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Alberta labour code changes draw praise, criticism
In the wee hours of the morning, the Alberta government passed new legislation which it says will improve the province's labour code, but critics claim it is an attack on the basic rights of workers.
The government passed Bill 26, the Labour Relations Amendment Act 2008, only three days after introducing the legislation.
The bill states that employees in the construction sector must have worked for an employer for at least 30 days in order to participate in a union certification vote.
The government designed the new provisions to prevent salting - planting unionized workers on a construction site before an election vote - as a union-organizing tactic in the construction sector.
"The rebalancing measures contained in Bill 26 will help ensure a competitive and stable labour relations regime exists for construction companies. These measures are desperately needed as the province moves forward developing the oil sands and building much needed infrastructure projects," said Stephen Kushner, Merit Contractors Association president, before the legislation was passed.
"While a handful of internationally affiliated craft union locals use unfair organizing practices and bid subsidy schemes, the impacts can have devastating consequences in critical trade areas such as carpentry, electrical work, plumbing and pipefitting."
In sharp contrast to this view, a spokesperson for the labour movement in Alberta said he believes that Bill 26 is designed to benefit employers at the expense of organized labour.
"The big winners from this proposed change in the labour code are the big non-union contractors under the banner of Merit. This is a gift from the government to them. These changes will tilt the playing field further in their favour," said Gil McGowan, Alberta Federation of Labour president, shortly after the legislation was introduced.
"This is not about fairness, because the government is squeezing unionized construction firms out of Alberta."
Merit argued that Bill 26 will promote fairness in the construction industry and would give more democratic control to construction workers during unionization elections.
"The proposed changes simply level the playing field in terms of acceptable organizing and bidding activities and leave critical decision making in the hands of individual employees rather than union leaders. What could be more democratic?" Kushner said.
The AFL argued that Bill 26 is intended to make it almost impossible for construction workers to express their democratic right to join a union.
"The issue of salting is a straw man the government is using as an excuse to ram through these draconian measures, which make it more difficult for workers to join a construction union," said McGowan.
"Many construction jobs last for less than thirty days and many construction workers make a living moving from one short term contract to another. The new legislation is saying these sites can't be organized and these workers can't unionize."
"Bill 26 also gives employees 90 days to reconsider their decision to join a union.
"Even when a union earns the right to certify, employers will have 90 days to have workers change their minds and revoke the certification," McGowan said.
"We all know that employers will use this period to beat up and discourage workers from becoming union members. This should be called a 90-day intimidation period."
Journal of Commerce, Mon Jun 9 2008
Byline: Richard Gilbert
Rona Workplace Fatality Demonstrates Need for Tougher Forklift Rules
The AFL noted today the death of a 16-year old Rona hardware worker and suggests it could have been avoided with tougher legislation.
"Workplace fatalities are always a horrible tragedy, especially when the worker is so young," says AFL President Gil McGowan. "Our immediate thoughts go out to the family of this young man."
"But I also cannot help thinking that if we had more appropriate safety laws around forklifts, this might have been avoided."
Forklifts are a regular and particularly problematic safety problem in workplaces, McGowan points out. "Accidents are frequent with forklifts. Most are caused by a lack of training on safe use, or inappropriate uses of the lift, such as working from the forks."
McGowan highlights that Alberta's Occupational Health and Safety Code is virtually silent on the issue of forklifts. The only two provisions require a legible load rating chart and that if the lift has seat belts, the belts be used and be maintained in good condition.
"Because our Code says nothing about forklifts, employers do very little to ensure they are used safely," says McGowan. "There is inadequate training on what should and should not be done - and the result, unfortunately, are accidents like yesterday's."
McGowan also highlights that in the revamping of the Safety Code a few years ago, worker and some employer representatives pushed for tougher forklift rules, including certification of operators. Those amendments were rejected by other employer groups and the government, and the status quo remained.
"There is so much more that can be done," says McGowan. "Look at Manitoba. They have a comprehensive Code of Practice for forklifts. Operators must be certified by an independent trainer, and the employer has a series of responsibilities for keeping the forklifts safe."
The Manitoba approach ensures more substantial training, safe operation, and ongoing monitoring of credentials, says McGowan. "The government needs to move immediately to implement the Manitoba model for safety protection on forklifts."
"Workers want to work safely. But to achieve that, they need proper training and education on the hazards of their job and the machinery they work with," says McGowan. "And it is the government's responsibility to make sure rules are in place to make it happen."
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For more information contact:
Gil McGowan, AFL President @ 780.483-3021 (office) or 780.218-9888 (cell)
Labour legislation passed by gov't: Unions not happy with bill's content
Amendments to the Alberta's new labour relations code are causing a stir among some labour groups.
Bill 26, introduced in the legislature by Employment Minister Hector Goudreau on Monday, strips ground ambulance services of their ability to strike during labour disputes and restricts union "salting" techniques aimed at organizing non-union workshops.
The bill, approved early Thursday morning, requires labour disputes for ground ambulance services to be settled through mandatory arbitration, an amendment that prevents threats to public safety, Goudreau said.
To restrict "salting," the bill would require employees to work for an employer at least 30 days before voting on certification and would allow 90 days for employees to reconsider their vote.
Doug Knight, president of the Alberta Union of Public Employees said Bill 26 violates Charter rights that give people the right to strike as part of the negotiating process and cited a Supreme Court ruling last June that said freedom of association includes the right to bargain a collective agreement.
"If it ever went to court the government would lose," Knight said of potential challenges to the bill.
He said the amendment to the labour code that allows people to reconsider certification votes could subject employees to harassment from employers looking to reverse the results of tight certification votes in their favour.
But Goudreau said the amendment allows employees to weigh the pros and cons of their certification vote allowing employees relief from regret, similar to buyers remorse.
"It's to allow a sober second thought," Goudreau said during a phone interview on Wednesday.
Market enhancement recovery funds (MERFs) collected through union dues and used by union contractors as a bidding tool would also be restricted under the bill.
Bill Stewart, vice president of Merit Contractors Association, said MERFs limit the ability of non-union contractors, especially those limited in size to bid competitively with unionized contractors.
Unionized workshops with access to MERFs can bid on contracts without factoring in labour costs, Stewart said. He added that smaller non-unionized contractors can't compete with the $10-15 per hour difference in costs that can mean a difference of several thousand dollars per contract.
"It can have a huge impact on who gets the work."
He said he is pleased the government is regulating an unregulated practice.
"What this (Bill 26) is doing is putting a window around and saying 'this is permissable, this is not.'"
Gil McGowan of the Alberta Federation of Labour called Bill 26 a gift to anti-union groups from the Conservatives in a press release and named Merit as one of those groups.
"This bill is about rewarding your friends in the construction industry at the expense of fairness and the well being of thousands of construction workers," he said.
On Tuesday, the government moved to limit debate on the bill to seven hours during the committee stage.
Both the Liberals and the NDP blasted the Tories' decision to limit debate.
"The Tories are ramming this legislation in the dying days of the session to scuttle public debate," Liberal leader Kevin Taft said in a news release.
Goudreau said there was plenty of opportunity to debate the bill in first and second readings.
"If you review Hansard and if you review the comments you will notice that they're basically saying the same thing over and over again."
Goudreau said if you consider debate in first, second and third readings as well as debate before committee, plenty of time has been allowed for debate.
Fort Saskatchewan Record, Fri Jun 6 2008
Byline: Paul Grigaitis
Alberta government braces for union reaction to labour code changes
The Alberta government is bracing for protests after introducing what critics are calling "anti-union" changes to the province's labour code.
Employment Minister Hector Goudreau has confirmed that extra sheriffs have been brought to the legislature this week in case of any unruly demonstrations.
The legislation bans strikes and lockouts for ambulance workers and prevents unions from subsidizing contract bids by unionized contractors competing with non-union firms.
The changes will also prevent union-supporting workers from joining a non-union company to kick start the process of unionizing the firm - a practice known as salting.
NDP Leader Brian Mason says the legislation is an act of "revenge" for the union-sponsored attack ads used against Premier Ed Stelmach during the recent Alberta election campaign.
A spokesman for the Alberta Building Trades Council did not appear overly concerned by the legislation and says the practice of salting is nearly obsolete in the province.
But the Alberta Federation of Labour and the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees reacted much more strongly, suggesting the legislation violates constitutional guarantees of freedom of association.
"This is what Conservatives do - squeeze workers for the benefit of employers," federation president Gil McGowan said in a media release Monday.
"The Conservatives have long been anti-labour and this bill is their latest attempt to kick workers in the shins. They are simply using their new majority to exercise their anti-worker reflexes," he added.
McGowan also noted the bill has been timed to keep wages down during the province's economic boom.
