t.v. alone as your tears dripped into the tub of ice cream you were eating with a fork because you were too depressed to wash the dishes.


If you experienced the former, congrats. But if you were one of the many who found yourself experiencing the latter, simply call 719-26-OATES and let Daryl Hall and John Oates soothe your weary soul. It's apparently some sort of viral advertising scheme for some sort of business I haven't bothered to figure out what it does, but the bigger point is that some sweet aural lovin' is just 10 short digits away.


And really, aren't you comforted knowing there's a Hall & Oates hotline at the ready?

Busy, Busy, Busy

Lots of stuff going on these days, so little time for blogging. But you know who does have a lot of time on their hands? Besides people who can come up with a better transition than that, there's also this guy, whose been using scale-model r/c trucks, back hoes, dump trucks and whatnot to dig out his basement.

"But that would take forever!" I can already here you saying. Yes, yes it would. That's why he's been doing it since 1997 and is nowhere close to completion. But things take longer when all the work is done by tiny, remote-controlled equipment rather than, you know, human-sized stuff.

And be sure to not skip checking out this great collection of videos of the adorable li'l construction project in action.

Oh When Will They Complain About This Waste of Tax Money?

The thing about conservative politicians is that they're hypocrites. Well, I guess pretty much all elected officials are hypocrites, but big-time conservative politicians seem to have a special claim to the throne of hypocrisy.

For instance, a major rallying cry of modern American conservatism is that the government spends way too much money, and most of it foolishly. And given that foolish government spending has already been thoroughly documented, it's hard to argue with that basic premise. But alas, these folks are not opposed to all government spending, they're opposed to government spending on things they don't like. Now granted, we pretty much all feel that way, but it doesn't make for a very principled stance.

Take, for instance, professional sports stadiums. While these would seem to be a horrible waste of money (almost all are completely or majority publicly funded, they don't bring in much business nor do any of the profits from this public money go back to the public, etc.), conservatives seem to generally support new sports stadiums. The cynic in me would say this is because teams and the few businesses that benefit from new stadiums tend to be owned by conservatives, but that's another post for another day.

Yet what's more amazing about this whole scenario is that when people try to get some form of public good out of these major public expenditures, it's rarely supported. For example, Florida law says that any sports stadium built with public money has to offer shelter to the homeless on non-event nights. As you may have guessed, this never actually happens. But given that Florida leans pretty far to the right politically, you'd think there would be conservatives out in the streets demanding these public expenditures be met with some return on the investment, at least in the form of services since we've already established monetary rewards are not forthcoming.

But surprisingly, I've yet to see any conservatives taking to the streets demanding less money spent on stadiums or that these stadiums fill their legal duties. It's almost as if the cries of government waste are really just political expedience and not an actual ideal, but again, that may just be too cynical of me...

Teaching Sociology: Politics and Hegemony (Part something in a never-ending pop-pedagogical series)

Hegemony is  tricky concept to understand and is rarely used outside the crumbling-plaster towers of academia (they took away our ivory years ago), but it's incredibly important to the work I do, and I think it helps one understand the world much better.

To way over-simplify it, hegemony refers to when a group of people have the power to make their view of the world seem like the only one. For instance, in American the ideal of democracy is hegemonic -- pretty much every discussion on politics takes democracy as a given, and it's incredibly rare to hear anyone in mainstream America suggest we should have any type of government besides democracy. Or in a much sillier example, it explains why we still use the shitty qwerty keyboard.

But what I really think the concept of hegemony is handy for is understanding politics. And with the Super bowl coming up this weekend, the nexus of sports and politics.

For instance, this weekend, the Indiana branch of the occupy movement is setting its sights square on the big game with an Occupy the Super Bowl movement. Specifically, they're protesting the possible passage of a "right to work" law in Indiana that, like all of the Orwellian-named laws of this ilk, will destroy the ability of people to join and form unions and weaken the already-existing unions.

The NFL's media gatekeepers have already cried foul, shedding giant crocodile tears over the fact that someone would dare "politicize" the Super Bowl, a day that is supposedly free of politics. Yet, as Dave Zirin expertly points out (as he so often does), the Super Bowl is already one of the most politicized events in our nation. The opening coin flip will be conducted by General David Petraeus, leader and architect of much of the ill-fated Iraq invasion. There will be military fighter planes flying over the stadium. There will be a giant flag unfurled across the field large enough to compete with Newt Gingrich's ego. There will be commercials advertising our military and your chance to join them in their fantastic adventures abroad.

