Roxie's World

From Janie's Kitchen -- To Yours

2009-11-25T09:19:00.005-05:00

Home for the Holidays Edition

It's the day before Thanksgiving, which means, of course, that it's time to gather 'round the laptop for the ancient ritual of the bloggers' recipe exchange! Our blog pal Historiann is the (mile-)high priestess of this mighty virtual gathering, an estrogen-fueled celebration of the culinary wisdom of women feeding their tribes to the point where everyone in the room is incapable of movement or speech, which is, like, really how most families function best, don't you think? Historiann got her post up on Monday, with links to her previous Thanksgiving posts, so run on over there to check out what the cool kids will be putting on the table this year -- sausage and chestnut stuffing! butternut squash lasagna, for those who perversely believe that vegetarians deserve something other than green beans and mashed potatoes while everyone else gorges themselves on slaughtered birds!

Last year, we shared a recipe Moose picked up from Cooking Light (or, as she calls it, Food Porn for the Conscientious), a simple but fabulous cranberry dish that people actually eat! It's called Cranberry, Cherry, and Walnut Chutney, and we guarantee it will transform your relationship to the humble cranberry. Moose put up a double batch of the stuff last night right here in the kitchen of Roxie's World. That ranked as her culinary triumph of the day, which ended in the rather spectacular culinary disaster of a blender malfunction that resulted in hot Creamy Carrot and Sweet Potato Soup exploding all over the stove, countertop, floor, and, um, Moose. It wasn't pretty, people, and neither was the string of expletives that came out of her mouth as she stripped down to her underwear (I know -- try not to imagine it) and tore through the kitchen, assisted by Goose, trying to save as much soup as she could while wiping the hot gunk off of every surface in the kitchen. Dear Black and Decker, Moose imagined writing to the manufacturer of her new blender, When designing a small appliance, it's probably not a good idea to make the wrong way to do something easier and more intuitive than the right way, especially if doing it the wrong way means hot liquids will explode all over a freakin' kitchen after midnight two days before a major goldurned holiday!

We digress. Suffice it to say that the soup course for tomorrow has been reduced to an amuse-bouche and that Iron Chef Takoma will be removing Black and Decker from her list of recommended small-appliance manufacturers. (They wouldn't have been on the list in the first place, actually. Moose decided she needed a blender for the purpose of soup-making. She was close to a hardware store, a small, independently owned hardware store she and Goose like to matronize when they can. It was an impulse buy, and she didn't have many choices.)

We're still digressing. Okay, this year's recipe comes not from a magazine but from a box, a very special recipe box given to Moose many years ago by her beloved grandmother Jane, who died in 2006 at the ripe old age of 97. Moose can't recall exactly when Janie gave her the small, brightly colored metal box (pictured above) containing a collection of favorite family recipes, some written out in a careful, old-fashioned hand (by Janie [see below]) and some typed (also carefully, probably by grandfather Hermie). (Yes, that's what the Moosian children called their paternal grandparents, who were much cooler than their small-town, middle-class, Germanic appearances might have implied.) She seems to recall that all the girls in the family were gifted with similar boxes, Janie being a gender conventionalist on matters of cooking, despite the aforementioned coolness and her devotion to her queer granddaughter and all her queer granddaughter's girlfriends. (Oh, right, Moose -- as if there were so many!)

Anyway, of all the recipes in the box -- including Sour Kraut Salad (hey, they weren't just Germanic in appearance, you know), Horrible Chicken, and Dee-Lish Coffee Cake -- there's one that has been a staple feature of Moose and Goose's entertaining for years. It gets made for every holiday dinner, every cocktail party, and every New Year's Eve bash that culminates in either a dance party or a midnight walk to the park for one last swig of champagne. Or both. I speak, of course, of Cheesed Olives, a delectable savory appetizer that is easy to make yet adds a touch of elegance to any occasion. It's the perfect accompaniment to martinis, because there's nothing like a nice cheesy dough to absorb ridiculous amounts of gin or vodka. Moose has tweaked the recipe a bit, because olives, like everything else, are bigger than they were in Janie's day and because the lord clearly intended for olives to be stuffed with jalapenos rather than plain old pimentos. The basic recipe is still the one lovingly passed from a god-fearing, Coke-drinking, bridge-playing grandmother to a heathen queer bon vivant with revolutionary dreams and a fondness for show tunes. We pass it along to you -- with love, with gratitude, and with hope that your holiday is warm and happy.

Peace out, darlings. We give thanks for each and every one of you. May all of your revolutionary dreams come true.
Janie's Olives (modernized by Moose)

3 C. grated sharp cheddar cheese
3/4 C. soft butter
1 1/2 C. sifted all-purpose flour
1 t. salt
1 1/2 t. paprika
36-40 large stuffed olives (I prefer the Santa Barbara brand, stuffed with jalapenos)

Blend the cheese with the butter. Stir in flour, salt, paprika, and mix well. Wrap 1 T. (or more) of dough around each olive to cover completely. Arrange olives on ungreased baking sheet. Refrigerate overnight. One half hour before serving, bake in a 400 degree oven for 10-15 minutes.

Serve warm (with cocktails).

UC Strike Highlight Reel

2009-11-21T18:50:00.006-05:00

Three Days in California

Regents vote to increase tuition by 32% in the University of California system
109 arrests in campus protests throughout the system Nov. 18-20
Buildings occupied at UCLA, Davis, Berkeley, and Santa Cruz, while students at Cal State Fresno staged a "study-in" at the library on Friday to protest cuts in hours and services there.

Quote of the Week:

Not all gains are material.

(Berkeley grad student Ianna Owen, who was arrested during the occupation of Wheeler Hall, on why she considered the occupation a success even though none of the protesters' demands was met. "I feel like we really mobilized people," she explained.)

Photos of the Week:

(Rain soaked protesters and police alike during Friday's standoff over the occupation of Berkeley's Wheeler Hall. Photo Credits: Paul Sakuma, AP, via)

(A student is tasered by a police officer during a protest Wednesday at UCLA. Photo Credit: Mark Ralston/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, via)

(Thursday's protest at UCLA. Photo Credit: No attribution given, but picked up here.)

For strike photos from the Daily Californian, start here.

National Coverage of the Protests and the Funding Issue:

CNN: Protests of Tuition Increase Continue on California Campuses

The NewsHour: College Crunch (report by Spencer Michaels begins with 31:45 remaining in the broadcast of 11/20/09 show)

New York Times: Regents Raise College Tuition in California by 32%; A Crown Jewel of Education Struggles With Cuts

Time: Tuition Hikes: Protests in California and Elsewhere

Wa Po: UC Students Occupy Buildings to Protest Fee Hikes

Blogalicious Coverage:

UCSB's Indispensable Chris Newfield -- Check his left sidebar for zillions of fabulous links, his middle column for brilliant analysis, and his off-blog archive for a compilation of links on the fee hike protests (which we've borrowed from liberally here on account of we consider Chris a blog boyfriend).

Historian Angus Johnston's blog, Student Activism -- Another source we borrowed from here.

Follow those links, kids. Inspire yourself. And promise a decrepit old dreamer of a dog that you'll spend some time over Thanksgiving trying to figure out how to save higher ed in your neck of the woods.

(Roxie's World on the California crisis: here and here on this week's events; here, here, and here on the September walkouts.)

H/T to, like, all our Facebook friends for their diligent tracking and sharing of links. If we missed one, let us know and we'll happily update.

Solidarity, dudes. Enjoy your weekend.