Doug Knight of the provincial employees' union said the law ought to be changed so that there is one labour law for everyone, instead of the current system where there is a separate Public Service Employee Relations Act.
Daily Commercial News and Construction Record, Thurs Jun 5 2008
Labour Troubles Are Brewing In Alberta
The Alberta government is bracing for protests after introducing what critics are calling anti-union changes to the province's labour code.
Employment Minister Hector Goudreau has confirmed that extra sheriffs have been brought to the legislature this week in case of any unruly demonstrations.
The legislation bans strikes and lockouts for ambulance workers and prevents unions from subsidizing contract bids by unionized contractors competing with non-union firms.
The changes will also prevent union-supporting workers from joining a non-union company to kick start the process of unionizing the firm, a practice known as salting.
The Alberta Federation of Labour opposes the changes as does the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees.
CHQR Newsroom, Tues Jun 3 2008
Alberta legislature braces for protests over labour code changes
Government officials are so concerned about the potential for strife over changes to Alberta's labour code that they have beefed up security at the legislature.
"We expect individuals to come and voice their displeasure with what we're doing," said Alberta Employment Minister Hector Goudreau Monday.
Goudreau said extra sheriffs have been brought in this week, but he would not provide any details.
"We're trying to minimize conflicts by just being more on the cautious side."
The changes announced to the labour code Monday are the first in 20 years. Among other things they will ban strikes by ambulance workers and prevent unions from subsidizing contract bids by unionized contractors competing with non-union firms.
The new legislation will also prevent union organizers from joining a non-union company to kick-start the process of unionizing the firm - a practice known as "salting."
CBC News , Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Gov't moves to pass labour amendments
EDMONTON - The Alberta government moved swiftly today towards passing controversial labour code amendments, despite ongoing criticism from labour groups.
Just before debate started on Bill 26, the government made a motion to limit time spent on the matter. Opposition parties accused the government of stifling its opponents.
An NDP press release said the government was jamming the bill through the legislature "in time to hit the golf courses and barbecue circuit."
Liberal Hugh MacDonald said the sooner the government passes the bill, the less chance they will face opposition. "It's restricting and limiting public debate on a public bill," MacDonald said. "They want to steamroll this through and they do not want people get organized to oppose this legislation."
Conservative MLAs argued that opposition members will still have plenty of time to make their case during the seven hours the bill is in committee.
"What argument cannot be made by the opposition members within their allocated 30 or 40 minutes?" Tory Neil Brown asked.
A spokesman for the premier's office said they are hoping to have the bill passed by the end of the week, but are prepared to go into next week if the opposition prolongs the debate.
Union leaders continued to bash the bill, which was introduced Monday. It bans ambulance workers from striking and puts limits on so-called "salting" and "MERFing" practices.
Salting is when a union employee or sympathizer gets a job at a non-union workplace in order to organize workers or disrupt the company's operations. Unions argue the practice is rare, but contractors' associations say it is fairly common.
Market Enhancement Recovery Funds, or MERFs, are used by unions to help union contractors win bids. They are used, for example, to help employers provide benefits or higher salaries to their workers. The government has argued these funds distort the marketplace and harm non-union shops.
Stephen Kushner of the Merit Contractor's association says it's about protecting workers from unwanted salting practices and protecting non-union shops from unfair bidding.
"It's long overdue," he said. This morning, union leaders met for about 30 minutes with Employment Minister Hector Goudreau. They emerged unhappy. "The minister called us together not to hear our concerns or consider our suggestions, but rather to tell us the way things were going to be," said Alberta Federation of Labour President Gil McGowan.
McGowan said the bill isn't about making the market more fair or about worker choice. "What it's really about is tilting the playing field even further in favour of the merit contractors and other friends of the government."
Elisabeth Ballermann, the president of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta, said the government did little or no consultation with unions. She said the bill does nothing but hurt working people.
"There's nothing there but stripping away workers' rights, whether it's construction workers, ambulance workers, et cetera, et cetera," Ballermann said.
The NDP and others accused the government of hitting back at unions who bankrolled an advertising campaign last election attacking the government.
Goudreau said it was a hot issue on the hustings during the last election, particularly after the ads began to air.
"The ad campaign triggered a pile of discussions as we knocked on doors. They were saying why would they do that? So part of that enhanced that type of discussion. Now that's not the only reason. We've been talking about salting and MERFing for seven or eight years."
Speaking to reporters in Calgary, Stelmach said the bill came up now not because of revenge, but because the government finally had time to do it.
"I'm taking a bunch of issues off the backburner," Stelmach said. "There was only so much I could do in the first 14 months."
Debate continues today.
Edmonton Journal, Tues Jun 3 2008
Byline: Archie McLean
The Reason for the Labour Code Amendments: Rewarding Your Friends
A day after the government tabled its anti-worker Bill 26: The Labour Relations Amendment Act, Albertans are wondering what would motivate such a blatant attack on constitutionally-protected rights. The answer, says the AFL, is the Bill is a reward for the Conservatives' friends in the anti-union Merit Contractors and Progressive Contractors (PCAC) Associations.
"Not many Albertans know who the Merit Contractors or the Progressive Contractors associations are," says AFL President Gil McGowan. "They have a knack for staying below the radar somewhat. Yet, Albertans need to know they are the driving forces behind the anti-worker Bill tabled in the Legislature yesterday."
"These changes didn't just come out of nowhere, and they weren't cooked up in the 2 months since the election," observes McGowan. "Merit and PCAC have been lobbying for these changes for years. And they finally got their Christmas morning."
"This Bill is about rewarding your friends in the construction industry at the expense of fairness and the well-being of thousands of construction workers."
Merit and PCAC are both organizations founded on the principle of "open shop", which is a model of labour relations which downplays unions and enhances employer rights. Both organizations have a long track record of taking anti-union stands on policy issues. Many of their members are well-connected in the Conservative party - including some who were instrumental in the defeat of MLA David Eggen in Edmonton Calder this spring.
Merit has been lobbying for restrictions on salting and MERFs for a decade. In a 2002 report called "Building A Labour Relations Code for the 21st Century", Merit directly calls for the amendments in the legislation. On MERFs: "One of the more insidious strategies to emerge in Canada & is so-called market enhancement recovery funds." (p. 32) On salting: "some unions are perverting these protections through an organizing tactic & called "salting'." (p. 27)
In its explanation for the Bill, Employment and Immigration Minister Hector Goudreau pointed to a 2004 report examining labour relations in the construction industry. The report has two recommendations - identical to the provisions in Bill 26. The committee consisted of three Conservative MLAs, a representative from the Merit Contractors and a representative from the Building Trades Council. (The Building Trades representative wrote a dissenting report opposing both recommendations.)
One of the MLAs, Brent Rathegeber, went on to become the Director for the Progressive Contractors Association after his defeat in 2004. PCAC is now headed by former Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC) Director Co Vanderlaan. CLAC is infamous in construction for its employer-friendly, collaborationist approach to unionism (so-called "alternative unionism").
"This bill is not about levelling playing fields, it is about handing a big stick to the most rabidly anti-union employers in the construction industry," McGowan concludes.
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For more information contact:
Gil McGowan, AFL President @ 780.483-3021 (office) or 780.218-9888 (cell)
Alta. Liberals press for farm labour standards
Alberta's provincial opposition is calling for the province's labour standards code and job safety legislation to include farm workers.
Liberal Leader Kevin Taft on Monday called for the Stelmach government to expand the Employment Standards Code and the Occupational Health and Safety Act to include protections for farm workers and adopt a farm safety program to promote safety in the farming community.
"Alberta's farm workers have no protection regarding hours of work and overtime, no statutory holidays or vacation pay, no right to refuse unsafe work, and no compensation if they are injured on the job," Taft said, accusing the Tories of dodging the issue of farm safety.
"Injuries and deaths on Alberta farms continue to be a burden on farm families. In some of these cases, farm worker safety standards could have prevented incidents from happening, and provide the needed support when incidents do occur."
Edmonton MLA Hugh MacDonald, the Liberals' employment critic, said in a release Monday that safety standards for all workers must be improved and properly enforced.
The Liberals made their statements as part of the International Day of Mourning for Workers Killed or Injured on the Job. According to the Alberta Federation of Labour, 166 Albertans, including 154 of what it called "officially 'recognized'" workers and 12 farm workers, lost their lives for work-related reasons in 2007.
AFL president Gil McGowan said in a separate release that 2007 saw the most work-related fatalities in the province since 1982 and the sixth-highest total in provincial history, with 28 work-related deaths so far in 2008 -- a tally McGowan blamed on the province's current boom.
"Employers are cutting corners on training and safety procedures to meet the huge demand," he said. "The result is more accidents. Many workers choose to walk away from unsafe jobs rather than pressure for more safety, meaning bad employers don't improve. And the government is not doing enough inspections and enforcement."
