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VirusHead Blog Against Theocracy

VirusHead Blog Against Theocracy

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Once again, it’s time for the annual Blog Against Theocracy blogswarm. Thanks to Jolly Roger for reminding me.

Blog Against Theocracy 2008

BAT logo by Tengrain of Mock, Paper, Scissors, who also points out:

The theme [of the blogswarm], like always, is the Separation of Church and State — we are for it. But the variations on the theme are many…This is not a bashing of religion – peeps can believe what they choose, however they choose — but it is a reminder that the Government should keep out of religion, and Religion should keep out of the government.

Last year, I highlighted my favorite bits of the blogswarm. I won’t be doing that this year, but I will make every effort to read every post.

So, what to say? Here is what I say:

The drive to “christian” theocracy is a profoundly destructive force. Participation in it leads to the corruption of one’s individual spiritual path by power-mad group-think.

I believe that such group-think strangles the intellect, encourages hysteria, and promotes cruelty. It creates dynamics that become the very opposite of kindness, humility, ethics, collaboration, and cooperation – the opposite of every virtue, and especially of the virtues we so desperately need in order to confront the actual problems facing the people of this country.

A will to power and domination can never lead to the fruits of the spirit, but can only undermine and finally destroy one of the most beautiful aspects of our country – the freedom of religion (with its corollary guarantees of freedom of expression and freedom from persecution).

There is also the matter of idolatry. Human individuals or groups that insist upon conformity to their own flavor of religious belief attempt to put themselves in the place of God and to claim God’s authority for their own agendas.

Beware of any claim that any group or person represents deity or is the voice of God on this earth. Beware of false prophets. Give unto Caesar only what it Caesar’s. Trust not in the traditions of men. And so on.

The rest of my post is simply to highlight some pertinent quotations:

“Good intentions will always be pleaded for any assumption of power. The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.” – Daniel Webster

“Freedom is an indivisible word. If we want to enjoy it, and fight for it, we must be prepared to extend it to everyone, whether they are rich or poor, whether they agree with us or not, no matter what their race or the color of their skin.” – Wendell Wilkie

“To put it in a few words, the true malice of man appears only in the state and in the church, as institutions of gathering together, of recapitulation, of totalization.” – Paul Ricoeur

“The Bible tells us to be like God, and then on page after page it describes God as a mass murderer. This may be the single most important key to the political behavior of Western Civilization.” – Robert Anton Wilson

“Therefore, I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord’s work.” – Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

“The people who have come into [our] institutions [today] are primarily termites. They are into destroying institutions that have been built by Christians, whether it is universities, governments, our own traditions, that we have…. The termites are in charge now, and that is not the way it ought to be, and the time has arrived for a godly fumigation.” – Pat Robertson

“Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his reason.” – Martin Luther

“Patriotism? Your patriotism waves a flag with one hand and picks pockets with the other” – Ingrid Bergman to Cary Grant in Notorious

“Religion is against women’s rights and women’s freedom. In all societies women are oppressed by all religions.” – Taslima Nasrin

“The secular democratic state is the surest protector of religious and intellectual liberty ever crafted by human ingenuity. Nothing is more fallacious, or inimical to genuine religious liberty, than the seductive notion that the state should “favor” or “foster” religion. All history testifies that such practices inevitably result in favoring one religion over less powerful minorities and secular opinion. In the long run governmental favoritism vitiates the religious spirit itself. Where in the Western world is organized religion stronger than in the United States where the church is a take-your-choice affair? Where is it weaker than in Europe where sophisticated secularists joke that they have been “inoculated” for life against religion by compulsory religious indoctrination in state schools? Preserving the secular character of government and the public school is the surest guarantee that religion in America will remain free, vital, uncorrupted by political power, and independent of state manipulation.” – Edward L Ericson

“It would be good for religion if many books that seem useful were destroyed. When there were not so many books and not so many arguments and disputes, religion grew more quickly than it has since.” – Girolamo Savonarola (of Bonfire of the Vanities fame)