CA Pushback News

2009-11-19T18:23:00.004-05:00

Breaking news is not usually our thing, but we know our readers our passionately interested in the situation unfolding for higher ed in California, so here are some headlines, links, pics, and a vid, which on a Thursday night when the moms have a dinner date will just have to do, my darlings. Peace out. And push back. Hard.

U of California regents approve 32% increase in student fees

Student protests continue, with die-in and building occupation at UCLA. (Get the latest news on the occupation from the UCLA Resistance blog. As always, for the most complete info on the UC crisis and the funding crisis generally, go to Chris Newfield's awesome blog.)

San Francisco Chronicle caption: Protesters cast shadows on the sidewalk at the entrance to the UC Berkeley campus at Bancroft and Telegraph avenues during a demonstration against proposed 32% fee hikes in Berkeley on Wednesday. Photo Credit: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle.

Los Angeles Times caption: UC Santa Barbara student Katelyn Paris, seen with a blue shirt in her lap, takes part in a student die-in outside UCLA's Covel Commons. The Board of Regents this afternoon approved a student fee increase of $2,500, or 32%, that will come in two steps by next fall. Photo credit: Barbara Davidson, Los Angeles Times.

Video of yesterday's protest outside the building where the regents were meeting. Fourteen students were arrested and one was reportedly tasered:

Pushback

2009-11-17T18:00:00.007-05:00

At the dawn of the new school year, this blog posed a series of questions that now seem positively prescient as a semester marked by activism and tense confrontations between administrators on the one hand and faculty, staff, and students on the other grinds toward its end. In a Labor Day post that mused on early evidence of what felt like a significant shift in higher ed, Roxie's World wondered,

Are we witnessing the beginning of a movement, the emergence of a serious challenge to the conditions of work in American higher education, or is it merely the wish for such a movement, a longing that will fade when the first set of papers comes in or, more likely, when the first set of bills comes due and faculty simply hunker down to figure out how to pay them on their reduced salaries?

Campus politics are always maddeningly local. No two institutions are alike. Each has its own quirky history and operates within a unique culture, sociopolitical climate, and economic context. Any sentence that begins, "Today's colleges and universities are . . . " will very likely end up foundering on the shoals of generalization. Nonetheless, not quite three months after we posed those questions, it seems clear that on the campuses of public institutions across the country the ground has shifted. Since the walkouts in the California system on September 24, which made brilliantly effective use of blogs, YouTube, and other tools of the Interwebs, actions have been staged elsewhere that show similar organizational fortitude and a new spirit of skepticism -- even distrust -- toward higher-level administrators.

Yesterday and today, for example, graduate employees at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign went out on strike over the administration's apparent desire to give itself some wiggle room on the matter of tuition waivers for graduate students. Such waivers are a part of the students' compensation and are, of course, essential to their ability to survive and stay in school while teaching and/or researching their a$$es off for their employing institutions. (The Graduate Employees' Organization offers its rationale for the strike here.) After a day of picket lines and canceled classes, it appears the two sides have reached an agreement that secures tuition waivers, though the agreement will have to be ratified by the bargaining unit. We'll let you know if anyone from our loyal band of Illinois lurkers coughs up any fascinating or inspiring details from the soggy ground of Shampoo-Banana. Meantime, here's a report on the strike from the incredibly hip Independent Media Center of U-C.

Closer to home -- rather painfully and awkwardly closer to home, in fact -- the campus of our own Queer the Turtle U has been roiled recently by anger over the firing of the associate provost for equity and diversity and by a proposal to merge a number of diversity-focused academic programs into one unit. The firing and the merger are both being justified as cost-cutting measures, but 600 people showed up to a hastily organized protest outside the university's main administration building after word of the firing got out (in what can charitably be described as a poorly managed communications effort on the university's part). Last week, administrators faced a skeptical audience and some tough questions at a meeting of the university senate, where one longtime staff member let the higher-ups know that "trust is eroding," not so much because of budget cuts but because of problems with process and a perceived lack of inclusion. Goose, who is serving on the senate this year, grilled the provost on the merger proposal, saying that it was causing considerable distress on campus because it seemed to be motivated more by economic exigencies rather than intellectual ones. In a moment of uncharacteristic restraint, she did not use the snarky name for such diversity-dumping schemes offered up by a friend from another school that entertained the idea of putting, oh, women's studies, African American Studies, Latino/a Studies, and maybe something about Jews, Asians, and disability together: Mothers, Brothers, and Others. (Brilliant, don't you think? And you were worried about the lack of jokes in this post!)

Finally, as the image at the top of this post indicates, the California system is poised for further action over the next few days, as the UC regents meet to consider fee increases that, if approved, would mean that the cost of a UC education will have tripled since 2000. A system-wide strike of students and teachers has been called for the next three days to protest the budgetary priorities of the UC administration and to demand greater transparency and accountability. Amy Goodman has a terrific conversation with leaders of the strike on today's episode of Democracy Now! Tape and transcript available here.

Are you beginning to see the pattern here, kids? For all the local dynamics that inform and fuel any particular crisis (e.g., the California budget catastrophe, the Illinois admissions scandal), it's clear that a general chasm of mistrust has opened up between administrators and seemingly everyone else on campus. In many cases that mistrust has less to do with the failures of particular administrators than with the deepening sense among many faculty, staff, and students that a particular model of administration (call it corporate, call it neoliberal, call it No Dean Left Behind) has failed, monumentally, and has come dangerously close to destroying the institution of public higher education. Perhaps a chart can succinctly convey one possible source of what we might, without sounding overly dramatic, describe as the new crisis of mistrust on campus. The chart (picked up here) shows the increase in the number of senior managers in the University of California system relative to the increase in the number of faculty since 1997:

As Richard Evans, who crunched the numbers, puts it, the near-convergence of those two lines on the right side of the chart suggests that some day soon, "every faculty member [in the UC system] will have a personal senior manager" -- and what a day of rejoicing that will be, eh, kids? Think of the reports you could generate if you only had your very own manager breathing down your neck demanding some kind of accountability every moment of your professional life! We are, of course, much too lazy to try to track down comparable data for QTU or any other school, but we're willing to guess the changing ratios are fairly similar at most schools. The problem with having so many administrators running around is that they tend to do a lot of breathing down other people's necks making up administrative work to do in order to justify the exorbitant salaries they command. Such "work" takes time away from other types of work -- such as research and teaching -- that faculty value highly and that make institutions of higher learning exactly that (rather than, say, Report-Generating Machines).

Twenty or so years into this corporate model of university administration, those upon whom it has been imposed are well within their rights to demand some assessment of the assessors, a cost-benefit analysis of just how efficient the efficiency model of higher ed has proven to be. Such demands are being made by a number of individuals in a range of venues: by Judith Butler in a hard-hitting October piece in the Guardian that spoke of a "profound loss of confidence in the [UC system's] mode of governance" and in system president Mark Yudof; by professor of city and regional planning Ananya Roy in her remarks at the Berkeley teach-in on the crisis, where she asks the perfectly logical question of why, if outcomes assessment is the new regime, aren't administrators being fired for having failed to produce winning fiscal outcomes?; by UIUC's Antoinette Burton, who echoes Roy and has a few choice words about diversity in the corporatized university at a roundtable on Frank Donoghue's The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities.

The questions are valid and, arguably, long overdue. There is relief in hearing them asked, a certain Schadenfreude in watching administrators grit their teeth and try to come up with answers. But the outcome, as it were, of this recently awakened commitment to campus-focused campus activism is by no means clear or certain. Now that the thing is going, we have to keep it stirring -- and at some point we'll need to pause to figure out just what it is we've got in this pot. Pushing back is a vital, first step. Knowing how to push forward is more vital still.

