Tidbit

I know I haven't posted in...like, forever, but that's due to genuine business, what with two new classes to prep/teach, a serious buttload of academic applications to compile and mail out (seriously--I measured--it was a full "buttload"--indeed, three more and it would have been an "assload," which would place me frighteningly close to the dreaded "shitload," and we all know what happens then, don't we? We don't? Really? Probably just as well--it can't be good, am I right?), and other such matters occupying my frighteningly limited time.

But today, what the hell, this is too good not to share: I received my student evaluations from my summer teaching, and they were suprisingly good--especially when one considers that the class sessions were four fucking hours long--I apologize for the vulgarity, but past two hours, you just can't avoid it. So the fact that they didn't hate me for forcing them to endure a twice weekly ordeal of what amounted to the Composition-Instruction equivalent of traffic school--well, that's quite an achievement. And the fact that they liked me, well, that...is remarkable. (Hint to all fledging teachers: Cash bribes do work. Also, do not offer sex in lieu of money. The only one who will take you up on it is the creepy, unbathed guy in the back row who never talks, picks at his face, and wears the same This Mortal Coil t-shirt every day. You do not want a piece of that. Believe me...I...I know. Anyway--)

The evals were, as I say, universally good. One student's comment, however, both delighted and horrified. In describing my "weaknesses" as a teacher (the form forces them to come up with something--most wrote "None," bless their hearts), he wrote: "He is too damn smart to be a teacher."

I...I have no response to that, really, except to laugh with both genuine mirth and apprehension...


Totally Unrelated Addendum: The Daily Show website has put up one of their best Stewart/Colbert segments ever. Understand that when Colbert was on the show, he would consistently--often viciously--make Stewart crack up on camera, while maintaining his own stone-faced straight-man field-reporter poise. A mischievously consummate professional, Colbert never cracked. Never. Which makes this one segment all the more...well, you'll see:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=108395&title=prince-charles-scandal

Holy *Shit* Do I Hate This Guy

Late in Reagan's term (which revisionists try to forget was a miasma of corruption and incompetence-born-of-ignorance brought to light), the Gipper tried to reassert his authority by vetoing bills simply for the purpose of vetoing them--by showing that he could. The vetoes were overriden by a Congress run by Democrats who had actual leadership in the form of Tip O'Neill and who didn't quail at the thought of controversy. (And for those of you who might excuse today's Democrats by pointing out that they were living in a pre-9/11 world where dissent could not so easily be spun as treason, let me point out in return that we were still very much mid-Cold War, where nuclear holocaust--which makes 9/11 look like a spoiled sweet-16's birthday party--was a real possibility, and dissing the president was dissing the man who stood against the Evil Empire.)

Such incredibly selfish, stupidly egotistical motives on the president's part are the only ones I can think of that went into Bush's veto of the "Let's Give Poor Kids Health Insurance By Taxing Cigarettes" bill. Witness his stunning explanation for his veto: "My job is a decision-making job. And as a result, I make a lot of decisions." After the staggering stupidity of that statement had a chance to sink in, he went on to point out that he had taken advice from plenty of smart people (with Ph.D.s and everything!) but that, at the end of the day, he gets/has to make the decisions. And since this bill would have...um...OK, it was bad because...well, maybe some 'lower middle class' families would get on the gravy train, so that was bad. (Nevermind that in this day and age, what we call 'lower middle class' used to be called 'poor,' just as what we call 'poor' used to be called 'destitute.' See, by redefining 'poverty' as 'starving,' all non-starving people are rendered 'middle-class.' And surely 'middle-class' people can afford health insurance after rent and food and utilities and clothes and debt and...Holy Shit Do I Hate This Guy.)

Folks, he was saying and doing stupid and heinous shit like this long before we elected him. Twice. He's been a stupid and horrible bully and monster his whole miserable and undeserved life. And the people who voted for him? The blue-collar red-staters who wanted him because he'd bring "Christian values back to the White House"? They're gonna be the ones who suffer most for this, because--ha ha!--they're the ones who rely most on government assistance when it comes to, oh, I don't know, keeping their kids alive. (Well, them and those people of varying shades of brown who for strange and surely unforeseeable reasons were 'discouraged' from voting--I swear, isn't it time for the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam to get off their asses and start working the phone banks again?)

I would derive satisfaction from the thought of some brainless Baptist who can't afford to keep her kid in chemo watching the poor runt die because the son of a bitch she voted for just told her, in essence, that the little bastard isn't worth keeping alive, but I don't give a rat's ass about her. I care about the kid. Because whatever else you may think about this bill and Bush's decision, let's be clear about this: More children will get sick and die as a result of Bush's veto. That is pure, unadulterated fact. He just signed their death warrant, because he didn't want people to pay more for cigarettes, and less to insurance companies. Enough excuses. This man is evil. And if you still can't see that, then all I can say is, "Wow, Fox News must be paying you a lot of money."