“Faith” is a fine invention, when gentlemen can see / But microscopes are prudent, in an emergency.” – Emily Dickinson

“Minds fettered by this doctrine no longer inquire concerning a proposition whether it is attested by sufficient evidence, but whether it accords with Scripture; they do not search for facts as such, but for facts that will bear out their doctrine. It is easy to see that this mental habit blunts not only the perception of truth, but the sense of truthfulness, and that the man whose faith drives him into fallacies treads close upon the precipice of falsehood…. So long as a belief in propositions is regarded as indispensable to salvation, the pursuit of truth as such is not possible.” – George Eliot

“Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.” – Oscar Wilde

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” – Galileo Galilei

“I do occasionally envy the person who is religious naturally, without being brainwashed into it or suckered into it by all the organized hustles.” – Woody Allen

“The person with B.S. (note: “Belief Systems”) knows the “right answer” at all times and knows it immediately. This makes them very happy – and very annoying – because most of their “right answers” don’t make sense to the rest of us. Common sense and/or science require investigation and revision, etc. B.S. only requires a Rule Book (sacred scripture, Das Kapital, or whatever) and a good memory. People with “faith” represent mental health problem #1, because memorizing rule books cuts you off from sensory involvement with the existential world. It also produces the kind of intolerance that produces witch-hunts, Inquisitions, purges, Bushware 1.0, Bushware 2.0, etc. Belief Systems, “faith,” certitudes of all sorts, result from deliberately forgetting the fallibility of human brains, especially the brains of those who wrote your favorite rule book, and this leaders to a paradoxical rejection of the best functions of the brain – namely, its ability to rethink, revise, and correct itself.” – Robert Anton Wilson

“The man who has never wrestled with his early faith, the faith that he was brought up with and that yet is not truly his own — for no faith is our own that we have not arduously won — has missed not only a moral but an intellectual discipline. The absence of that discipline may mark a man for life and render all his work ineffective. He has missed a training in criticism, in analysis, in open-mindedness, in the resolutely impersonal treatment of personal problems, which no other training can compensate. He is, for the most part, condemned to live in a mental jungle where his arm will soon be too feeble to clear away the growths that enclose him, and his eyes too weak to find the light.” – Havelock Ellis

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” – Siddartha Gautama, the Buddha

“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love.” – Jonathan Swift

News that Caught My Eye

News that Caught My Eye

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But eventually let it go….

A child diagnosed with autism every 20 minutes? I have to wonder at what point and for what reasons doctors started giving so many vaccines at once anyway. How would they be able to determine which of the vaccines caused a negative reaction if there was a problem? And parents – are adults so cowed by physician authority that that would so easily allow so many shots at one visit? I refused that plan for psychological reasons. One, two – that’s fine. But three, four, five, six? That’s too much for a baby or little child. Ben never had more than two vaccines in a single visit. It’s just too much. I always suspected that so many vaccines at once might have created immune-system overload, too – just too much information at once. The question of preservatives (possibly with mercury?) raised the bar – all the more reason not to create a toxic load.

Here’s an interesting interview about one of my pet peeves. Doesn’t it just make sense that our diet ought not to rely so heavily upon foods that never rot? What about moderation in all things? I favor a varied diet. I tend to use olive oil or butter, not margarine or sprays. I prefer whole milk, and I use real unbleached sugar. I’m not an earthy-crunchy fanatic – I also eat some junk food and some fake food. But don’t offer me any of that non-dairy cream or no-calorie candy. I’ll drink a Coke – but not a diet Coke. I eat what I want – in moderation. I have deep suspicions about what some of the chemicals do to our bodies.