While it's still early in 2008, he said, "if we continue to lose workers at this rate, we will kill 170 workers in 2008, which will be the highest number since the Hillcrest Mine disaster in 1914."
Lorna Chandler, whose husband died in June 2006 in an accident on a farm near High River, said in the Liberals' release that "farm workers deserve the same on the job protection as everyone else."
Farm Business Communications, Mon Apr 28 2008
Be aware of boss: Province launches ad
Just because students across Alberta will soon be moving from classrooms for jobsites, doesn't mean the learning should stop, according to the province - while the Alberta Federation of Labour questions the approach.
Employment and Immigration has launched an advertising blitz designed to educate young workers about their rights and responsibilities on the job.
"Parents and kids are thinking about summer jobs and, as younger people are going to be moving into the workforce in the next little while, we want them to know the kinds of things to be aware of - the kinds of things to ask about on the job," spokesman Janice Schroeder said yesterday.
"We found that younger workers are the least likely to know what their rights are and they're also the least likely to ask what their responsibilities are."
One ad, titled "What you need to know about working this summer," lists points including that overtime must be paid if a shift is longer that eight hours; a workday cannot be more than 12 hours, including breaks; minimum wage is $8.40 an hour; and parents must provide written consent for children between the ages of 12 and 14 who are working.
The ad also provides a link and telephone numbers for more information.
Schroeder said the department polices the system through a combination of listening and watching.
"If parents are concerned or if young workers or colleagues or anybody is concerned, they can call our contact centre and indicate their concerns - and what workers are being asked to do," she said.
"And we also have the inspection-driven side, so where there are sectors where we might be concerned, we'll go visit employers."
Schroeder said Employment and Immigration received 4,100 complaints and performed 278 payroll inspections during the 2006-07 fiscal year.
But Nancy Furlong, secretary-treasurer of the 140,000-member AFL, questioned the department's ability to set or enforce standards - and workers' ability to insist on them.
She said the department is more focused on mediation than enforcing the law in individual cases.
"You might see an adult standing up for themself, but even that is rare because they're at risk - Employment Standards doesn't take on employers and doesn't protect (workers) from dismissal when they raise those kinds of issues."
Furlong conceded the booming economy means students have a fair bit of employment choice. But she worries employers stretched for staff can still insist on long hours or inappropriate working conditions.
And while children as young as 12 are barred from certain kinds of work, Furlong wonders if the move to allow Albertans so young to work in the first place - and help alleviate the labour shortage - even makes sense.
"It's our point of view that the 12-year-olds should be playing and going to school rather than working," she said.
Furlong added the government should consider reaching teens through popular youth-oriented Internet sites.
Edmonton Sun, Sun Apr 20 2008
Byline: Daniel MacIsaac


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[UPDATE: About 6 months following I wrote this, I did some comparative screening on a few bottles that I individual — a Thermos Nissan, the glass-lined Thermos pictured higher than, along with a Stanley. See the outcome of my Thermos tests.]
The sale or shipment of this product to citizens of the subsequent is restricted: Delaware: Wilmington
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The sale or shipment of the solution to people of the following states is limited: California and Delaware.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Black Editions & Eremite Records present: Peter Brötzmann/Keiji Haino Duo Weekend Residency
Peter Brötzmann/Keiji Haino Duo
Keiji Haino
Sat · August 4, 2018
Doors: 8:00 pm / Show: 9:00 pmZebulon
This event is 21 and overhttps://zebulon.ticketfly.com/event/1646500/
Peter Brötzmann
Peter Brötzmann came to prominence in the European jazz scene of the 1960s, establishing himself by the end of the decade as the dominant voice of the saxophone in the avant-garde spheres. In the context of the political divides of postwar Europe, Brötzmann powerful, incendiary voice on his instrument resonated deeply. His self-developed technique maximizes every possibility for personal inflection on his instruments, going well past the usual limits of commonly accepted styles. In terms of volume, range, breadth of tone, vibrato, and intensity, he creates music that obliterates the rules of genre and puts the listener in new realms of discovery, vulnerability, and feeling. Amazingly, he has been able to pair this approach with very different types of musicians, and found musical homes with the more cerebral British avant-garde, the "New Dutch Swing" of the Instant Composers Pool, the roots-oriented free jazz of New York, the younger musicians of the current Chicago scene, and various noise/rock groups. Brötzmann extensive discography shows a boundary-less collaborative spirit, and his example has ignited and energized the geographic and stylistic scenes in which he has involved himself. He has appeared on well over two hundred recordings, & performed & recorded with nearly every major figure in free jazz and improvised music of the last fifty years, including Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, William Parker, Hamid Drake, Anthony Braxton, Joe McPhee, Sonny Sharrock, Han Bennink, Keiji Haino, and Ginger Baker. As a trained and recognized visual artist Brötzmann does much of his own album artwork & has a long history of producing his own records, pre-dating the do-it-yourself aesthetic of punk rock and current trends of self-production by decades. Former POTUS Bill Clinton called Brötzmann "one of the greatest alive." (2001 Oxford American Music Issue).
Keiji Haino
While Keiji Haino is renowned around the world for his performances with voice and guitar, his work with the hurdy-gurdy has almost never been heard live outside of Japan. His dedication to this esoteric ancient instrument, has yielded some of the most unique and enchanting music of his career. The hurdy-gurdy originated in the middle ages with roots in both the Middle East and Europe and features a hand crank-turned, rosined wheel rubbing against strings to create rich layers of drone harmonics. Haino's three "21st Century Hard-Y-Guide-Y Man" albums published between 1995 and 2008 represent a major advancement of the instrument from the middle ages to the modern era.
Venue Information:
2478 N Fletcher Dr
Los Angeles, CA, 90039
2478 N Fletcher Dr
Los Angeles, CA, 90039


text:
Hey there
My name is George, I write and I draw.
I hope this is kosher. I wanted to show you guys my artwork and offer my services. Please use this thread for similar reasons, to thank artists you've hired and show off your covers, etc.
My portfolio:
This is the front cover painting for my next novel Depth Charging Ice Planet Goth, out through Perfect Edge Books in mid 2014.
Kudos and massive thanks to French artist Kmye Chan, channeling shades of anime as well as comic book artist Steve Ditko.
Ta, TheScrivener — thought long and hard about what typeface to use. I wanted something '80s, but the only decent one was Atari... which clashed! So, back to the swinging '60s... ;)
Also, this is the mock-up for the cover of the Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat graphic novel I'm currently putting together — we're concurrently running a Kickstarter funding campaign to get the funds to print.
Resurecting my old ass thread because I don't want to feel like I'm spamming with a new one. Sorry for the dead image links, I changed my website url.
I'm still doing book covers and selling premades over at www.cotronis.com if any of you are the self-publishing type.
Here's one I'm selling.


text:
Brian Croxall
Posts Tagged job market
Keep Calm and Carry On: Finding and Building PhD Career Paths
Posted by Brian in alt-ac, Presentations on July 28, 2015
At the end of March this year, I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Purdue University and talk about alternate careers for people pursuing the PhD. Throughout the day I enjoyed a number of interesting discussions with graduate students and faculty. It's amazing to see how far we've come in the last 5 or 6 years in being willing to talk about what faces PhD students upon graduation.
In addition to these less formal discussions, I gave a talk and led a workshop focusing on the nuts and bolts of looking for and applying for different positions. If you're interested in getting the full "Brian experience," you can watch videos of the talk and the workshop on YouTube. But since I get fidgety watching a five-minute video let alone an hour talk, I wanted to share the text of the talk here. A portion of the talk drew on the short comments I gave in September 2014 at Penn State's Symposium on #Alt-Ac. I was glad to get a chance to expand on that line of thinking here. My comments also drew on thoughts that I had had as I worked on a forthcoming article about alt-ac issues and the CLIR postdoctoral fellowship with Meredith Beck Sayre, Marta Brunner, and Emily McGinn. For the title, I of course have to thank the Internet without which none of this would be possible.
And of course, I need to thank my hosts at Purdue: the College of Liberal Arts, the Department of English, and the School of Languages and Cultures, and in particular Nancy Peterson, Madeleine Henry, and Hyunyi Cho, head of English, head of Languages and Cultures, and Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education, respectively.
Two Job Markets in Every Pot: My Platform for the MLA Executive Council
Posted by Brian in Announcements on October 24, 2013
Earlier this year, I sent Rosemary Feal, the Executive Director of the MLA, a direct message via Twitter. In the last couple of years I've had the chance to get to know her as we've spoken together on panels and as I've served on the MLA's Committee on Information Technology (CIT). In this DM, I suggested that the MLA should host a job fair alongside the academic job interviews that take place at the annual Convention. I followed up with the observation that if the MLA needed to hire someone full-time to implement this strategy, well…I knew a guy.