And this right here is the essence of hegemony. American imperialism has become such a hegemonic ideal that all of those obvious paeans to America's illegal wars do not even register as politics. No, as long as you glorify the American war machine it's not political at all. But the second you suggest maybe not everything is perfectly fine and rosy in this li'l nation of ours, then you are inappropriately politicizing a supposedly non-political event.

So again, when you can make something into a giant 6-hour commercial for the US military and then complain that some people holding home made signs outside the front gate are the ones politicizing the event, you know your ideas have achieved a hegemonic position in this society. It also demonstrates that you have world-class chutzpah, but that's a different subject...

When To Support The Two Party System

Every major election year there's the same big debate amongst progressives and radicals -- is it better to vote for the Democrats as the lesser of two evils, or are both of the two big parties so corrupt and out-of-touch you can hardly ever justify voting for them?

As is most likely obvious from everything I've ever posted here, I lean much more toward the second of those two options. But really, I don't care that much, because I'm actually more aligned with the school of thought that says elections are basically pointless and good or bad policies will result from social movements pressuring politicians into doing their work, regardless of party affiliation. I'm not quite of the hardcore school of thought that sees elections as actually harmful (because they give the illusion of free choice and an open political process, pushing people to limit their political action to meaningless elections at the expense of more important social activism), but I sympathize with the viewpoint.

But regardless of where you come down on this issue, I think it's especially revealing to look at who the big money donors support. Because Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citigroup, and all of their friends don't give a shit about abortion or gay rights or the environment. They care about one thing -- increasing their profit margins by any means necessary. And as such, they will give money to whomever they feel will best do that, pretty much regardless of that candidate's view on any other issue. Thus, the funding streams of these big money donors can tell us a great deal about who the candidate is working for the hardest.

For example, here's a list (from the incomparable opensecrets.org) showing you Mitt Romney's top donors and the top donors of two major presidential candidates from two previous election cycles. The highlighted organizations on the previous candidates represent groups who are currently major Romney donors.

In case you can't guess who they are, the 2008 candidate is Obama and the 2004 candidate is Bush Jr.

Sure, there's context and nuance and all that and it's more complicated than this, but it's a good example of how it doesn't really matter who it is; as long as they're a nominee of one of the two major parties, they will be reliant on the same donors for the bulk of their funding. And I don't mean to sound too cynical about the state of American politics, but I'm guessing these major corporations giving millions of dollars to political candidates expect some sort of return on their investment...

Oh, and So Close To MLK Day

Because he can tell the difference between Ice's T and Cube, Bill O' Reilly (remember that guy? Before Glenn Beck, he was the one you always got upset about) proclaims himself to "be a brother, man."



Ice T disagrees with O'Reilly's assessment of himself.

Why I Hate The News

The problem with mainstream news sources in America is not just that they're shitty, but that they're aggressively shitty. American newspapers and news television shows don't just ignore important stories or let important claims go unchecked, they intentionally ignore important stories to not anger their sources or harm their advertising, and rarely if ever question a politician or unnamed "official sources." Hell, just last week the public editor at the New York Times, the most prestigious and respected newspaper in our entire nation, wondered aloud if reporters should occasionally check if all of the random assertions important people are making are, you know, actually true or not.

Two good recent examples show this problem quite clearly. As Dan Savage pointed out his column last week, why is it that both Rick Santorum and his daughter are both allowed to continually claim they're not homophobic because they have gay friends? And that these mysterious unnamed gay friends support Santorum despite his repeatedly comparing them to pedophiles and dog rapists? As Savage points out, isn't an obvious follow-up question who exactly these gay friends are? Wouldn't that make for an interesting story about how these people don't exist, or if they do, how they pull off such torturous logic?

Or take another good/horrible example from the Joe Paterno case. In his first interview since the child sex scandal broke, Paterno claims he didn't know anything, but even if he did, he wouldn't have been able to understand it because he'd never heard of male rape. As Drew Magary points out in the piece linked to there, this is about as obvious and blatant a lie as someone can make. And yet the "journalist" interviewing him didn't think it was worth a follow up question of "are you fucking shitting me?!? You're trying to pretend you don't even know what rape is?!?" Hell, she clearly didn't think it was even worth a polite follow-up pointing out that the biological sex of the people involved doesn't really change what rape is, and surely a grown human being knows what rape is.