The Squirrels' Plan Is Revealed

When asked why I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, I am usually wont give two reasons: the first is a pretty dry explanation of the nature of the ballistics in this case, wherein the Zapruder film actually pretty much proves A. a Single Gunman and B. a gunman from Oswald's universally acknowledged vantage point. The second (and this, I admit, is the real reason I'm convinced no conspiracy occurred) is that conspiracies depend on two personal qualities that are not lacking in abundance: competence, and secrecy. When one thinks of the historical conspiracies-of-assassination that were either successful (Lincoln, Julius Caesar, Caligula, Nero) or not (Elizabeth I, Hitler, Claudius), the fact is that the ones that worked, worked because the conspirators were either incredibly lucky or didn't care whether or not they got caught, and usually both. The ones that didn't work were the ones where those involved, however few in number, wanted to get away with it and relied on their intelligence/discretion to carry the day. They never do, folks. People--self included--have a 'reset' position of 'foolish and blabbermouthed.' And put the two together, and expect people to pull off a Mission-Impossible-esque act of derring-do? Um, no. Not in Non-Movie-Land. The reason Oswald acted alone is because, in the end, Kennedy was killed and, had there been a conspiracy, history tells us that either he'd still be alive because someone screwed up, or we'd know exactly who was in on it, because someone--probably everyone--would have talked. The best crimes are committed solo, because partners introduce all kinds of Chaos-Theory-type contingencies that screw you up in the end.

All of which is to say: I'm onto you, you little furry bastards. Your friends the geese tipped me off with their little display this morning. I'm on my way to class, passing the nearby park where I like to scope out the toddlers--you know, just to remind myself that if I wanted to become the next America's Most Wanted, I totally could--and there, on the grass, was a gaggle of the squawkers roughly the number of an erotica-themed-techno convention. (That would be "a lot," by the way.) There they were, and--this is key--not a single one is milling about. Oh no. They've all got their necks down, and are grazing like mad--I swear, I've never see such single-minded gorging since (fill in the site and behavior of your favorite "Americans are gluttonous pigs" joke--I recommend the one about the Country Time Buffet or there's always the classic about Shakey's 'All You Can Eat' Wednesday special.) What where they doing? Stalking up. Power-eating. Carb-loading--well, OK, not that last one, but the watefowl equivalent. And why? Oh, you've seen where I'm going with this. They've got a long trip ahead. A long trip...south.

Which means You Know What is on the way. Which is why the squirrels, who rival only otters and dolphins in their tendency to forsake 'work' for 'mindless frolicking that looks really awesome on YouTube but doesn't really accomplish much, thus suggesting that either Darwin was wrong or that cuteness contains some form of evolutionary advantage we don't know about,' have been so damned busy. They've got a narrow window with the proficiency of food on the ground/branch, and the onset of You Know What, and they can't afford to space themselves out the way they usually do. So they're all out at once, seeking and...securing food (you thought I was going to say "squirrelling away," didn't you, and go for the cheap pun--for shame!) for You Know What.

I figured it out! I looked into the empty, beady eyes of Nature's minions, and, with the help of the inadvertant treachery of their winged associates, I deduced their true plans. I win, thus proving man's rightful place at the top of the foodchain.

I'm so proud I can almost overlook the fact that all this boils down the fact that You Know What is coming. That fucking sucks.

I Am Hated

This is a new experience for me; I normally don't think of myself as being important enough to merit hatred. But I know it when I see it, and oh my do I see it in the face and body language of a young woman in one of my classes. She flat-out hates me. Hates what I have to say, hates what I don't have to say, hates hates hates me. She is, based on her few passive-aggressively vitriolic remarks, quite convinced that she could be doing a much better job teaching this class, and that I am offensive by my mere presence. She has started to make her hatred known by asking pointedly angry questions that reveal a determination to take umbrage at anything I may have to say.

Make no mistake; she is not 'challenging' me--I've been challenged before, and there's an excitement and mutual pleasure therein. I like being challenged. This...isn't that. She hates me.

What's good is my reaction to this fact. A few years ago, I would have responded with a Michael Scott-like need to make her like me--to 'win her over'--to show her that she's wrong to hate me, that I'm really awesome, and that she should, upon getting to know me, adore me as the Best Teacher, Like, Ever. I would, in short, have responded with desperate neurosis born of insecurity and cowardice.

But I do not feel that way now. Quite the contrary. I kind of...relish being hated by this woman. When her face goes twisted with angry disdain, it's all I can do not to give a particularly toothsome grin. Because I think it's good to be hated by someone like this--to be the focus of someone else's preoccupied rage and seething resentment. Because it means that I'm doing my job. I'm not telling her what she wants to hear. I'm infuriating her--frustrating her--making her hate me is driving her up the wall, and there's nothing she can do about it. And you know what? A. this is an important lesson for her to learn--Lord knows, I learned more about myself from the teachers I hated than from those who just tickled me to death--and B. I've fucking well earned the right to be hateful. I've earned the right by learning all I know, and by teaching class after class, getting better and better at it--I've earned the right to do what I do the way I see fit, and not to give a flying frak whether or not it makes her happy. I'm not there to be loved by one and all. And if I am--I'm probably doing something tepidly vacuous. If someone hates me, I matter. And that...is a good feeling.

I'm probably a very sick person for these thoughts. Don't care, though. Bite me.