For now, though, darlings, just keep pushing.

(H/T to the Shy One and Lauren Berlant for links.)

Will Phillips for President

2009-11-16T22:07:00.003-05:00

Gay Wads for Justice Edition

A ten-year-old Arkansas (yes, you read that right: Arkansas) boy says he will not recite the Pledge of Allegiance until gays and lesbians have equal rights. Will Phillips, who wants to be a lawyer when he grows up, says he carefully studied the Pledge, particularly that ending business about "liberty and justice for all," and realized that we are a long way from fulfilling that ideal, because, Will explains, "gays and lesbians can't marry, [and] there's still a lot of racism and sexism in the world." When Will's teacher (a substitute) gave him grief for refusing to stand and recite the pledge, Will pointed out to her that it was his right under the First Amendment to do so. After four days of challenges from the teacher, he apparently ran out of patience, telling CNN's John Roberts on American Morning that he

very solemnly, with a little bit of malice in my voice, said, "Ma'am, with all due respect, you can go jump off a bridge."

At which point, of course, young Will found himself in a little bit of trouble. Will's parents have been supportive of his stand, though he did have to write a letter of apology to the teacher for telling her to go jump off a bridge. He tells Roberts that many classmates have assumed he is gay and that he has had to put up with being called a "gay wad" in the cafeteria. "What's a 'gay wad?'" Roberts asks. "I really don't know," Will replies. "It's a discriminatory name for homosexuals."

Did we mention that Will Phillips is ten years old -- and from Arkansas? Take that, all you chardonnay-swilling blue state elitists who can't even preserve marriage equality once you've managed to achieve it!

Dear Will,

When you grow up, before you run for president, we hope you'll consider attending Queer the Turtle University, where you can practically major in being a gay wad, and everyone will think you are really really cool for standing up for what you believe in. We think you are an awesome kid, and we look forward to the day when you will be running this country. We think America needs more close readers committed to strict constructionism when it comes to the phrase "liberty and justice for all." Best of luck getting through fifth grade. And, you know, law school.

Yours sincerely,
Roxie

You must watch this vid. (A transcript of the 7-minute interview is up on Newsbusters, but we don't want to supply a link. Just Google "Arkansas boy won't say pledge," and you'll find it.) Should we send a few anonymous copies of the tape over to the White House so that the president can study an example of what a Fierce Advocate for LGBT equality really looks and sounds like? Sounds like a swell idea to me. PAWS UP for Will Phillips!

(H/T to FB pal Kelly for the link to the CNN story.)

Wine Country Safari

2009-11-15T21:09:00.008-05:00

Or, Riding High With the Girls of 1959

A picture-perfect autumn afternoon, six middle-aged chicks, three of whom are careening into their second half century this year, a hired limo, a movable feast of a picnic, and a list of northern Virginia's up and coming wineries -- It's either the script for a really bad film that Bette Midler and Diane Keaton haven't made yet or the best idea for a theme party since Pin the Tail on the Donkey was invented. We'll go with the latter and thank Moose's childhood pal Mel for coming up with the plan and executing it to perfection. Fun was had, wine was consumed, and, because the sun finally deigned to make an appearance in the Washington area, photographs were taken.

Oh, and before you go all snarky on the idea of Virginia wines, check out the list of wines Epicurious is recommending for Thanksgiving. It includes two Virginia viogniers and a delicious Barboursville cabernet franc that the moms sampled this afternoon. I'd be willing to bet there'll be a bottle or two of something from our neighbors to the south on the table here in Roxie's World this year.

Peace out, kids, and remember -- You're only as young as your friends are willing to let you act, so choose your friends wisely and hold onto them for dear life.

(Photo Credits: Moose, on her iPhone, Loudon County, VA, 11/15/09)

Secondhand Smut

2009-11-12T12:28:00.004-05:00

(Image Credit: Picked up here.)

We intended to break our unconscionably long blog silence with a detailed, trenchant analysis of the health insurance reform debate that would settle the burning question of how bad a bill has to be before you pronounce it Truly, Totally, Irredeemably Sucktastic and declare your opposition to it. (Fortunately, others have weighed in on this question. Bill Clinton urges the Senate to hold its nose and vote, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the better than nothing, etc., etc. Dr. Marcia Angell disagrees, arguing that the bill passed by the House is so flawed, so unlikely to control costs and offer anything like comprehensive coverage, that it might actually be worse than nothing.)

Or, we thought, perhaps we'd offer up one of our Deep Feelings about Big Events pieces on how Virginia's execution earlier this week of convicted DC-area sniper John Allen Muhammad had somehow failed to provide us with the sense of closure we had been led to expect by those who were in such a big hurry to prosecute, kill, and bury a man who was clearly insane at the time of his killing spree right here in our ridiculously large back yard in the fall of 2002. We remember that time vividly -- the walks we didn't take because our beautiful trail suddenly felt unsafe, the series of jokes Moose came up with as a way of coping with her anxiety. ("Why does the FBI think George W. Bush might be the sniper?" she quipped in an e-mail to friends. "Because they both work short hours, run really fast, and take weekends completely off." By the way, we believe this series of publicly broadcast tasteless jokes may have been what led some misguided souls to encourage Moose to start blogging.) In any case, John Allen Muhammad is dead, and we don't feel one bit better. In fact, we feel rather worse, implicated in the sickness of a culture that thinks an eye for an eye is the model of justice to which we should aspire. Really, kids? Is this the best we can do?

Or, in light of recent electoral setbacks (in, you know, Virginia, New Jersey, and Maine), we thought we might crank out another rant on how the Hopers and Changers in Obama's Washington are likely to go right on being the Waiters, Seers, and Thumb-Twiddlers when it comes to LGBT issues. Fortunately, law prof Nan Hunter beat us to that punch with a smart bit of blognostication suggesting that a likely upshot of those losses is that d. p. benefits for federal employees is likely to jump ahead of a trans-inclusive employment non-discrimination bill because it will be seen as safer (=less likely to arouse a storm of wing-nut controversy than anything involving the T-word). Way to go, Dems. You inspire us, as always, with your profiles in courage.

Or, Moose insisted, we could blog about the weather, which, thanks to the remnants of Hurricane Ida, is miserably, apocalyptically, Their Eyes Were Watching God-ingly bad in the Washington area right now. This is particularly difficult for Moose, who keeps finding herself looking out the window at the endless, hideous rain and then clicking back to iPhoto, which has dozens of pictures of the epically gorgeous blue skies of her undisclosed location. She is glad to be home, but she wishes god would turn the lights back on.

Anyway, we might have blogged brilliantly and productively on any of those topics, but our plans were derailed by a story in this morning's Wa Po on a matter of great social and political import that had somehow totally escaped our notice. (You see? Newspapers still matter! Let's hear it for dead trees, even if, technically, we were alerted to this story by way of University Diaries.) The Style section story by Monica Hesse focuses on recent dramatic evidence suggesting that the handbasket to hell we are all riding in may be much closer to its destination than any of us who aren't members of the Westboro Baptist Church might have supposed. We refer, of course, to the shocking new phenomenon of pornography being consumed in public -- in places such as planes, trains, and sports arenas -- thanks to the miracles of wireless access and ever more portable communications devices.