So, President Bush is going to veto the anti-torture bill that has passed both the Senate and the House? I don’t know how Republicans maintain this mythology about how they are the patriotic party…

Job Loss for February Much Higher than the 63,000: The actual employment report suggests “a comprehensive job loss of 113,000 and in terms of dollars earned, a whole lot more.” They’ve been misrepresenting these numbers for a while now. If you lose a professional job and take a part-time position at Walmart or Home Depot, you don’t affect the job numbers at all as far as I can see…

Defense contractor United Technologies has made a sudden buyout offer for the Diebold company, at 66% more than the current stock value. In the face of Diebold’s refusal, United is insisting that the deal will go through in 60 days. “Hmmm. Defense contractor attempts a takeover of the major manufacturer of hackable voting machines with the stated plan of closing the deal before the November national elections. What could their intention possibly be?”

On December 20, 2007, President Bush signed routine postal legislation. In a “Signing Statement”, the President claims Executive Power to search the mail of U.S. citizens inside the United States without a warrant, in direct contradiction of the bill he had just signed. As a people, we seem beyond twitching an eyelash over items like these. Sigh.

Some people are starting to do more than twitch, however. The military recruiting station in Times Square was bombed. The news reports say that the bomber was on a blue 10-speed bike, wearing a hooded sweatshirt and dark pants. I’ve read a lot of theories, but personally I’ve been wondering about whether it might have been an Iraq veteran – no-one else would have more reason, or more skill. The target was pretty specific, with only property damage; in other words, it was a statement, not an attack. There are some efforts to tie the event with Canada border crossing incident in which a backpack containing a picture of Times Square was left behind. I think that’s pushing it… I would be very surprised if it wasn’t an American, but we’ll see how the investigation goes. Meanwhile, start rolling your eyes now. On Fox News (where else?) the infamous Oliver North was given a forum for his opinion on the matter. It’s all Pelosi’s fault. Uh-huh…

Right-wing misogyny is raising its head evident in the latest attempt to control the sexuality of the American female. Amanda Marcotte’s post on The Great Texas Dildo Wars is a must-read. “So this is completely, 100 percent about babies. No misogyny, control issues or wariness of female sexuality has any part to play in this.”

Don’t miss Colbert video on the AT&Treason immunity deal. It’s deliciously fun.

Last, there is the latest Iraq cost sheet:

U.S. military killed in Iraq: 3,973
Number of U.S. troops wounded in combat since the war began: 29,203
Iraqi Security Force deaths: 7,924
Iraqi civilians killed: Estimates range from 81,632-1,120,000

Internally displaced refugees in Iraq: 3.4 million
Iraqi refugees living abroad: 2.2-2.4 million
Iraqi refugees admitted to the U.S.: 3,222

Number of U.S. soldiers in Iraq: 155,000
Number of “Coalition of the Willing” soldiers in Iraq:
February 2008: 9,895
September 2006: 18,000
November 2004: 25,595

Army soldiers in Iraq who have served two or more tours: 74%
Number of Private Military Contractors in Iraq: 180,000
Number of Private Military Contractors criminally prosecuted by the U.S. government for violence or abuse in Iraq: 1
Number of contract workers killed: 917

What the Iraq war has created, according to the U.S. National Intelligence Council: “A training and recruitment ground (for terrorists), and an opportunity for terrorists to enhance their technical skills.”

Effect on al Qaeda of the Iraq War, according to International Institute for Strategic Studies: “Accelerated recruitment”

The bill so far: $526 billion
Cost per day: $275 million
Cost per household: $4,100
The estimated long-term bill: $3 trillion

What $526 billion could have paid for in the U.S. in one year:
Children with health care: 223 million or
Scholarships for university students: 86 million or
Head Start places for children: 72 million

Cost of 22 days in Iraq could safeguard our nation’s ports from attack for ten years.
Cost of 18 hours in Iraq could secure U.S. chemical plants for five years.

Iraqi Unemployment level: 25-40%
*U.S. unemployment during the Great Depression: 25%
70% of the Iraqi population is without access to clean water.
80% is without sanitation.
90% of Iraq’s 180 hospitals lack basic medical and surgical supplies.

79% of Iraqis oppose the presence of Coalition Forces.
78% of Iraqis believe things are going badly in Iraq overall.
64% of Americans oppose the war in Iraq.