But even beyond the basic os journalism 101, these are a prime example of how the powerful are protected. Paterno never has to pay for his crimes because he can claim ignorance of something any adult human being clearly knows. Similarly, Santorum can hide his hate behind fictional gay friends he invented to make himself look like less of a biggot. And they know that the subservient "journalists" sent to interview them will never challenge these claims, no matter how obviously false they are to anyone with even the most basic ability to understand logic...

Life Imitates Art

With a name like that, in Baltimore, it simply had to happen sooner or later.

Talk about pressure in living up to your name...

Merry Christmas!

Introducing possibly the greatest Christmas sweater ever:

And, of course, what holiday season is truly complete without a list, by orifice, of things people have had to have removed from them this year. Enjoy!

Sorry, Busy End To The Semester

So it dawned on me today that I've not updated this in a couple of week's, which more-or-less defeats the purpose of having a blog. My excuse is that I'm really busy because of the end of the semester and job applications and all of those fun things.

So instead of something witty and clever, I'll give you some happy Christmas news: R. Kelly has apparently written 32 new chapters of his magnum opus "opera" Trapped in the Closet. For the uninitiated, Trapped is a Dada-esque tale of cheating, violence, redemption, and midgets farting, all told in a completely non-linear and oft-impossible to follow story. Basically, it's like listening to any R Kelly album, only slightly more insane.

But before you get too excited, apparently Kells is having some money issues and doesn't have the scratch to film it yet. So instead, take your time to review and digest all the brilliance of the original 22 chapters with this handy flow chart to explain the action:

What Do Hipster Children Eat?

As a poor child who grew up eating lunchables, I'm jealous of how the other half eats...

How Solid Is Your NFL Faith?

Now that Brett Favre is truly and honestly retired for what appears to be for good (there's roughly a billion NFL teams that need a QB right now and he's still not playing), there's no one left for the gushing sports media to slobber over. Sure, there's Tom Brady and his all-American good looks, an there's Aaron Rodgers and his dominance, but none of them inspire the same all-around worship as the ol' gunslinger.

But maybe there's hope on the rise, as Tim Tebow has come along and is already starting to get the ridiculously over-the-top, unearned adulation. To explain the process to people who don't know how to properly genuflect to the appointed leaders of sport, here's a NFL Chick Trak to inspire you.

You Make It Really Hard To NOT Point Out Your Blatant Racism

After Alabama passed HB56, their own version of Arizona's SB1070 (the "show me your papers" bill), it was roundly criticized as racist by those opposing it (as was Arizona's). Yet defenders of the bill(s) were quick to point out there was nothing racist about the bill(s); after all, the bill(s) don't make it illegal to be hispanic, they say, they only increase the attention paid to people who are in this country without legal documentation. Now, if it happens to target Hispanics more than any other group, they claim, well then maybe those darn Hispanics should keep their noses clean and stay out of trouble.

This is a classic racist ploy -- as long as you dress your racism up in neutral language, you always have plausible deniability. After all, there's no way to prove either HB56 or SB1070 were designed to harass and intimidate Hispanics. But in practice, it seems Hispanics continue to bear the brunt of these measures -- remember, about half of all undocumented immigrants in American hail from Europe, and yet somehow very few Europeans are being arrested or harassed under these statutes.

But sometimes events happen that just really pull the curtain back on all of these shenanigans. Events like when a German executive of Mercedes-Benz in the states for a meeting at one of the company's manufacturing plants near Tuscaloosa is arrested. The officer at the scene did what was required of him and brought in the executive to be detained while his immigration status was investigated.

So here's a perfect example for the it's-not-racist crowd: a white person, nay, a rich white person, was subjected to detention and search under this apparently not racist law. What a chance to trumpet the law as color-blind and status-blind! You see critics? It's not a tool to harass and intimidate (largely poor) people of color, it's applied to everyone!

And yet, their reaction could not have been farther than that. Rather than see this as one of the many examples they love of their law in action, a group of Republican representatives has already called for rewriting portions of HB56. Presumably to include the direction that even though this is not a racist law, it's not supposed to apply to white people...