Her reply came a few days later and not in the way that I expected. Instead of an offer of employment or (as was much more likely) a good-natured jibe about my need to show up to the Convention first, she instead conveyed the news that I had been invited to stand for election to the MLA's Executive Council. I was both flattered and floored. As noted on the Association's Governance page, the Executive Council "has fiduciary and administrative responsibility for the association" and works in partnership with the Executive Director and all of the MLA staff to steer the organization according to the concerns of its members, all 27,736 of them [PDF].
As I said, I was completely surprised by the invitation. But at least I already had the beginnings of a candidate statement. Here, then, are the 250 words that I could include in my platform, with some links thrown in to contextualize things:
I am a former adjunct who now works off the tenure track building digital humanities projects and programs. My experience—shared with countless others—suggests that the MLA must lead graduate education reform that includes thoughtful preparation for nonprofessorial employment. The MLA must help its members believe about themselves what we say about our undergraduates: that the study of languages and literatures prepares one for many careers.
On the Executive Council, I will work to introduce something new at the annual convention: a job fair with government and private-sector exhibitors. In so doing, the MLA will put its imprimatur on nonacademic outcomes for graduate training, which will help individual departments institute the changes necessary to reimagine graduate studies.
Concurrent with this expansion of what graduate training means, the MLA should expand how it conceives of its membership. At present, our association is largely composed of those who research and teach modern languages and literatures. We must reframe the organization to represent and advocate for those who have studied these subjects in the past. Those in other career paths need to feel not just welcome but valued as continuing members of the MLA.
Once we expand representation, the MLA will be better able to demonstrate the many outcomes of an education in language and literature because our members will be everywhere. By making visible the many pathways available to those trained in modern languages, we will show the public and ourselves the usefulness of a humanities education.
In the four months since I wrote this statement, I've been thrilled to see that the MLA, along with the American Historical Association, is continuing, as a Chronicle headline puts it, to "chip away at [the] taboo of nonacademic careers." The MLA's Task Force on Doctoral Study is just one example of such efforts. If elected to the Council, I'll advocate for the above-mentioned job fair and ever-increasing attention to pathways beyond the professoriate. Making all alternative careers—and not just alternative academic jobs—part of the discourse during graduate study will help those who work outside the academy understand that their work makes sense within the context of the MLA.
But it turns out that 250 words are not enough to adequately capture everything that I would have liked to say about the MLA. The Association must absolutely continue to work for equitable working conditions for all those who work in academe, which includes graduate students and adjuncts. It's critical to remember that faculty working conditions are student learning conditions. The MLA must do all that it can—and constantly ask whether it can do more—to change what has become the status quo in higher education. We must also think about those who work alongside faculty. To this end, I'm proud to have worked with the MLA's CIT to revise the Association's Guidelines for Information Technology Access and Support for the Modern Languages. These guidelines make it clear that it's a responsibility of scholars to "recognize academic technology staff members as vital collaborators."
As a result of my service on the CIT, I will also work to find ways to allow the MLA to make more of its data open. One example of this might be the Job Information List, which was made free to all users this year. There are good reasons why not all MLA resources can be made open in this way, but many kinds of data might be made available for research. The result could be explorations about the history of the profession and scholarship similar to the analysis of PMLA that Ted Underwood and Andrew Goldstone undertook and reported on in December 2012.
I do hope to be elected. I'm excited about continuing to serve the MLA which is a forward-thinking organization with great leadership. So if you're into people who have gone on record as being very enthusiastic about the Convention, please consider voting for me. I'm interested to respond to any questions you might have for me. Comment here, on Twitter, or on MLA Commons!
And then vote!
Culinary School vs. Graduate School
Posted by Brian in Graduate School on March 16, 2011
I listen to NPR most days as I commute, and I found yesterday's story about the difficult job prospects and debt facing culinary school graduates very familiar. The similarity between the circumstances of those training to be chefs and those training to be faculty members was so striking that I couldn't resist writing NPR and commenting on the story. Since I know the chances of Robert Siegel mellifluously reading portions of my comment on the air are about the same as getting a tenure-track job in 20th-century American literature (read, 1 in 500—at least the last year that I was applying for jobs), I've decided to just post my thoughts here as well:
I enjoyed the March 15 story about the problems facing graduates of culinary schools. The problem of spending years of training and thousands of dollars on an education only to be faced with a minimum paying job prospects is daunting. And unfortunately it is familiar for many of us who have pursued PhDs. After six years of schooling and $48,000 of debt, I graduated with a PhD in English literature. I applied to every job in North America for three years in a row–all 150 of them. At most of these jobs, I was told that I was one of 300-500 applicants, and naturally all of us had PhDs, publications, and teaching experience. In those three years, I received a total of three first round interviews, none of which led to second rounds. My first year after graduate school, I taught at my graduate institution for $32,500/year, less than half of what a regular faculty member earns. I was only allowed to have that job for one year, and the following year saw me driving 120 miles one way to get to my job where I earned $27,000/year. Again, I earned half of what regular faculty earned and taught twice as many courses per semester. That being said, I'm still one of the lucky ones. "Adjunct faculty" often have to cobble together courses from many different institutions to make ends meet, earning in the neighborhood of $2,000 per course for an entire semester. Teaching full time (4 or 5 courses per semester) nets you an annual income of $20,000.
I'm sympathetic to the culinary graduates, whose debt rivals that of most PhD students. But the time that they invest in their studies falls far short of what a PhD program requires. NPR's shedding some light on the subject of post-graduate school employment and the casualization of the faculty in higher education will help bring to light labor issues in higher education that differ from but parallel the recent troubles in Wisconsin.
Perhaps the most interesting detail in the story is that culinary school graduates can expect to earn $12-15/hour as a line chef when they finish culinary school. If they work 40 hours/week and 50 weeks per year, that's an annual income of $24,000…just about the same as what an adjunct might earn. Teaching college and working as a line cook are very different jobs (as my time working in a high-end restaurant taught me), but neither appears to be a very safe investment.
(Omni?)Present at the MLA
Posted by Brian in Research, Teaching, Technology on January 12, 2011
Last year I gained some attention for not attending the Modern Language Association's annual convention. The notice that was paid to my situation and to the paper that was read on my behalf took me completely by surprise. That feeling of surprise persisted throughout 2010 as people occasionally sent emails or told me at events that they had heard of me. Standing in for the present absence [paywall] of many contingent or non-tenure-track at the yearly meeting of the MLA—and all the other conferences or department and faculty meetings—was not what I had had in mind when I stayed home. But I'm grateful that my paper resulted in increased attention being paid to the effects of labor casualization in the university.
Because I'm lucky, I have a job now. And because I'm even luckier, I've just finished attending my fifth MLA convention, where I spoke on two panels. I say "my" MLA with good reason. Previous to the 2006 MLA Convention, I'd heard that the yearly meeting wasn't especially enjoyable: people only went for the job interviews; the presenters always took too long and there was never time for Q&A; the lobby was full of the dead gazes of nervous candidates; and conversations were stunted by the sizing up of one other's badges—their names and affiliations. So I was stunned when I got to Philadelphia, where I was slated to give a paper. For three days straight, there was something fascinating and fabulous happening. Every hour of the day there was something that I wanted to attend. I saw Michael Bérubé and Bitch PhD (RIP) speak about their blogging. I saw Dave Parry (although I didn't know him at the time) and others talk about the Wikipedia. I attended talks about the authors I was writing about in my dissertation and talks given by friends in my program. I met Katherine Hayles, someone whose work intrigued me and who chaired the panel that I spoke on. I bumped into one of my favorite undergraduate professors in the book exhibit and caught up on the last 4.5 years. I hung out with friends from grad school, met scads of new people, and ate one of the best meals of my life. What had been billed as a soulless gathering at a terribly inconvenient time of year turned out to be quite possibly the most interesting three days of my academic career to that point.
I was hooked. I planned to go back to the MLA the following year since I would be on the market for the first time. But I was very much looking forward to it. In Chicago in 2007, I had two interviews, but I went for the fun of it all. I met Matt Kirschenbaum and Joe Tabbi for the first time, the latter offering me the opportunity to work some on electronic book review and the ELO Directory. I caught up with Jason Jones and his family. I ate a montecristo. In 2008, I hit San Francisco with one job interview, but I was also moderating a panel on Twitter with Dave Parry, Matt Gold, and John M. Jones. The first MLA tweetups took place, and I met so many people whom I had come to know online that listing them would verge on the obnoxious. And the work of my peers continued to keep me rushing from one hotel to the next, as I tried to decide between incredible When I decided not to attend the 2009 convention, then, I was as disappointed by my missing out on what I suspected would be both a great intellectual feast and a fabulous party.