Rooms in the George W. Bush Museum

Rooms in the George W. Bush Museum

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Thanks to Memere’s email delivery service…. with a couple of slight corrections…

The George W Bush Presidential Museum is now in the planning stages. It was supposed to be a library, but the planners kept resigning. You’ll want to be one of the first to make a contribution to this great man’s legacy.

The Museum will include:

  • The Hurricane Katrina Room, which is still under construction.
  • The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you can’t remember anything.
  • The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you don’t have to even show up.
  • The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they don’t let you in.
  • The Guantanamo Bay Room, where they don’t let you out.
  • The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room, which no one will be able to find.
  • The Iraq War Room, where they make you go back. After you complete your first tour, they make you return for second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth tours.
  • The Dick Cheney Room, in an undisclosed location, complete with shooting gallery. If you have the right connections, you might get there, but there are no promises about your location in relation to the gun.
  • The K-Street Project Gift Shop, where you can buy – or just steal – an election.
  • The Airport Men’s Room, where you can meet some of your favorite Republican Senators in an informal location.
  • Last, but not least, there will be an entire floor devoted to a 7/8 scale model of the President’s ego.

To help you find the President’s accomplishments, the museum will have an electron microscope.

President Bush said that he didn’t care so much about the individual exhibits as long as his museum was better than his father’s.

The Vicki Strategy?

The Vicki Strategy?

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I don’t know – and I truly don’t care – whether or not John McCain had a “romantic involvement” with lobbyist Vicki Iseman. Honestly, I keep expecting him to start referring to her as “that woman.” Give me a break. Can’t we break this obsession with our politicians’ sex lives?

John and Cindy McCain been married for a long time and been through a lot together, but I can’t help thinking an unkind thing. Cindy McCain reminds me of Cruella DeVille. Blond tresses notwithstanding, Cindy McCain’s bionic eyes on that manni-kin body give me the serious creepy crawlies.

People had problems with Hillary as First Lady. They ridiculed John Kerry’s wife Teresa. I haven’t really seen any serious coverage of Cindy McCain yet. All I can tell you is that in a very superficial way (I admit it), I’m not liking what I see when I picture her as First Lady. Given what I know about McCain, I guess I wouldn’t be surprised if he was straying.

Take it further. Vicki Iseman looks a bit like a younger version of Cindy McCain, no? Has no-one noticed the resemblance between these two women? Or are they just too hesitant to say it?


Vicky Iseman, John McCain, Cindy McCain, Cruella deVille

It’s easy to think that John McCain simply fits a certain stereotype of the power-drunk man looking to update to the current model, right?

But somehow that’s not what went through my mind.

What if that assumption is what drives this whole thing? It’s as though Vicki were made to order.

What if she were?

Given the following anecdote about about McCain met (second wife) Cindy, it would be a simple matter to draw up a battle plan that included a kind of mata-hari woman who could “push his buttons.” How do you win friends and influence people in politics? Power, money or charisma – preferably all three, right?

Cindy and John met in 1979 at a military reception in Honolulu. John: “She was lovely, intelligent and charming, 17 years my junior but poised and confident. I monopolized her attention the entire time, taking care to prevent anyone else from intruding on our conversation. When it came time to leave the party, I persuaded her to join me for drinks at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. By the evening’s end, I was in love.”

If you were highly motivated to influence McCain, wouldn’t it make sense to identify McCain’s likes and dislikes, his attractions and repulsions? With all his rhetoric against lobbying, wouldn’t it be silly not to notice that it might take more than money to move this bear?

Everything I’ve heard about this story is focussed on the wrong end of it. I think it’s a story about using sexual attraction as one more lobbying strategy. Ask any doctor about the hunks and chicks they send to push the new drugs out onto the market.

For election coverage, I would prefer to see more criticism of McCain’s actual record. There’s plenty there to examine.

And please, I beg of you please, please stop using that photo of McCain hugging Bush. Stop using it. I found the whole thing disturbing enough at the time.