The article is hilarious, full of funny/strange stories of innocent bystanders awkwardly encountering someone else's smut in unexpected places and often in confined quarters from which there is no immediate escape. (We also credit Hesse for the phrase "secondhand smut," by the way, which should have been the headline on the story but wasn't.) We were amazed by the tale of someone stuck in an interminable Beltway traffic jam behind someone watching porn on a TV in an SUV. We were amused by the woman who found herself stuck next to some guy on a crowded Metro car who started watching porn on his laptop. Glared at by fellow passengers who could hear the, um, sound effects coming from the guy's computer and assumed she was with him, the woman grappled with what to do but eventually just decided to go with the flow. "She leaned into her seatmate and started watching," Hesse writes, until he silently folded up his laptop and stepped off the train a stop before hers.

Hesse has some good advice about how to negotiate the increasingly blurred lines between public and private in the world of the always-on, wide open Interwebs. She suggests that some public service announcements might be in order to help folks decide when the time and place are right for a little porn. You know, like this:

ATTENTION: As similar as this basketball arena may appear to your apartment, they are not, in fact, the same place. For further evidence, please ask yourself the following question: Does my apartment typically contain 20,000 complete strangers? If the answer is "No," then you are in a public arena. You should not be watching porn.

That seems like a good rule of thumb, doesn't it? We are more than a little appalled that such etiquette tips are apparently necessary, but then again it's not as if there is a well-established link between consumption of porn and highly developed sensitivity to the thoughts, feelings, and desires of others, particularly if those others happen to be female. (Insert anti-porn rant here. That's not really the point of this post, but, hey, go for it.)

We are curious, actually: Have any of you had any close encounters of the type described in Hesse's story? Standing in the line at the grocery store and subjected to just a little bit more of Stagnetti's Revenge than you ever expected to see? Seated next to one of your colleagues who, you suddenly realize, is paying more attention to the action on his laptop than to the action at the budget meeting? How do you think you would handle such a situation? Would you try to ignore it? escape it? Would you be like the woman on the Metro train and decide to play along as a way of thumbing your nose at the undeserved opprobrium of your fellow passengers? Or would you go all church lady? Maybe channel your inner WAP crusader? Our male readers are not off the hook on this issue, by the way. We want to know how you would react, too, boys.

Porn in Public: Etiquette Challenges for the 21st Century. Discuss.

Home Again, Home Again

2009-11-06T09:58:00.005-05:00

Sincere apologies to those of you who have been sick with worry about the fate of Moose and the Thinking Woman, who, when last heard from, were still 597 miles from home and in rather frightening proximity to a field of corn. Rest assured they made it safely back to Roxie's World Tuesday evening as scheduled. TW is settling in well, as you can see from the photo below. I think I am going to like having a companion statue. It's fun to hang out with someone whose mobility is even more limited than my own.

Meanwhile, Moose is trying to negotiate a soft landing back in the real world, which seems to have gone bat-$hit crazy in her absence. (That is a professional comment, not a personal one. We will have more to say on the subject soon, if we can figure out a diplomatic way to write about the intensifying crisis of higher ed right here in our own ridiculously large back yard. Meantime, read this, this, and this. Go, students!)

Advice to travelers from Moose on the Loose now Back on the Leash: The world to which you return will not be precisely the one you left. Do not be deceived by appearances. Remember that similarity is not sameness. Time has passed -- changed even -- and contents may have shifted in transit.

Memo to Texas from Moose on the Loose now Back on the Leash: We regret to inform you that the ginormous roadside cross conveniently located on the edge of I40 eastbound on the outskirts of Amarillo, TX (top photo below) is not, contrary to my earlier impression, the most spectacularly ginormous roadside cross on the face of dog's earth. A second view and evidence obtained from my iPhone camera indicates that that honor goes to the remote kingdom of Illinois, which has a super spectacularly ginormous cross (bottom photo below) looming over I70 eastbound on the outskirts of, um, nowhere, dwarfing trees and even the billboard for Denny's. Sorry, Texas, but you have been outdone in the category of Truly Ridiculous Public Displays of Affection (Jesus Division). Better luck next time!

Memo to Drivers from the Division of Highway Safety, RW Enterprises, LLC: Roxie's World does NOT condone the taking of photographs by drivers operating vehicles at high speeds -- unless, of course, the driver is alone and unwilling to stop the vehicle, and the photo is the only way to secure evidence necessary to make a snarky point about unseemly spectacles of religiosity in American culture. Some things are, you know, worth dying for.

All the bitches are back in the pack, kids, and all is right in Roxie's World. A happy weekend to you and yours.

In the Land of the Moosians

2009-11-02T17:08:00.006-05:00

Moose and the Thinking Woman are now just 597 miles from Roxie's World! That's right, kids. They arrived in Moose's home state at around 3 this afternoon after two and a half long days on the road. TW has been a fine traveling companion -- quiet but congenial, curious about the changing surroundings (Geez, she was heard to mutter at one point, Missouri is really tacky!), able to go for hundreds of miles without a potty break.

By dinner time tomorrow, we're hoping all the old and new bitches of Roxie's World will be together, raising paws and glasses in celebration and snuggling and hugging and getting bronze heads and fuzzy tummies rubbed.

Thanks for all your good thoughts for our happy wanderers. We'll be back to regular blogalicious programming soon. Meantime, may your skies be blue and your highways litter-free. Safe home to each and all.

(Photo Credits: Moose on the Loose, End of No Place, IN, 11/2/09)

Road Ready

2009-10-30T18:24:00.006-04:00

Or, Thinking Woman Fastens Her Seatbelt

Not that she's expecting a bumpy ride or anything, but it is her first big highway adventure, so the Thinking Woman is all buckled up and ready to go. Dog will be Moose's co-pilot, of course, but TW will be in the passenger seat as the two of them head east bright and early tomorrow morning. Destination: Roxie's World! I know, people -- Can you stand the excitement? Will we recognize Moose, after her seven weeks of solitude, slow reading, hiking, hot tubbing, and generally clean living? Will she and Goose know how to talk to each other without staring at their computers and marveling at the miracle of Skype? Stay tuned, folks, as Moose on the Loose once again becomes Moose on the Leash!

Moose and TW will be spending All Hallows Eve in a highway hotel somewhere between there and here, so here's a little bit of Halloween eye candy, brought to you by an artistically inclined Niece of the Moosians (Carolina branch), who is more skilled with a knife than Sweeney Todd or Jack the Ripper:

Happy Halloween to each and all. I wonder if Goose will dress me up in my fabulous wizard costume, even though I'm no longer able to run to the door to greet the children who come begging for treats. Sigh. Growing old sucks, doesn't it?

Oh, well. Here's a little song to help guide Moose and her little bronze friend right back home where they belong. Yep, you guessed it, aging children: "Homeward Bound." Peace out. And don't worry, Moose. We'll leave the light on for you.

Postscript from Moose to the Friends Who Offered Her the Keys to the Kingdom: Neither words nor fine wine nor haute cuisine nor the most exquisite eye candy can ever express how grateful I am to the two of you, princes among women, for your extraordinary generosity in affording me this time in such a magnificent place for study, reflection, play, and exploration. I am forever in your debt. PAWS UP to you both, and in this rare case, we will even raise a cat paw or three to honor your feline inclinations. Many thanks and much love.

Questions of Travel

2009-10-28T13:59:00.006-04:00

Or, Thinking Woman Plays in the Snow Rather Than Worrying About the Weather

(With apologies to Elizabeth Bishop)

Yes, readers, she bought her.

