And people believe him. Look at this: The violence has dropped by 75% over the past several years, largely due to the changes brought in by Burl Cain, Angola Prison’s Warden. (By the way, “Angola Prison” is incorrect — it is like saying “Berkeley University.”) But seriously, Cain, who has tended to be under investigation … More Additional, self-serving lies of Burl Cain
→I woke up and did not even have to talk myself into getting up, so I must be improving. I have had good dreams for two days. I still say I threw my life away. However, I am only teaching three classes and they are all interesting. →This blog gathered together some interesting old posts, … More Le samedi
About this: should we rethink the language requirement? Here is why I ask: the options, for action on the “adjunct crisis,” appear to be cutting the number of students allowed to finish graduate programs, so as to reduce the alleged overproduction of Ph.D.s, or making sure people who do the Ph.D. are also trained for … More Should we recast the language requirement?
I woke up noticing that a large part of the anxiety and precarity is financial. I should do yoga and meditate so that I recognize this when it comes up and set it aside. How to increase income: promotion. The rest of it is the self-care issue which is really the self-love issue, as we … More Dimanche matin
I woke up thinking the sheets were comfortable and the sun was out again, and that a week on the beach doing nothing was all I needed. I never have such excursions since the cost is that of a conference or a month in Mexico or a week visiting family, and seems utterly extravagant since … More The morning revelation
I was thinking of the beautiful light, the January sky, the clear winter days when you can have the windows open. I was thinking of some people I know who do not converse. People for whom every conversation is a battle, and whose sentences are pre-emptive strikes against an imagined enemy. How they defend unhappiness … More Ce matin
I like to get up and start writing down the interesting thoughts I have during the night, but this seems to depend upon being back home, or somewhere homelike. Here I like to see the light break but I am then always struggling against anxiety, pain, grief, how did I get here, how can I … More Le jour se lève
A friend writes, out of the blue: When you were younger you maybe didn’t need to adjust to being in the 99th+ percentile of IQ because you had genuine peers around you who were also smart. It’s tougher now because you don’t have the same access to smart people that you used to have. I … More Further reasons why it is not “the best profession in the world”
What I said to Bérubé: If it is unfair to ask people to spend $1200 to get to a 20-minute interview, and we are against elitism, then perhaps it is also unfair to ask people to spend $1200 in hopes of catching an editor’s attention. How do we make everything truly fair? How do we … More About conference interviews
So, as I have announced elsewhere, my key word for 2014 is power, remembering that one does in fact have power. In Reeducation we were to be powerless, to succumb to the effects of our worst experiences, and to disbelieve our own perceptions because we were, it was alleged, born with permanent defects that meant … More Dolce anno nuovo