Academia: A Presidential Resignation

Academia: A Presidential Resignation

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President Gene Nichol of William and Mary was asked to step down from the position. Following is his letter to the community. It speaks for itself. What a shame.

Dear Members of the William & Mary Community:

I was informed by the Rector on Sunday, after our Charter Day celebrations, that my contract will not be renewed in July. Appropriately, serving the College in the wake of such a decision is beyond my imagining. Accordingly, I have advised the Rector, and announce today, effective immediately, my resignation as president of the College of William & Mary. I return to the faculty of the school of law to resume teaching and writing.

I have made four decisions, or sets of decisions, during my tenure that have stirred ample controversy.

First, as is widely known, I altered the way a Christian cross was displayed in a public facility, on a public university campus, in a chapel used regularly for secular College events — both voluntary and mandatory — in order to help Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and other religious minorities feel more meaningfully included as members of our broad community. The decision was likely required by any effective notion of separation of church and state. And it was certainly motivated by the desire to extend the College’s welcome more generously to all. We are charged, as state actors, to respect and accommodate all religions, and to endorse none. The decision did no more.

Second, I have refused, now on two occasions, to ban from the campus a program funded by our student-fee-based, and student-governed, speaker series. To stop the production because I found it offensive, or unappealing, would have violated both the First Amendment and the traditions of openness and inquiry that sustain great universities. It would have been a knowing, intentional denial of the constitutional rights of our students. It is perhaps worth recalling that my very first act as president of the College was to swear on oath not to do so.

Third, in my early months here, recognizing that we likely had fewer poor, or Pell eligible, students than any public university in America, and that our record was getting worse, I introduced an aggressive Gateway scholarship program for Virginians demonstrating the strongest financial need. Under its terms, resident students from families
earning $40,000 a year or less have 100% of their need met, without loans. Gateway has increased our Pell eligible students by 20% in the past two years.

Fourth, from the outset of my presidency, I have made it clear that if the College is to reach its aspirations of leadership, it is essential that it become a more diverse, less homogeneous institution. In the past two and half years we have proceeded, with surprising success, to assure that is so. Our last two entering classes have been, by good measure, the most diverse in the College’s history. We have, in the past two and a half years, more than doubled our number of faculty members of color. And we have more effectively integrated the administrative leadership of William & Mary. It is no longer the case, as it was when I arrived, that we could host a leadership retreat inviting the 35 senior administrators of the College and see, around the table, no persons of color.

As the result of these decisions, the last sixteen months have been challenging ones for me and my family. A committed, relentless, frequently untruthful and vicious campaign — on the internet and in the press — has been waged against me, my wife and my daughters. It has been joined, occasionally, by members of the Virginia House of Delegates — including last week’s steps by the Privileges and Elections Committee to effectively threaten Board appointees if I were not fired over decisions concerning the Wren Cross and the Sex Workers’ Art Show. That campaign has now been rendered successful. And those same voices will no doubt claim victory today. It is fair to say that, over the course of the past year, I have, more than once, considered either resigning my post or abandoning the positions I have taken on these matters — which I believe crucial to the College’s future. But
as I did so, I thought of other persons as well.

I thought of those students, staff, faculty, and alumni, not of the religious majority, who have told me of the power of even small steps, like the decision over display of the Wren Cross, to recognize that they, too, are full members of this inspiring community.

I have thought of those students, faculty, and staff who, in the past three years, have joined us with explicit hopes and assurances that the College could become more effectively opened to those of different races, backgrounds, and economic circumstances — and I have thought of my own unwillingness to voluntarily abandon their efforts, and their prospects, in mid-stream.

I have thought of faculty and staff members here who have, for decades, believed that the College has, unlike many of its competitors, failed to place the challenge of becoming an effectively diverse institution center stage — and who, as a result, have been strongly encouraged by the progress of the last two years.

I have thought of the students who define and personify the College’s belief in community, in service, in openness, in idealism — those who make William & Mary a unique repository of the American promise. And I
have believed it unworthy, regardless of burden, to break our bonds of partnership.