Although any notoriety I was enjoying in March 2010 had come my way primarily by my not attending the conference, I knew that I could pull a(n accidental) stunt like that once. So I began submitting paper proposals with the hope that I could speak in this year's program. Others kindly invited me to participate in round tables that they were organizing. And after Rosemary Feal, Executive Director of the MLA, wrote to threaten (in a tongue-in-cheek manner) to not accept my panels unless I showed her an airplane receipt guaranteeing I would be at the 2011 convention, I learned that I would have the chance to speak on two different panels. I'll blog the talks from those panels in a day or so, but I wanted to quickly recap some of what my MLA looked like this year–to the best that I can recall, at least.
- On arriving at the JW Marriott on Thursday morning, I found myself riding on an escalator behind someone who looked very familiar. He seemed to have noticed me and was looking quizzically at me as well. Neither of us had yet found name tag holders. Right before I could speak, he turned fully to me and said, "Excuse me, are you Brian Croxall? I'm Michael Bérubé." This is not how you expect your conversation to go with the Second Vice President of the MLA. He was very kind and asked about my new job.
- I started Thursday with some media training that I and approximately 20 other people (including many ProfHackers had been invited to. Rosemary Feal and Mark Aurigemma provided two hours of helpful and revealing strategies for how faculty can effectively interact with journalists. Expect a ProfHacker post soon on the subject from myself or one of my colleagues.
- For the very first session of the MLA, I attended a panel on labor in the digital humanities (DH), which featured Tanya Clement, Mark Childs, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Amanda French, Carl Stahmer, with William Thompson presiding. The conversations ranged from debating the extent to which non-programmers can really expect to learn code well enough to contribute to a project (Carl said no), to the degradation of digital humanities projects due to the evaporation of labor after a grant ends, to Amanda French's commonsense (and therefore all the more radical) suggestion that funds from grants be used in part to fund the training of graduate students so they can learn basic programming concepts and therefore become more able to communicate with their DH collaborators. Tanya Clement even read a portion of the whitepaper that she and Doug Reside have been preparing for the upcoming, NEH-funded Off the Tracks meeting that seeks to limn out pathways for DH scholar-programmers (their term, which she pointed out is contentious). At the end of this panel, I was very happy to get to meet Richard Grusin for the first time. His (and Jay David Bolter's) book Remediation had a profound effect on my dissertation. This, by the way, is what's cool about the MLA, in case you missed it.
- Directly after this panel, Natalie M. Houston, Jason Jones, George Williams, and myself got to speak about hacking the profession on a ProfHacker-organized and -themed panel. Natalie's posted her talk, and I'll put mine up shortly. I really enjoyed the Q&A, which featured tales of poems about burritos and George regaling us with his boxing days. In this panel, I got to meet Kathy Harris for the first time—someone with whom I was able to collaborate a bit on a timeline— and Bill "Thomas H. Benton" Pannapacker, who wrote a blog post on The Chronicle of Higher Education about the panel.
- Following a one-panel interlude where I'm afraid I zoned out more than anything, having hit a wall, I had my second (and final) speaking engagement. The "New Tools, Hard Times" panel featured Marc Bousquet, Rosemary Feal, Marilee Lindemann, Chris Newfield, and myself talking about the use of social media in the academy in hard times. I will simply say that I was floored to be on this panel with these people. My talk is forthcoming, but Marilee has posted hers and Chris has already blogged his reflections on the panel. And if you want to read the VERY lively tweetstream for the session, look at the hashtag archive for #newtools. During Q&A we were all happy that questions were coming in from people who were not at the convention and were asking about issues of anonymity in the academy. Perhaps the best question came from Matt Kirschenbaum who wondered whether work in social media was actually counterproductive at a point as it too often ends up being uncounted by the academy. This is a good question to keep in mind, but I appreciate the fact that my being presently off the tenure track means that I don't have to worry as much about whether my contributions online count. Or in other words, while I haven't grabbed the brass ring of the tenure-track job, I do get to exercise a tremendous amount of freedom in how I spend my energies and time. It's kind of ironic, then, that I have some academic freedom that the tenured and especially the tenure-track faculty lack.
- At this point, I hit a wall, but had a fabulous dinner—and even better conversation—at Cork Bar.
This was eventually followed by some night caps (orange juice for me!) with friends. And Rosemary Feal introduced me to Gerald Graff.
- Friday morning started early with a show-and-tell round table of new digital projects. As I tweeted, I was most taken in by some of the new visualizations (still in beta, unfortunately) that John Walsh of The Swinburne Project demonstrated and "For Better For Verse," an interactive tool for teaching scansion and prosody, which is headed up by Herbert Tucker of UVa. Then I got a personal tutorial on NINES and 18thConnect from Laura Mandell.
- I then took in a panel where Ryan Cordell presented on his work on Hawthorne's "The Celestial Railroad." Ryan's work is fascinating, but even more was his ability to present effectively. He really taught the audience about his work, rather than reading directly from the page. He made it plain that even more traditional talks can be shifted from what is supposed to be the norm at the MLA. I hope that Rosemary Feal really does ask him to do a video about effective presentations.
- I then hurried over to the book exhibit. It's always fascinating to see what new books are coming out (not to mention how much money I can save). But the real draw this year was the Narrating Lives project, which participated in the larger theme of the conference established by MLA President Sidonie Smith. There wasn't a line when I arrived, so I was quickly briefed and waivered, and I recorded a one-minute video that talked about why I look forward to the yearly MLA and what made me go to graduate school in literature and language.
[iframe http://www.youtube.com/embed/fQO7OE_cXzY?fs=1 480 295] (You can tell from my presentation that the media training hadn't quite sunk in yet.) All in all, I'm really excited that the MLA is looking for such user-generated content. And I'm even more thrilled that Kathi Berens recorded two videos along the theme of "It Gets Better," talking to those—like her— that are not on the tenure track.
- Next on the schedule was a session on "The History and Future of the Digital Humanities," which featured Kathy Harris, Alan Liu, Tara McPherson, Steve Ramsay, and Bethany Nowviskie (who, due to illness, was channeled by Steve), and Brett Bobley of the NEH, with Kathleen Fitzpatrick chairing (all links are to either the speaker's blogged talk or to their Twitter account). The speakers each had about 3 minutes to present their perspective on the Digital Humanities. Perhaps most electric was Steve's polemic (which appears to be his public persona and one which he performs exceptionally) in which he considered "Who's In an Who's Out," a subject that seems to come up frequently in DH. He suggested that knowing how to code is all but required in DH and presented a definition of DH: it's "about building things." Steve has blogged his reflections on the panel, and they're worth reading. Personally, I very much like his definition of building as requisite to DH. I'd suggest that it doesn't have to be limited to one's research, however, since I think DH can happen in pedagogy just as well as research. (See Chris Forster on this important point.) But during the discussion, Alan Liu argued that he's not so much a builder as someone who steals or is a bricoleur, and I think that that's possibly closer to my vision of myself than one of a builder. It was a very good conversation, but one that I also felt I've heard a lot recently, either in person or in the blogosphere about just what DH is. In the end, I wonder to what extent these questions really come down to wondering about how we should train the current generation of graduate students. After all, if we are to prepare people for DH positions, we need to make sure they will be able to have the skills that programs will be looking for. But I don't know if we'll ever get as specific in training as we are in breadth requirements for PhDs. The current (and previous) generation of DH practitioners seem to all have taken idiosyncratic paths, and that's one of the things that makes the community vibrant. I'd hate to lose that (although I recognize that not everyone has the time or opportunity to pursue these paths). Perhaps this is why we keep talking about it. If you want to see more of the conversation, look at the archive for the hashtag #309. One of the things that I found most interesting about this panel was how packed the room was: standing room only, and it was clear that there were a lot of people there who simply wanted to learn about what the digital humanities were. Due to all reports I saw from last year's MLA, the digital humanities sessions in 2009 were also packed, but were in much smaller rooms. This year saw DH given larger space, but it still wasn't sufficient. I saw MLA staffers counting attendance during this session, and I think it's reasonable to expect that we'll see still bigger rooms in 2012.
- After the DH History and Future panel, I stayed put for a session on "The Open Professoriate" (Twitter hashtag #openprof) featuring Samuel Cohen, Amanda French, Dave Parry, Mark Sample, and Erin Templeton, with Matt Gold chairing. At the moment, only Amanda has blogged her talk, but I am sure that we'll see more of the talks made available soon given that the openness of faculty's research, teaching, and lives was the subject of the day. The Q&A was again very lively, and I asked the panel to what extent we should count on large corporations such as Google or Twitter to have our interests of openness at heart. It's not that they are necessarily more or less profit-driven than the universities most of us work for, but I think that many of us—myself certainly included—forget to consider that we are creating value for the web companies that we contribute to with our searches and discussions. Not that this makes me want to be less open; after all, I'd rather have accessibility. But we need to be aware of everyone with whom we're consorting in the quest toward openness. I was glad to see the MLA embrace conversations suh as these as well as the standard literary discussions.