(Photo Credit: Moose on the Loose, undisclosed location, 10/28/09)

Moose is thinking of the long trip home. She is not worrying about it, because worrying is something she is trying to do less of after six intoxicating weeks in the kingdom of mellow. If she wanted to worry about something right now, she might worry about Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton being in Pakistan when all hell is breaking loose in that part of the world. She might worry about the fact that people seem surprised that Senator Joe Lieberman is being a self-righteous, self-serving gas bag about the "public option," when he has been precisely that on practically every issue of importance since, um, let's see, he decided to play nice in a vice-presidential debate against Darth Cheney back in the fall, 2000 campaign. She might worry about the fact that the left, rather than focusing seriously on any of these serious issues, is getting its knickers in a wad over the president playing basketball with non-lady persons -- while simultaneously launching a no-holds-barred misogynistic attack on former Governor Sarah Palin. (Blog pal Historiann has a good discussion of the latter issue here.)

(Photo Credit: Moose on the Loose, here, 10/25/09)

But she is not worrying about those things. Much. Instead, she is savoring her last moments in the kingdom of mellow and happily anticipating a joyous reunion with the denizens of Roxie's World. She is sorting and cleaning and folding and packing and making her way through the last hundred pages of a book that is knocking her socks off. (More on that subject later, I imagine.) She has concluded that, yes, we ought to "dream our dreams / and have them, too," to the extent that it is possible. And wherever we go, we should take snapshots, lots and lots of snapshots, because later, when we are back at home, we can think of here, wherever that may be, and know that some little part of it is right there with us, as sharp and clear as a field of snow or mica glittering like diamonds beneath a desert sun.

Take pictures, darlings, lots and lots of pictures. And pass them on. Peace out.

(Photo Credits: Moose on the Loose, near here, 10/26/09)

Morning Has Broken

2009-10-24T11:57:00.004-04:00

Because somehow or another it has turned out to be Cat Stevens Week around here. (I don't know why, people. It's not as if we plan this stuff. Things just have a way of snowballing.)

And because for some strange reason my typist bolted awake this morning before 7 Mountain time, grabbed her camera, and ran outside in her nightgown before the coffee was even done brewing. Lucky for you, eh?

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning . . . .

And because you are such incredibly good girls and boys, here is a bonus shot of last night's sunset, which Moose is pleased to pass along because she thinks her sky photos are getting closer to that "Blazing in gold and quenching in Purple" thing she's been trying to capture for the past six weeks:

Peace out, darlings. May your day be full of elation, wherever on dog's sweet earth you happen to be.

(Photo Credits: Moose on the Loose, undisclosed location, 10/24 and 10/23/09.)

(Re)Thinking Woman

2009-10-23T14:39:00.004-04:00

Moose will hit the road to begin wending her way back to Roxie's World one week from tomorrow. How happy are we about that here at the home office? Let's just say the reaction is a little something along these lines:

That means, of course, that it's time for Moose to get serious about, um, souvenir-shopping. She found a picture online of the sculpture she came across last weekend while touring artists' studios in a little town south of her undisclosed location. We're putting the photo in without attribution or a link because we have a question about the sculpture that we'd like to put to you, our loyal, sophisticated, and unflinchingly honest readers, but we wouldn't want the artist to stumble across it and think we were being irreverent or disrespectful of her work, which we greatly admire. We are already concerned that we alienated the entire state of Illinois with our post the other day on the purge of administrators tainted by the big admissions brouhaha at the state's flagship university, so we want to tread lightly in order to avoiding offending the great Southwest. It's a big country, people, and we are desperate for readers. We don't want to pi$$ everybody off.

Anyway, here's the photo:

And here is the question:

In your opinion, does she look like "Woman Thinking" -- or, um, well, frankly speaking, and we're terribly sorry to put this so crudely, but do you think she might be more accurately described as "Woman Working Up a Poop?"

Now, mind you, the latter would not necessarily be an argument against Moose's purchasing her and bringing her home to Roxie's World. Indeed, some dear friends who have already been privately consulted on this important matter have suggested she would fit perfectly in one of the, um, salles de bain, as a kind of inspirational fetish, you know? Moose is still quite taken with her and was especially fond of the way she felt in her hands. Of the many lovely pieces on display in the studio, this was the one Moose felt compelled -- after asking permission, of course -- to pick up, to hold, to touch, to rub. To her, somehow, she wasn't so much an object as an invitation. Perhaps that is why the Thinking Woman -- whatever she might be thinking about -- keeps returning to Moose's thoughts. Especially now that the heater here at home has been fixed for a reasonable price.

So, weigh in, all ye connoisseurs of art and scatological jokes. What would you call this pretty hunk of bronze, and do you think Moose should bring her back to Roxie's World? The clock is ticking, darlings, so answer soon. Art is timeless, but sooner or later a girl's got to answer the call of the road home.

Clean Sweep at U of Illinois?

2009-10-21T10:43:00.003-04:00

It all started with the mascot, of course, who was booted out of Urbane-Champagne two years ago less for being racially offensive than for having been the cause of NCAA sanctions against hosting postseason sports events at the great big school on the edge of the prairie. There is no evidence so far that the mascot was in any way involved in the admissions scandal that has now engulfed the entire upper level of the UIUC administration as well as the university's board of trustees, but we're taking a wait-and-see position on whether poor old mothballed Chief Illiniwek will eventually be sucked into the maelstrom of this Category I storm. This is Illinois, after all -- Land of Blago and Burris and Ryan and Rosti.

We pause at this point to express our sympathies to our loyal band of Illinois lurkers, all of whom are fine, upstanding individuals whom, we wish to emphasize, have nothing whatsoever to do with admissions. We don't make the news, kids. We just snark it. Don't take it personal.

Anyway, with word yesterday that UIUC Chancellor (and former QTU dean) Richard Herman is stepping down (but staying on campus as a well-compensated "special assistant" to the interim president -- sweet!), the purge of administrators associated with what the Chicago Tribune describes as "a shadow admissions system that allowed subpar but well-connected students to get into the state's premier public school" appears to be complete. Illinois' President, B. Joseph White, resigned last month, and six members of the board of trustees have been replaced in the wake of the scandal. Former UIUC Provost Linda Katehi left Shampoo-Banana this past spring to become chancellor at UC Davis, but a faint whiff of the scandal accompanied her to the Left Coast, prompting UC system funeral director Mark Yudof to issue a statement expressing full confidence in the new hire in June. Hmmm. As we have said before, with friends like Yudof, higher ed needs no enemies.

Herman seems to have been the architect of the admissions system, known internally as Category I. According to the Trib, the end run began when Herman was provost and continued through his tenure as chancellor, with him personally overruling admissions staff in order "to admit students connected to university trustees, lawmakers, and other powerful people." Tricky Dick had his hands in every layer of the admissions cake, as more than 800 undergraduates received special consideration under the program but dozens of grad school applicants and a number of law school aspirants also benefited more from their connections than from their test scores. Herman even conspired with then-Gov. Blago and then-trustee Lawrence Eppley to guarantee jobs for 5 subpar graduates of the law school (who had been admitted over the dean's objections) in an effort to protect the school's ranking.

And there it is, comrades: That stench you smell is the odor arising from the ugly stew/poo of public institutions desperate to ingratiate themselves to the parsimonious keepers of the purse strings while battling to stay competitive in the morally bankrupt yet all-important game of rankings, ranking, rankings. With or without a series of incriminating e-mails, we are all more or less stuck in this same hard, stinky place. Today, as the denizens of Urbana-Champaign raise their noses in the air hoping to catch the sweet smell of a refreshing new breeze blowing across the prairie, the rest of us in public higher ed should have the guts to take a good, long sniff of our own campuses and see what's brewing in the pressure cooker. It's easy to stand in solidarity with our besieged colleagues on the West Coast and declare that, "We are all Californians." It's more difficult but just as necessary to take a look in the mirror and acknowledge that in many painful respects we are all Illini as well.