And I have thought, perhaps most acutely, of my wife and three remarkable daughters. I’ve believed it vital to understand, with them, that though defeat may at times come, it is crucial not to surrender to the loud and the vitriolic and the angry — just because they are loud and vitriolic and angry. Recalling the old Methodist hymn that commands us “not to be afraid to defend the weak because of the anger of the strong,” nor “afraid to defend the poor because of the anger of the rich.” So I have sought not to yield. The Board’s decision, of course, changes that.

To my faculty colleagues, who have here created a distinctive culture of engaged, student-centered teaching and research, I will remember your strong and steadfast support until the end of my days.

To those staff members and alumni of this accomplished and heartening community, who have struggled to make the William & Mary of the future worthy of its distinctive past, I regret that I will no longer be part of that uplifting cause. But I have little doubt where the course of history lies.

And, finally, to the life-changing and soul-inspiring students of the College, the largest surprise of my professional life, those who have created in me a surpassing faith not only in an institution, but in a generation, I have not words to touch my affections. My belief in your promise has been the central and defining focus of my presidency. The too-quick ending of our work together is among the most profound and wrenching disappointments in my life. Your support, particularly of the past few weeks and days, will remain the strongest balm I’ve known. I am confident of the triumphs and contributions the future holds for women and men of such power and commitment.

I add only that, on Sunday, the Board of Visitors offered both my wife and me substantial economic incentives if we would agree “not to characterize [the non-renewal decision] as based on ideological grounds” or make any other statement about my departure without their approval. Some members may have intended this as a gesture of generosity to ease my transition. But the stipulation of censorship made it seem like something else entirely. We, of course, rejected the offer. It would have required that I make statements I believe to be untrue and that I believe most would find non-credible. I’ve said before that the values of the College are not for sale. Neither are
ours. Mine, to be sure, has not been a perfect presidency. I have sometimes moved too swiftly, and perhaps paid insufficient attention to the processes and practices of a strong and complex university. A wiser leader would likely have done otherwise. But I have believed, and attempted to explain, from even before my arrival on the campus, that an emboldened future for the College of William & Mary requires wider horizons, more fully opened doors, a broader membership, and a more engaging clash of perspectives than the sometimes narrowed gauges of
the past have allowed. I step down today believing it still.

I have also hoped that this noble College might one day claim not only Thomas Jefferson’s pedigree, but his political philosophy as well. It was Jefferson who argued for a “wall of separation between church and state” — putting all religious sects “on an equal footing.” He expressly rejected the claim that speech should be suppressed because “it might influence others to do evil,” insisting instead that “we have nothing to fear from the demoralizing reasonings of some if others are left free to demonstrate their errors.” And he averred powerfully that “worth and genius” should “be sought from every condition” of society.

The College of William & Mary is a singular place of invention, rigor, commitment, character, and heart. I have been proud that even in a short term we have engaged a marvelous new Chancellor, successfully concluded a hugely-promising capital campaign, secured surprising support for a cutting-edge school of education and other essential physical facilities, seen the most vibrant applicant pools in our history, fostered path-breaking achievements in undergraduate research, more potently internationalized our programs and opportunities, led the
nation in an explosion of civic engagement, invigorated the fruitful marriage of athletics and academics, lifted the salaries of our lowest-paid employees, and even hosted a queen. None of this compares, though, to the magic and the inspiration of the people — young and older — who Glenn and I have come to know here. You will remain always and forever at the center of our hearts.

Go Tribe. And hark upon the gale. Gene Nichol

Thank you, Gene Nichol, for speaking.

Academia: Exploitation of Adjuncts

Academia: Exploitation of Adjuncts

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I’m starting a non-academic job on Monday, and I couldn’t be more pleased. Except for the schedule, I think it will be better than an academic job in almost every way. This is a bad time for higher education, especially in the humanities. I have several friends who are trying to survive at the edges and the beginnings, and after almost four years of trying to find an appropriate position, I have given up. I have adjuncted at a couple of schools, and although I loved the teaching – there was no support, a laughable paycheck, and at least one seriously unready-for-college class.