- I stuck to the same room for one more talk, and got to hear Stanford's Dan Edelstein talk about the mapping of Enlightenment correspondence in the Mapping the Republic of Letters project. The visualizations and the patterns they have been discovering by building a massive archive of early modern correspondence is intriguing and brought the conversation from the meta level of the #309 panel back to the practical. Fascinating work and well worth following.
- Following Dan's talk, I moved to the Electronic Literature Organization's meetup, where I caught up with Zach Whalen and Kari Kraus and met Jentery Sayers and Mark C. Marino for the first time. Again, one of the reasons to attend the MLA in my experience is that everyone is there. And even if you don't get a lot of time to talk to everyone, simply seeing each other in person helps to make possible new chances for working together or learning about what's at the bleeding edge of different fields.
- After a DH-filled dinner of sushi, the final event of the evening was the MLA Tweetup, which Rosemary Feal sponsored. While it will likely not get the press coverage that 2009's did, it was still nice to see in person many of the people whose tweets we had been reading throughout the first two days of the conference. I'm sure not everyone there was someone that was on Twitter, since it appeared to include some bleed over from the audience for President Sidonie Smith's keynote address. Still, it was amazing to see so many people there, who were engaged in the Twitter side of the MLA. And the ambience was something to behold:
- For my final experience of the MLA, I joined the fun run that Dave Parry had organized for as many MLA participants as were crazy enough to be consider spandex and black turtlenecks at 7am.
Dave and the others at the front of the pack took pity on us and kept it manageable. Fortunately, I had a strategy.
As was the case throughout so much of the MLA this year, it was great to have Rosemary Feal involved. She mentioned before the run how much she appreciated that the run got organized. At the risk of putting words in her mouth, I think she was pleased to see young blood at the MLA. But I also imagine that she enjoys seeing spontaneous organizing taking place: the activities of the underconference.
I don't want to come off saying that there aren't any problems at the MLA. There are things that I think can be fixed at the MLA. For one, it would be great to find ways to get those presenting in traditional panel formats (not everything can be pecha kucha, after all) could present rather than read directly from the page. After all, we're all teachers. Why do we think that we need to communicate to one another in a different mode than we communicate to our students? Second, I think that the MLA can do more to embrace openness. In particular, the MLA should avoid paywalling information related to the conference, such as the program. Part of this trouble is due to the program being published as an issue of PMLA. But it shouldn't fall to the crowd to hack and republish the simple PDF. If we are in hard times (and boy are we!), then we should be doing everything to make information about ourselves public. How can we expect people to understand what it is that we do in this profession if we don't let them see what it is we're discussing? (See Kathi Berens calling for the same openness on her blog.) But these problems are things that we can fix. They aren't impossible. And on the whole, I'm feeling quite positive about the direction the organization is headed in.
I know that some people think the MLA is stodgy, solipsistic, and stressful. But that's not my MLA. And I'm glad I was present.
EDITS: Added the photo at the Cork Bar, courtesy of Kathi Berens.
Adjuncts –> The Glenn Beck-ification of Cultural Commentary
One of the Big Issue books to hit academia this year is Louis Menand's The Marketplace of Ideas. The book got some notice at the close of 2009 when an excerpt–"The Ph.D. Problem"–was published in Harvard Magazine. In this article, Menand argues that the production of people holding the doctorate is broken due to the length of time required to complete the degree and the lack of job prospects facing those who emerge. Menand's solution to the problem is to admit fewer people to doctoral programs and to shorten the time to degree.
I haven't had the opportunity to read the rest of Menand's book, but in connection with the recent 10-day seminar for CLIR Postdoctoral Fellows, I did read two different reviews of it. And it's on one of those reviews–Anthony Grafton's "Humanities and Inhumanities" in The New Republic–that I want to comment. These comments originate in something I briefly wrote for the CLIR seminar and in kinship with Mark Sample's assertion that such informal writing is "the first drafts of scholarship," I'm not going to clean them up that much. I'd rather circulate the ideas and revise as I get input.
After reading Grafton's review of Menand's book, I'm a bit puzzled. I don't really take issue with his characterization of Menand's argument as "curiously apathetic, and almost complacent." But I don't really see Grafton making much of an impact himself. After all, Menand makes a suggestion for changing something in the system (to wit, shortening graduate school). Grafton offers nothing except to say that (1) graduate school should be difficult, as "it is designed–badly, and clumsily, but not insanely [sic]–to attract and then to test people who think they have this sort of calling"–with his reference to a sense of a "call" and "conviction" sounding suspiciously close to the "love" that is supposed to motivate humanists and which Thomas H. Benton has skewered in The Chronicle; (2) that humanists must work to collaborate with others to try to create new pathways for knowledge–although he is remarkably (and admittedly) short on the details as to how this should happen; and that humanists "must learn how to use–and to create–new digital tools." This last point is absolutely correct, but again he's got no details to work on except for a vague notion of what we should all do and the recognition that including these tools in graduate education is going to make things "harder, since it will require even more skills than before."
Forgive me if I sound defeated, Mr. Grafton, but I think I prefer Menand's solution. At least he has the guts to offer us something we haven't tried in a while. There's been plenty done to make the humanities Ph.D. as difficult as possible, and it hasn't really effected change. That being said, I don't really believe that Menand's answer is correct. But Grafton seems emblematic of what frequently plagues the humanities: we are far too good at being critics and far too unpracticed in the work of (artistic / tool) creation.
What seems to be called for at this moment of professional and personal destruction created by graduate school in the humanities is a real revision to how things have been done. Unfortunately, I too am a better critic than I am creator. But I know other people with good ideas, and one of them is Ian Bogost, who wrote a fantastic essay in January of this year that posited the problem with the humanities is the humanists themselves. Grafton should read "The Turtlenecked Hairshirt"; it's shorter than Menand, and it ends with a solution to our increasing irrelevance (i.e., detachment) from the world around us: stop trying to be separate from (read, "above") most of the rest of humanity.
But Bogost's piece isn't a very specific answer to how we're going to fix things either. For that, perhaps we should turn to Marc Bousquet, who has written about how the university works (blog and book) and has suggested that the problems of the contingent faculty class could simply be done away with if we made all adjuncts into "real" faculty. It's obvious that there is a great need for teachers since more than 70% of undergrads in the US are taught by contingent faculty. If we would pay people equitably (and then either subsidized or charged students for the real cost of an education), we would solve the problem facing the humanities at the present. No more cannibalizing the young.
I believe that this employment balance has a lot to do with how we are perceived by the nation as a whole. How, in other words, can we expect the nation at large to take us seriously as people who are able to comment on the acts of humans in context of a broader cultural moment if we outsource the teaching of this cultural critique to underpaid non-faculty? If we are outsourcing the teaching and interpretation of this context and history, why shouldn't the rest of the nation outsource the role that humanists have traditionally played? Talk radio and shout television are, in part, the products of this outsourcing. We have Glenn Beck, in other words, because we have too many adjuncts.
I realize that such a comment may open me up to Bogost's critique–and in truth, I don't believe that only Ph.D.s are uniquely endowed to comment on culture. But is it any coincidence that the cultural role of the humanist has become marginzalized as those who teach the humanities become invisible and impermanent? Why should students or anyone else listen to someone whose own institution will not give her a job?
Perhaps neither Menand's nor Grafton's solutions (shorter graduate school or persistently lengthy graduate school) will fix this impasse. But it were a far, far better thing to do something than to do that nothing which we have already done.


text:
Hide Forgot
Platform: RH 7.0 ISO (Server Install) on ASUS P5-99VM (P233MMX, 128Mb, 20gb HD)
Running 'iptables' with any options returns this error message:
can't initialize iptables table `filter': iptables who? (do you need to insmod?)
Perhaps iptables or your kernel needs to be upgraded.
Can't find info anywhere on net. Searched for hours.
How can i fix this quickly?
iptables is provided for compatibility with the (future) 2.4.x kernels.
kernel 2.2.x does not support iptables, that's why it's complaining.
Use ipchains for 2.2.x kernels.
RH7.0 comes with iptables support, but the module loading is not automatic
(don't know why).
You have to 'modprobe iptables' to make it work.