Pick up your brooms and start sweeping, kids. Even a dog can't stand the smell in this place. Peace out.

I'm Being Followed by a Moose Shadow

2009-10-20T12:26:00.004-04:00

(Photo Credit: Moose on the Loose, on her iPhone, 10/19/09)

Go on. Push that play button. Encourage my typist to exploit the extraordinary techno-wizardry of the Internets to indulge in excruciating multimedia puns that really don't even make sense on account of, technically, this image shows her being not followed but preceded by a "Moose shadow." But, hey, why let a little thing like the truth stand in the way of a good pun, right? Just close your office door before you click on that button or the one below, which will complete today's episode of Cringe-Inducing Pun-ditry with an homage to one of the few decent musicians Moose actually listened to in the early 1970s. RW Enterprises, LLC is not responsible for the fact that you won't get any papers graded this afternoon because you will spend the next four hours humming the highly addictive chorus to this song. You have been warned, people. Click at your own risk. We sincerely hope that if you lose your mouth all your teeth will not dance out. Carry on. Please.

This post goes out with love to Mel, who probably still knows all the lyrics to every song on this album and joins Moose today in being over the hill. Happy birthday, old friend -- and I do mean old. ;-)

World News Roundup

2009-10-19T15:15:00.004-04:00

(Image Credit: An artist's rendering of what some of the 32 planets recently discovered outside our solar system might look like. From European South Observatory, via AP and Wa Po, 10/19/09)

Contrary to what my typist seems to think, there is a lot more going on in the world than hikes, hot tubs, and the moral/economic puzzle of the value of art in the age of academic furloughs. Just to let you know we've been paying attention back here at the global headquarters of RW Enterprises, LLC, we've compiled a list of highlights and lowlights we've noted in recent news coverage and commentary. As always, we welcome your thoughts, snarky or otherwise.

Quote of the (Yester)Day:

It’s hard to see how any public official can challenge a culture that he is marinating in, night and day.

(Frank Rich, explaining why Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner has done such an underwhelming job of regulating the financial industry.)

Specious Analogy of the Week (and it's only Monday!):

[W]e should view the privilege of a higher education much as we did the privileges that we enjoyed as children. We knew we couldn't get ice cream if we didn't help wash the dishes — we worked for the privileges that we enjoyed, and we shared in the responsibility of earning them. Those special activities were available to us, but we did not enjoy them as a "right." We were expected to contribute.

(Cal State Stanislaus President Hamid Shirvani in The Chronicle [access by sub only] calling for an end to what he sees as a culture of entitlement in higher ed. Why do we get the feeling that diversity programs and the humanities would be considered ice cream in the outcomes-obsessed, low-fat diet Shirvani advocates? Go over to engineering, kids, and get your spinach!)

A Vastly More Fun and Promising Idea for Saving Higher Ed: Female profs as bodybuilders! C'mon, Historiann, flex those muscles! I will let you use my laptop if you will let me use your self-tanner, 'kay?

Understatement of the Millennium:

Everybody hates me.

(From Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, who has drawn just a wee bit of criticism for the constitutionally questionable move of denying a marriage license to an interracial couple due to his selfless and obviously devoid of prejudice concern for the offspring of such unions. You know, offspring like this guy. And, oh yeah, this guy. By the way, Justice Bardwell, you are right on that point at least. Everybody does hate you!)

Grotesque Misstatement of the Millennium, Brought to You by the Department of We Are All Post-Racial Now:

Absolutely not.

(The same Keith Bardwell, responding to a hypothetical question about whether or not he is a racist. Bardwell goes on to explain that his definition of a racist is "to hate black people, or treat black people different" than anybody else, which, in his judgment, he does not do. Oh, no, sorry, Justice Bardwell, you are wrong on that one, which means you only scored 50% on our cultural literacy and sensitivity quiz. That's a big F, sir. Bye-bye! You might spend your retirement reading up on recent -- as in, you know, within the past 40 or so years -- developments in marriage law in the United States. Start here, and call us if you have any questions, all righty?)

Best News We've Heard All Day: 32 new planets discovered. (See artist's rendering above.) Beam me up, Scotty! I need a new world to conquer. Or some quiet, unsullied alternative to the mess we've made of this one.

Thoughtful Piece on Marriage Equality You Should Read Unless the Idea of Reading One More Piece on Marriage Equality Takes You Right to the Edge of Vomiting or Violence: by Princeton's Melissa Harris-Lacewell in The Nation. She's smart, and we dig her support for the cause, though we also think this piece, which glances at a forthcoming book by Frances Smith Foster on the history of African-American marriage, is just a little bit starry-eyed on the emotional and spiritual benefits of marriage.

Best Book Moose Has Read in Her Undisclosed Location: Marilynne Robinson's Home. It kept her up late. It made her weep. It brought back the beautiful, brutal, laconic Midwest of her misspent youth with a clarity and truthfulness that took her breath away. It almost made her want to go back to teaching so she could put together a seminar on Robinson, Toni Morrison, and the Whole, Hot, Tangled Mess of American Culture.

Almost, darlings. You know Sabbatical Girl is going to put many more miles on her hiking boots before she trades them in for her black Naots and returns to the classroom. Hope to run into you out on the trail. Meantime, let us know what's happening in your neck of the woods. Peace out.

Thinking Women

2009-10-18T12:45:00.007-04:00

My typist swears she is not trying to torture us by insisting on posting these photographs of her foray yesterday to a town just south of her undisclosed location, a town of artists and other groovy types spread out across the basin of a beautiful river whose banks are lined with cottonwood trees that sway in the desert breezes. No, she insists, her intention is not to rub in how transcendently gorgeous the weather is in her little corner of paradise while those of us in the east suffer through days of cold, dreary, unremitting rain. She's out traipsing around in short sleeves, while here in Roxie's World one of the heaters is on the fritz. And the busiest day of Goose's week is just around the corner.

"Honey," Moose says, "would it be irresponsible of me to buy a bronze sculpture of a woman thinking to bring home to remind me of this time and place?"

"Of course not, dear. Art is an investment and an inspiration. We are all about women thinking, after all."

"But, you know -- the furloughs, the heater."

"It doesn't matter. Remember our first trip out there together, when we were just out of grad school, dirt poor, and fell in love with a hand-painted floor lamp we didn't think we could afford? A teacher friend who was out there with us insisted that we buy it. She told us if we didn't we would never stop thinking about that lamp and we'd always regret having passed it up, so we bought it, shipped it home, and have loved it every day for nearly a quarter of a century. If this sculpture has that kind of pull on you, then don't let it get away from you."

"You have a point," Moose replied. "I will think about it on today's hike. If I have a lampy sort of feeling about it, maybe I will give the artist a call. I had a lovely chat with her yesterday. She was very friendly. Had a beautiful studio. Nice accent, too. British."

"You're distracted. You're thinking about your thinking woman, aren't you?"

"Maybe. A bit."

"Where are you hiking today?"

"Not sure. Someplace nearby. Safe. Well-marked. Girl Scout-type trail. Don't worry. What are you doing today?"

"Grading, getting ready for classes."

"Is it still raining?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry. Here are some pretty pictures to remind you of what dry land looks like."