There is so much to say about the situation that I see in higher education, but perhaps an actual witnessing of the experience will be more effective. I have gotten permission to post an edited version of a letter that a very close friend sent me earlier today. This is an absolutely brilliant women, a woman that any university should be proud to hire and support – a jewel in every way. I have known her for several years, and the fact that she has to deal with this sort of situation makes me nauseous. She’s not the only one, but her missive is so nicely illustrative and fun to read that I think she can stand in for many, many others.

This letter was addressed to me and also to another fellow colleague from graduate school. This is quoted text, but I won’t blockquote it so that it is easier to read in its entirety. It’s worth it, trust me.

Well, hello ladies.

I’m sinking.

I’m six weeks into teaching two classes each of two different sections of Humanities survey for XXX Community College. Ordinarily, I am not one to complain about hard work. But this is ridiculous. Before taxes, I made $7.51 an hour last month. That’s with a PhD., teaching fully 1/3 of all the required humanities sections the school is offering this semester. Oh, and no benefits, of course. And no working phones in the “office” I share with an indeterminate number of other adjuncts, one of whom grew angry when I actually met with a student there to help her with her writing. So I use my own phone, my own e-mail and my own website to communicate with students – as I wasn’t even given access to their system until two weeks into the semester. And I suppose I’ll just start meeting with students in my car. The parking lot is nearby, at least.

I’m pretty certain that Florida pays less than any other state for its adjuncts, and I know it is well on the way to having the highest percentage of adjuncts in the country, thanks to the insane legislature and the insurance crisis here. Plus, they slashed tuition — it now costs less to go to the Florida state college I attended than I paid in 1983, and it was ridiculously cheap back then! I didn’t know this before I started. I didn’t know they would overload all my classes because they don’t have enough teachers to offer basic required curriculum for graduation. I didn’t understand that the utter absence of resources or planning that resulted in my being hired three days before classes started would continue into the semester, when desperate e-mails I sent about my inability to carry four overloaded classes simply went unanswered (for fear that they would have to find somebody else to teach them? Or actually help me with course materials, which nobody was willing to admit might be part of their job, or somebody’s job?). I didn’t know the full-time humanities instructor would actually refuse to provide me with the “department’s” canned visual materials because he apparently considers them his private property. Refused me to my face, saying, and I quote, “you’re not my responsibility” (he also said he doesn’t assign any readings, preferring to teach the Humanities through visual tools, which I really cannot comprehend, though instead of a term paper his students make cardboard displays of their favorite musicians or artists, apparently mostly contemporary).

Oh, I could go on. But I don’t have enough time to complain. Suffice to say, although I probably have some grounds to walk for violation of terms of my contract, I refuse to do this to my students, most of whom work full-time, have families, come to class exhausted, are struggling to graduate from a school that doesn’t offer the classes it advertises, and so on. They trust me, and I don’t even trust the school to replace me if I go.

So I’m stuck. Mainly, I’m stuck with a textbook (apparently) chosen by the non-text guy, and it shows. This is, without question, the most politically addled, historically inaccurate and utterly useless book I have encountered.
It also cost the students $140, which is itself a crime.

I could also go on about the textbook. And I probably will for the rest of my life. But in the meantime, being unable to teach with a book that contains no more than three entirely unrepresentative pages of any author (mostly less) written by a-historical fools who believe themselves to be rebelling against “the Canon” by excluding central texts (and, largely, texts at all) and including rightfully obscure, incoherent, fragmentary and minor crap, I have been forced to sneak into school after hours and photocopy real readings for my students. Here’s the really funny part: the introductions to many of these “readings” are as long as or longer than the selections themselves. I suppose the authors wanted to “free” the students from the hegemony of Western Civilization but not from the hegemony of the authors’ own INTERPRETATIONS of Western Civilization. Ah, the politics of personal exceptionalism.