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This project explores the stories of all people with periods. We aim to encourage expression, conversation, and acceptance about periods through art, storytelling, and advocacy. We aim to tackle the narrow, common narrative around periods that so often drips with negativity and shame. We hope to encourage people to express their feelings about periods openly and by doing so, begin to represent the multidimensional experiences that people have with periods. This project seeks to break the stigma and reframe periods as sometimes beautiful, sometimes painful, sometimes a nuisance, sometimes celebratory, yet always unique to the individual and always part of a great and vast web of stories and feelings.
All art and poetry is submissions based. If interested in contributing art or being part of our video series, please email: email@example.com.
People Have Periods is also affiliated with Camions of Care, a non-profit that manages and celebrates menstrual hygiene through advocacy, education, and service, through the global distribution of feminine hygiene product care packages to women in need. Visit the action page to get involved.


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Dr. Hideyuki Nosaka received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in physics from Keio University, Yokohama, Japan, in 1993 and 1995, respectively, and the Dr. Eng. degree in electronics and electrical engineering from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan, in 2003.
In 1995, he joined NTT Wireless System Laboratories, Kanagawa, Japan, where he was engaged in the research and development of direct digital frequency synthesizers (DDFS). Since 1999, he has been engaged in the research and development of mixed-signal ICs for 10-to-400-Gb/s optical communications systems at NTT Photonics Laboratories, Kanagawa Japan. Now he is a senior research engineer, supervisor, and the group leader of the High-Speed Analog Circuit Research Group at NTT Device Technology Laboratories, Kanagawa, Japan.
Dr. Nosaka is a member of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S), the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS), and the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE) of Japan. He served as the chair of the High-speed Digital, Mixed Signal, and Optoelectronics ICs subcommittee of the IEEE Compound Semiconductor Integrated Circuits Symposium (CSICS). He also serves as a member of the IEEE MTT-S Technical Committee Digital Signal Processing (MTT-9) and the International Technical Program Committee of the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC).


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James Nowacki is a government critic from Gary. He made a 160-mile walk from his house to the Indiana Statehouse in six days. Nowacki said that he wanted to lobby Indiana's General Assembly to legalize medical marijuana. Senator Karen Tallian sponsored the bill. Nowacki hopes to speak out on behalf of the proposal.
Tallian confirmed that Nowacki had arrived on Friday. She said that Nowacki began his journey on Sunday morning. She continued by saying the efforts of Tallian should not be taken for granted. Tallian stated that Nowacki's actions drew attention and the need for expansion of prescription drugs. Tallian has been a senator since 2004. She congratulated and thanked Nowacki for his commitment and determination to change the state's public policy.
On Friday, the Post-Tribune was unable to reach Nowacki through his personal number. However, he posted updates on a blog that is supported by his close friend. Nowacki posted about his journey to the General Assembly. He explained how he walked 300,000 steps and endured snow, sleet, rain, and cold temperatures on the way. Nowacki said that he received numerous messages of encouragement on his Facebook page.
Nowacki was born in 1955 in Chicago. He has lived most of his life in Gary. Nowacki does not use marijuana. He said that he supports the use of prescribed medical marijuana. The drug has been legalized in the neighboring state of Illinois for medical purposes. Nowacki continued by saying that he has seen medical marijuana being used to treat individuals with different forms of cancer. He stated that he was not pleased by the way some patients used illegal means to access the drug. He hoped that his efforts would create a way for the legalization of medical marijuana to benefit patients in the state.
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G2ACAMAS is a partnership between two airport professionals being Ground2Air and Camas International.
Ground2Air is an ISAGO certified, Ground Handling company at the SSR International Airport and part of IBL Ltd group.
Camas International is an 'ICAO full member' international training company operated by Camas Formation Head Office in France.
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All courses are MQA approved and/or IATA Certified.


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To answer your question:
From what the Angels have instructed me about the Indigo Child and the Crystal Child is ... they have been assigned an additional Angel to help them. This is in addition to their Guardian Angel. The two Angels work together overlighting these children.


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What About Those Crazy Cryptos?
Dr. Tom Barrett
May 14, 2018
Because of my decades of experience in investments, there's hardly a week goes by that someone doesn't call me and ask, "What do you think about Bitcoin?" Sometimes they ask about cryptocurrencies in general. But inevitably the word "crazy" finds its way into the conversation.
Sometimes it's "crazy" in the sense of "awesome." "What about the people who bought Bitcoin at less than a dollar, and rode it up to over $19,000?" (On Dec. 7, 2017, it closed at $15,872, after briefly surging over $19,000 earlier in the day.) Yeah, what about that? I wish I'd had the foresight (or dumb luck) to have bought it in 2009.
Sometimes it's "crazy" in the sense of "volatile." "It's up, it's down. Who knows what's going to happen next?" Usually, these are people who don't follow cryptocurrencies closely. They hear an occasional price and don't realize that even with the frequent big drops, Bitcoin is still in an overall uptrend.
I will do a thorough study of the price action of Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency markets in general in another article. (There are well over 1,800 "coins" out there as of this writing.) But the purpose of today's analysis is to examine the basis of the value people put on cryptos when they buy or sell them.
Many people think that there is no real value to cryptos.
"It's all smoke and mirrors." Or, "They're just bits and bytes on a computer somewhere." Or, "There's nothing solid. They're not like real money."
That one is my favorite. It always makes me chuckle. What we call "money" in this country has no backing whatsoever. Our bills are just promissory notes – IOU's from the government. Prior to 1933, a U.S. $20 bill was a United States Note labeled as a Gold Certificate. It carried this legend: "There have been deposited in the Treasury of the United States of America $20 in Gold Coin, payable to the bearer on demand." (In those days an ounce of Gold was worth $20. Today that same coin is worth around $1,400.)
Look at the "money" in your wallet. Its legend says it is a "Federal Reserve Note." The only thing the government is required to give you for a $20 bill is two $10's; four $5's; or twenty singles. In other words, more paper – but nothing of value. Sound far-fetched? Read this quote from the Resource Center of Treasury.gov in answer to the question, "What are Federal Reserve notes and how are they different from United States notes?"
"Federal Reserve notes are not redeemable in gold, silver or any other commodity, and receive no backing by anything. This has been the case since 1933. The notes have no value for themselves, but for what they will buy. In another sense, because they are legal tender, Federal Reserve notes are 'backed' by all the goods and services in the economy." That's comforting, isn't it? Just wave your $20 bill in the air to get your share of "all the goods and services in the economy."
In reality, our "money" is no more real than cryptocurrencies.
When you spend Bitcoin or another crypto, you have to have faith that someone will give you something of value for it. In the same way, when you use U.S. currency you have to have faith that someone will give you something of value for it. That's why it's called "faith money."
With that in mind, let's examine what cryptocurrencies really do. Many people think of them as just a trading vehicle. A trading vehicle is something without any intrinsic value (value of its own) that you can buy low, and hopefully sell high to create a profit. A trading vehicle that you might be familiar with is the S&P 500 Index. When you buy the index, you are not actually buying the 500 stocks in the index. You are basically placing a bet. If you're right and the bet you place (usually with an options or a futures contract) goes up, you make money.
The S&P 500 Index is a trading vehicle. Bitcoin is NOT, because it has real intrinsic value in and of itself. How can I make this statement? Because you can buy goods and services with Bitcoin. You can buy products online. You can pay for services online. And in what my daughter calls IRL (In Real Life) you can buy such things as Gold, real estate and vehicles with Bitcoin. (Try doing that with your S&P 500 contract!) So Bitcoin is more "real" than many of the investment vehicles (derivatives that derive their value from something real, like a stock) in which people invest hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So, if cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are more than just trading vehicles that you can ride up and down like a roller coaster, what makes them more valuable? The fact that they are used in commerce – just like the real money we used to have. The difference is that they can't be manipulated by the bankers and politicians – like the monopoly money issued by the Federal Reserve System.
What is money, anyway?
There are dozens of definitions, but most thinking people agree on two major factors. One is that it is a store of value. The other is that it can be exchanged for goods and services. Many things may meet one of those two qualifications. But only real money meets both.
For example, real estate is a place where you can store value. But you can't spend it. Yes, you can sell it for money, and spend that. But the dirt itself is not money.
What about food (or bubble gum, for that matter). You can exchange food for goods and services if someone has something you want, and also needs your food. But that's not money, because food is not a store of value. That's barter.
Before we had money, this is how business was done...Fred Flintstone had a chicken that he wanted to trade for a club. But he didn't know anyone who had a club and also wanted his chicken. Barney Rubble wanted his chicken, so he traded him an arrowhead for it. If Fred was lucky, he found someone who would trade him a club for the arrowhead. If not, it might take many trades before he got what he wanted.
But what if Fred could sell his chicken for a piece of Gold, which was universally prized? He could then use the Gold to buy the club and go bang a dinosaur over the head with it. He just skipped all the bartering and trading. That's money. It was something that Fred could use to store value. (If he has a lot of chickens he didn't need, he could store their value in Gold before they died or ran away.) The Gold was also something he could use to buy anything he wanted, any time he wanted.