"Thanks. I will think of you walking out there today, thinking of your thinking woman."

"And I will think of you there, being my thinking woman, snuggled up with an old dog, thinking of me."

Photo of the Day

2009-10-15T16:41:00.003-04:00

(Photo Credit: Getty Images, 10/11/09, via Shakesville)

Environmentally responsible bloggers recycle, so we will happily pass along a nice tidbit of news, also picked up at Shakesville, about a new Gallup poll showing that Hillary Clinton's favorable ratings now exceed those of her boss and former rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama. Her rating stands at 62%, basically where it was when Gallup polled on this question in January. His is at 56%, a drop of 22 percentage points from January. The decline in Obama's rating is the result of a steep drop in the level of love among Republicans. According to Gallup, only 19% of Repubs now have a favorable view of the president, whereas 60% of the flat-earth party looked kindly on the new prez back in January. So much for that whole strategy of reaching across the aisle, eh, Mr. Unificator? Meanwhile, the most polarizing bitch in the history of American politics has a 35% approval rating from the opposition party, exactly what it was in January.

He gets the prize, but she's making the peace, and you know what, kids? That's just fine with us, as long as the peace gets made. PAWS UP to you, Secretary Clinton. The old bitches of Roxie's World have got your back.

And the picture? That gorgeous picture of a woman smiling and serene and comfortable in her skin? Well, it puts us in mind of an old song that we send out to all the beautiful creatures, near and far, old and young, lady and non-lady, in our beloved pack. Sing it, Joe:

Peace out, darlings, and remember: Your favorable ratings are always off the charts with us.

Interim Report

2009-10-13T12:58:00.006-04:00

Sorry for the light posting, kids. We've had the darndest time even finding my typist lately, much less getting her to sit down and do a bit of work for America's favorite dog blog devoted to politics, pop culture, and basketball. When finally we caught up with her yesterday, she was buck naked in a hot tub on the outskirts of her undisclosed location, gazing up at an azure sky and humming the refrain from a favorite old Nanci Griffith song:

It's funny how my world goes 'round without you --
You're the one thing I never thought I could live without.

Moose is inordinately fond of being buck naked in the great outdoors, and the idea of being in such a state on a Monday morning, when Goose was busy preparing for her busiest teaching day and big meetings of potentially significant import were being held on the campus of Queer the Turtle U, seems to have unhinged her a little. She swears the song came to her unbidden and had nothing to do with the beloved people and animals in her life, whom she would miss desperately were it not for the twice or thrice daily miracle of Skype. No, she insisted, Griffith's poignant meditation on time, distance, and letting go resonates for her right now in connection with the beatific state of detachment she has achieved vis-à-vis the professional stresses she talked about in this post a few weeks back. You're the one thing I never thought I could live without nicely captures the sense of surprise she has at feeling so utterly released from preoccupations and responsibilities that for seven years were all-consuming. It isn't that she no longer cares or worries. It's not as if she's abandoned her office or stopped answering phone calls from her dean. She took one such call yesterday morning, in fact, and weighed in on a matter of vital importance to her happy little program and her beloved, resource-starved university.

And one hour later, she was buck naked in a hot tub, her mind as free of care as her body was of clothing, with two pretty lines of song playing over and over and over again in her head.

"Fine," I said, when I was finally able to get her attention. "You are having a wonderful time. You are replenishing depleted energies and rearranging priorities. That's great, but I would like to point out that you are now more than halfway through your interlude in your undisclosed location. I think it's time for an accountability moment, Moose. My readers want to know what the heck you've been up to, other than spending an inordinate amount of time in your birthday suit. You are, after all, on sabbatical. You owe the taxpayers of Maryland an accounting of how you are spending your hard-earned, state-funded, furlough-reduced salary."

"Sure, Rox," she said languidly and with a certain lack of conviction. "But, you know, I'm working on several different projects out here. It might be hard to give an accounting of my progress on each one."

"Do your best, Moose. The taxpayers just want to know that you are conducting serious research."

Below are Moose's extremely brief reports on the state of her research so far. I dunno, kids, but I'm thinking we might need Goose or the Department of Scholarly and Creative Activity here in Roxie's World to do some editing before we pass these along to the salary committee for review. They seem a little, how shall we say, undercooked? Let us know what you think.

* * *
Interim Report on Sabbatical Activity,
by Moose on the Loose

The Sky Project: I think my sky pictures are showing definite signs of improvement. Heck, even my mistakes are weirdly beautiful! Plus, my careful observation of the evening sky from the ridiculously beautiful back yard of my undisclosed location offers compelling evidence that the sun and the earth may be in motion in relation to one another. Yes, it's true! When I first got here, the sun set well to the right of the four mountains I gaze out upon for approximately 45 minutes each evening. Now, the sun sets directly behind those mountains. Further study will have to be done to confirm my hunch, but I feel confident that these results will prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the earth moves around the sun -- or vice versa!

The Body Project: This work of autoethnography has yielded several tantalizing insights to date. As with any qualitative analysis, one must be careful about generalizing on the basis of the results, but I am tremendously excited by the nature and trend of the evidence so far. Here are a few of the highlights:

You can live in a body for fifty years, but until it's been covered in hot oil, liberally sprinkled with salt, and vigorously rubbed by a highly trained specialist, you cannot be sure that you have discovered all your ticklish spots.
You can eat eggs fried in butter, chiles en ahogada, and huevos motulenos and still lose weight if you are willing to get up off your spreading a$$ and briskly walk three miles a day. Throw in a little yoga and an actual hike on the weekend, and you can even indulge in the occasional green chile cheeseburger and still wake up one happy morning to discover that your fat shorts are so baggy that you may need to invest in a belt in order to avoid public embarrassment.
You (assuming you are a woman of a certain age) will sweat less if you drink less alcohol. Period. No further study necessary, though we think it would be swell if the male-dominated scientific establishment would look into this fun fact of female physiology. Still, sisters in hormonal imbalance, I am here to tell you that if you cut back to a couple of drinks a week, you will significantly reduce (perhaps to zero!) the number of hot flashes you experience. Also, sleep disruptions and that fuzzy feeling in your brain that makes you think you've got Alzheimer's. Further, it pains me to break it to you, but eliminating red wine altogether may be the key to keeping you cool and restoring your powers of concentration. Have a beer or a margarita, girls, and see how the rest of your evening goes.

The Nature v. Nurture as a Determinant of Musical Taste Project: This is a small, recently undertaken project, but the research so far strongly indicates a genetic role in the formation of musical taste. The evidence? Last weekend, at the end of a splendid hike, a long lost cousin of the Moosians who moved to the Southwest a decade or so ago began whistling "Top of the World" by, of course, the Carpenters as he was driving us out of the canyon. Now, he and I had just spent several companionable hours together taking in the beauties of autumn in the high desert and catching up on family news. There had been no talk of music, taste, or our respective positions on the exceedingly bad popular music of the early 1970s, but here was my long lost cousin spontaneously bursting into a song I probably couldn't get out of my head unless I chopped it off. "Wow," I said, "we must be related." So there you have it: Nature predisposed me to absorb "Top of the World" and "Billy Don't Be a Hero" and all the other crap that got lodged in my brain before I knew what was happening.

* * *

Geez, guys, what do you think? Is it curtains on Moose's academic career, or do you think we can whip this into something that will please the Turtle? I mean, some of this stuff actually does sound interesting and important, you know, but, I mean, she's an English prof. I'm not sure even the most forceful claims for interdisciplinarity will convince the powers-that-be that she should be holding forth on astronomy, endocrinology, and genetics -- but, really, it's high time someone tried to explain the wholly baffling allure of the Carpenters, don't you think? Wish us luck, kids. It's going to be a fascinating reporting season!