So, because I actually trust my students to read the material instead of describing it to them (I even trust them to think about it on their own), I’m going nuts finding on-line sources for primary materials and photocopying ENTIRE CHAPTERS OF STUFF and the like. But I have now been informed that this is against the rules (not making the photocopies, but deviating from the textbook), and that I am also in violation of the rules if I tell my students they do not need to buy the textbook. That will play out as it will (since I wasn’t given this information until last week, it’s pretty hard for them to enforce it), but meanwhile, after great, unpaid effort (and tremendous assistance from Husband) I have devised a partly workable syllabus.

BECAUSE I CAN’T FIGURE OUT HOW TO TALK FOR THREE HOURS A WEEK ABOUT ONE PAGE EACH OF A VARIETY OF MAJOR AND MINOR AUTHORS, AND I DEFY ANYBODY ELSE TO DO THE SAME.

Here’s where I am asking for your advice. G., I remember the fabulous survey course you taught with the stuff about primates and cyborgs — I could not find the syllabus for it, and I was wondering if you would look at my syllabi and suggest some readings to plug in. Ditto, H. Also, as I design units on philosophers, particularly the 18th and 19th century stuff and the early Christian fathers, I would be grateful for any advice regarding specific readings by the authors I’ve chosen that would appeal to relatively unsophisticated readers.

Here are the big trouble areas: St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Boethius, Locke, Kant, Nietzsche and Tillich (I sort of know the Tillich, but it’s been decades).

We did have a wonderful moment in one class. The textbook describes Plato as “the first feminist” and features a passage about letting women compete nude in gymnastics (apparently, to the authors, about the only interesting
passage in The Republic). I had my students read it, then gave them the very next few paragraphs, in which Plato admits he’s only kidding about women being as good as men at anything but “making pancakes.” They got it.

And I had a staggering moment teaching The Iliad, as well: because of the location of the school, several of my students are military or retired military, mostly middle-aged women. And one of them came to me and told me this story: she served in the Middle East in the first Gulf War, spent 8 years there. Then she came home to raise her three kids. She was retired. The 9/11 happened, and she was called up again and forced to spend four more years overseas. So she’s reading the Iliad, with all the men camped outside the walls of Troy, wishing they could go home again, and she wants to tell me, this happened to her. And it happened in exactly the same place. ONLY SHE WAS GONE FOR LONGER: the Trojan War only lasted ten years. And we just sat there, and she had tears in her eyes, and I thought to myself, well, too bad this doesn’t pay the bills, because then I’d be f*cking rich enough to pay off all the student loans I took to get paid $7.51 an hour teaching full time.

Without benefits.

Except knowing this woman.

And to my fellow (tenured) professors here in the fine state of Florida, those of you desperately trying to pretend you’re just too busy defending your precious academic freedom of speech to speak up about the fact that increasing percentages of their peers are being treated this way, I have something to tell you:

Sure, speech is free. It only costs something if you use it.

So, to all of you in the faculty unions who quietly agreed to the raw deal given adjuncts and quietly agreed to exclude adjuncts from your unions, you who preen about your commitment to principles: go f*ck yourselves, you
pissing, spotted-bellied pseudo-Marxist arseholes. Go on, look away, cowards. I’m not contagious: I’m just a searing reminder of the fact that you completely abandoned all of your principles the very first time they were actually tested in the most trivially discomfiting way.

Nice work if you can get it, comrades.

I’m sorry to dump this on you guys, but I’m basically desperate. And, as you know, I’m hopelessly quotidian. I can do the literature, but philosophy makes my head hurt. I have a smallish outlook.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!!!

This is from one of the smartest women I know. And this is how the university system, as it is now configured, treats people like her, like me, like my friends, like us.

I can collect similar letters from several other people. And it’s not just the adjuncts, either, although they are clearly the slaves.

Before you shell out those big bucks for your child’s college education, ask one question. How many of your kid’s classes will be taught by professors? They seem to be in the process of being phased out…