Does Bitcoin meet the definition of "money"?
Can I store value in it by using U.S. (or another nation's) money & buying Bitcoin? Can I spend Bitcoin for things I want? Do you get it?
Of course, there are many qualifiers in this general discussion. For instance, you can't buy anything you want with Bitcoin today – although the time is coming when you will be able to do so. In addition to the products and services described above, banks are now using a crypto "coin" called Ripple to make interbank transfers. When banks accept something, it is definitely coming of age.
And all cryptocurrencies are not created equal. Bitcoin is the Big Daddy of cryptos – sort of the Coke to all the other sodas in the store. Bitcoin is in a class by itself. All other cryptos are called "Alt-Coins" (alternatives to Bitcoin). The next level is the major alt-coins – the "name brands" that most people know, like Etherium and Litecoin. Depending on who you talk to there are about 100 substantial coins in this category. Then there are the wannabe coins – the penny stocks of the crypto world. Most of them will fail; a few will grow up and become major alt-coins. (There are also ICO's and tokens, but we won't get into them here.)
Cryptocurrencies are real – and they're not going away.
The main thing you should take away from this is that cryptocurrencies are real – some would say more real than the "fiat" money we carry. And they're not a fad – they're here to stay. They have already started changing the way the world does business in a small way. Before long, it will be in a major way.
You're probably thinking, how can I profit from this? Two ways: Picking and buying a coin or coins, and holding for the long-term – no matter what happens. Or actively trading the market so that the volatility becomes your friend rather than crushing you.
It should be obvious to any serious observer that a "buy and hold" strategy is not the best way to profit from cryptocurrencies. That will work in the long run, but it can be quite painful in the near term. Just ask the people who bought Bitcoin at $15,000.
Some experienced traders trade numerous coins for short-term gains and make phenomenal gains. The problem is that having money to trade is only part of the equation. You can't buy experience. I know someone who makes upwards of 400 trades almost every day. He wins on most trades, but typically only makes 1.5% to 3%. That's not a big percentage, but multiplied by hundreds of trades, it tends to add up. It takes tremendous knowledge, experience, and – most of all – discipline. But he consistently makes returns that would be unbelievable in the stock market.
The best advice...
The best advice I can give anyone considering dipping a toe into cryptocurrencies is to choose one of two paths. Start studying like crazy, become extremely familiar with your chosen market, and then "paper trade" for at least a year. Don't put your hard-earned money at risk until you're winning the great majority of the time.
The other alternative is to carefully and prayerfully choose an expert trader with a verifiable track record, and let him or her trade for you. This is not as much fun as trading yourself – but I can tell you that it is a lot less stressful.
Two final notes: First, if you decide to get involved, whichever method you use – only put a small part of your net worth into this market. What percentage you decide on is up to you, but I can tell you I would not put more than 10% of my net worth in cryptos. Second, if you are fortunate enough to make the huge returns some have, make sure you remove your initial investment from the market as soon as possible and let your profits run. That way you can never truly lose in the cryptocurrency markets.
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Dr. Tom Barrett is the Founder and Publisher of www.ConservativeTruth.org. He has written thousands of articles that have been republished in national newspapers and on hundreds of websites, and is a frequent guest on radio and television shows. His unique viewpoint on social, moral and political issues from a Biblical worldview have resulted in invitations to speak at churches, conferences, Money Shows, colleges, and on TV (including the 700 Club). Tom is also an expert speaker and writer on the subject of Biblical Finance, & is the Founder www.ChristianFinancialConcepts.com.
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So we all get bombarded with requests to divulge any and all parts of our personal lives to random marketing schemes - Everything from our shopping habits, what we ate in the morning, what color of socks we wear on Tuesdays…
What if Every-Mart found a way to collect information on its customers completely behind the scenes - but rather than look at habits and eye-color, they went deeper and found a way to collect the very genetic makeup of its customers. Using this information, and their secret underground laboratories, they began experimenting with a new line of marketing and started producing mind altering drugs. I'm not quite sure on how they would collect the info, but maybe that is best left to the player's imagination(the knee jerk reaction is to play along the lines of something happening in the bathrooms like we already were kinda leaning towards… but um… yeah that might be a little too disturbing/disgusting with this concept).
However they did it, everymart has begun the next stage of their devious little plot and began a massive campaign of infecting its customers with their new found product. Each drug can now be custom made for maximum impact with minimal side-effects for "every-customer"(from the corporation's point of view anyways). The drug would do everything from making them have urges to get certain things at certain times, fell specific ways about what they got, and other such things that would make them want to keep coming back to Every-Mart. For everything.
With a twist like this, the subliminal messaging could take on a new role, not only working on getting more people initially hooked to them, but also serve as an update service for those that were already on Every-Mart's new marketing tool. Each instance of the drug could also have some kind of unique property embedded in it that would serve as a filter on the messages coming across the PA system and would allow every-mart to target specific "clients." For example, as a player, you just see customers randomly stop what they are doing and head for the nearest food outlet cause they have just been notified it is time for their booster. And since this is a game, we can start poking fun at crazy shoppers hell-bent on getting to aisle 12 in world record time not caring what or who they run over in their quest to get a fix(the drug isn't perfect yet, and on some people the effects could be extreme).
It could also work into why the sludge is being dumped down the drain - it was a bad batch but rather then sub-consciously tuning them into one specific message, this particular version made the patient capable of hearing all of the messages - even on a conscious level. Naturally this faulty batch would not do very much for accomplishing Every-marts goals of satisfying every customer so they would want to destroy it ASAP. It could also tie in to why you are no longer satisfied with your products from every-mart. Maybe all of the milk is a bit sour now, but nobody cares, in fact they love it cause it came from Every-Mart.("Its cheaper this way and its not like it'll kill anybody" - Every-Mart exec. on operation Not your mother's milk - in case you misinterpreted that, it was a play on the whole "things are different now than how they were in days gone by…" not something else).
This kind of background could also lend itself pretty easily to an easter-egg like feature where you could do something to try and tune in to what was coming across the airwaves - like some audible ping would sound and if you hit 'A' really fast it would filter out the message that was being delivered("Comrade 248934 - Report to the nearest sickbay immediately") and you would suddenly know why random customers would stop what they were doing and change their course in the middle of shopping.
This is just some random ideas I had for making more of a complete storyline that wouldn't really require much effort to implement and connect with game play. It also serves as a spoof on why some people are so hesitant to sign up for customer loyalty programs(I kid you not, this is the very fear a lot of people have that a company will know you so well they can predict or even affect what you will want from them by collecting information on you). Only in this version it is so transparent to the customers and so effective that nobody really realizes what is going on.


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How to determine the real performances of buildings?
Building characterisation by co-heating
Thursday 6 February 2014
16:00-17:30 (Brussels, BE)
15:00-16:30 (London, UK)
23:00-24:30 (Hong Kong, CN)
In order to reduce the energy use of buildings, several countries have put forward more stringent requirements on the energy performance of new and renovated buildings. Without exception, these buildings are characterised or awarded a label in the design phase. A theoretical energy use calculated on the basis of building plans and specifications determines the performance category.
An important distinction needs to be made, however, between this theoretical energy performance and the actual 'as-built' performance. Several studies have shown that these can differ rather significantly.
The energy performance of a building is essentially determined by the (1) thermal characteristics of the building envelope, (2) installed services and (3) building usage. As the latter is not easily predicted nor controlled, the first two are decisive in achieving the envisaged building energy performance, both for new buildings and renovations. Hence, the thermal performance characterisation of a building envelope represents a crucial first step to bridge the gap between 'designed' and 'as-built' energy performance of the building. A common method to evaluate the thermal performance of a building in situ is the co-heating test.
This webinar tries to crystallise the current knowledge on the co-heating test, as applied for assessing the thermal characteristics of the building envelope.
The webinar is organised in the framework of the IEA Annex 58 'Reliable building energy performance characterisation based on full scale dynamic measurements' through the DYNASTEE platform (www.dynastee.info) which is facilitated by INIVE (www.inive.org).
– Introduction | Staf Roels, Operating agent IEA EBC Annex 58
– Experiences with co-heating in UK – Building Performance and Coheating Tests | Chris Gorse, Dominic Miles-Shenton and Dr. David Johnston, Leeds Metropolitan University
– State of the art on the co-heating test methodology | Geert Bauwens, KULeuven, Building Physics Lab, Belgium
– Rapid Building Thermal Diagnosis: Presentation of the QUB Method | Guillaume Pandraud, Isover Saint-Gobain CRIR, France
– Final discussion and conclusion


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