(Photo Credits: Moose on the Loose, here, 10/11/09)

Signs Taken for Wonders

2009-10-09T12:14:00.005-04:00

A Note on Prizes, Marches, and Other Amazing Things

(With apologies to Homi K. Bhabha)

I know you are all dying to hear the official reaction from Roxie's World to the news this morning that President Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. We give a hearty PAWS UP to presidential daughter Malia Obama (shown at right in the lovely tee-shirt she wore in Rome this past summer), who burst into the First Boudoir and said, "Daddy, you won the Nobel Peace Prize, and it is [First Dog] Bo's birthday." Which was quickly followed by this helpful reminder from younger sister Sasha: "Plus, we have a three-day weekend coming up." To his credit, the president offered this charming episode of Kids Say the Darndest Things in the context of a statement acknowledging the award that was appropriately humble and focused on it as "a call to action, a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century." We are also inclined to agree with the president's assertion that, "I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize, men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace," but that might sound snarky, so we'll just offer the most sincere statement we can about today's stunning news, which is, of course:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BO!

Speaking of signs, here is the one the moms won't be carrying in the (possibly not so) Big Gay March on Washington this weekend:

Y'all know the moms love nothing better than having a chance to march through the streets of the nation's capital with a bunch of clever, ornery rabble-rousers in support of one worthy cause or another. They have two perfectly valid excuses for missing this weekend's festivities: Moose is, as you know, 1877 miles away from home at the moment, and Goose, poor girl, has managed to come down with one of her horrible colds. She has been ordered to bed for the weekend, except for one swelegant, pressing social engagement our beloved Candy Man will be hosting Saturday evening. (Moose will be there in spirit and perhaps in Skype, though she regrets that virtual hors d'oeuvres are not nearly as tasty as actual ones.)

The truth, though, is that even if they didn't have two perfectly valid excuses for missing this weekend's march, the moms would in all likelihood opt out of the festivities. If you are going, we applaud your commitment and hope you have a wonderful time. If you see Lady Gaga, please give her our regards. We are grateful for the hoopla surrounding the march for finally inspiring us to click around and figure out exactly who the hell this Lady Gaga person is, so there is one small if unintended victory to celebrate. (We never claimed to be cool, kids.) As for the rest of it, well, we are inclined to agree with those who think that this march, planned in the wake of the devastating loss on California's Prop 8, is at best fuzzy in its aims and at worst a deflection of energy and resources from local battles desperately in need of both right now. Organizer Cleve Jones is calling for an end to the strategy of seeking incremental change on LGBT rights -- but the night before the march, the king of saying much and doing almost nothing in support of advancing those rights, President Barack Obama, will speak at the HRC's big-ticket annual dinner. No matter what happens in the streets on Sunday, the weekend's big gay story will be that the president stood before (a well-heeled segment of) the LGBT community and (yet again) expressed his (unrealized) commitment to equality. (Roxie's World will have a couple of well-dressed pals in the swanky hall Saturday night. We are counting on Julie and Kim for some inside scoop!)

As political actions go, for all their logistical challenges, marches are easy. They afford a certain amount of visibility, and they make the marchers feel good. The opportunity to stand shoulder to shoulder with a large, enthusiastic group of fellow travelers on the road to justice is energizing and inspiring. We don't discount the value of such outcomes, but our greater concern right now is with those who are feeling left out of the parade and with deeper issues of goals, strategies, and leadership that won't be solved by a march or a rally or a rubber-chicken banquet.

We love us some well-painted signs, kids, and we are suckers for a pretty speech, but don't get fooled into taking them for political wonders. Peace out, and enjoy your weekend, however you choose to spend it.

Today in Gender

2009-10-06T15:29:00.005-04:00

Item One

Wa Po has a pretty good story today by Dana Hedgpeth on the tireless efforts of Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm (D) to bring jobs to the state with the nation's highest unemployment rate (15.2%). We totally heart this sharp-as-a-tack power chick and will probably quit our day jobs and go to law school if she ever ends up on the Supreme Court just so we can vie to be one of her love slaves/law clerks. We are trying to make up our minds, though, about the photo and caption Wa Po used to illustrate the story. Study them carefully, kids. There will be a quiz:

The photo is great, of course, and highly flattering to the gov, whom both supporters and detractors call "Jenny the cheerleader," "because of her relentless optimism," according to the story. (Do you really think she got that moniker just because of her optimism, kids? Nah, us neither.) (Granholm prefers to call herself a "zealot.") And Granholm obviously spoke the words used to caption the photo, offering up a pithy compliment to her state's "great bones" and its ability to "build stuff."

Here's what has us scratching our noggins: Is the caption good or bad? Is it a net positive in that it shows a woman leader with the confidence to draw unselfconsciously from two highly gendered image repositories -- i.e., the "female" world of beauty and bone structure and the "male" world of building and other hard "stuff"? Or does it subtly undermine Granholm's credibility as leader of a state reeling from the collapse of the auto industry? Will "good bones" make Michigan competitive in a new economy of high-skilled, environmentally friendly jobs? Or does the beauty-pageant language suggest that the girl gov, who tears up in her office when recalling her failed efforts to convince appliance maker Electrolux to stay in the state, isn't up to the job of bringing jobs to Michigan? Read the story, and tell us what you think.

Item Two

The Chronicle of Higher Ed has a brief piece today on a study published by the Wellesley Centers for Women on the disparity in the price of tickets for women's basketball games in comparison to men's games, even on campuses, like the University of Connecticut, where the women's team has a rock 'em, sock 'em record of success (6 NCAA championships, according to the bitter QTU fans of Roxie's World). The study, "Ticket Office Sexism: The Gender Gap in Pricing for NCAA Division I Basketball" by Laura Pappano and Allison J. Tracy (available for purchase on the Wellesley Centers for Women Web site), argues, as its title suggests, that the pricing disparity is a form of discrimination, a sign that women are still de-valued in the traditionally male world of sport. The study argues that the claim that lower ticket prices for women's games are necessary to boost attendance doesn't hold up, because the disparity persists even at schools like Connecticut that have a strong fan base for their women's team.

As you can imagine, this is a story that captured the attention of the feminazi b'ball freaks of Roxie's World, but, surprisingly, our knees didn't reflexively kick out in anger over clear evidence of institutional sexism. As season ticket holders for both men's and women's basketball at QTU, we can tell you there is a significant -- indeed, astronomical -- disparity in pricing right here in our own backyard, although the women's team has a much greater record of accomplishment over the past several seasons as well as some mighty impressive attendance records (which my typist cannot lay her fingers on at the moment, alas). Still, the women don't consistently pack the Comcast Center in the way that the men's team does, even when the non-Lady Terps manage to lose, as they did last season, to the likes of Morgan State. Moreover, sensitive as we are to any sign of gender inequity, we have to admit that we enjoy seeing the Comcast Center filled with screaming kids cheering on the women as they school their opponents in lightning-fast offense. The more affordable pricing structure makes the women's game accessible to those younger fans, who giddily celebrate their birthdays up in suites occupied by corporate fat-cats during the men's games. We don't want to deny revenue to the women's team, but we don't want to deny them crucial opportunities to build their fan base either. And, frankly, we just love the vibe the Comcast Center has during the women's games. Even when the dreaded Dukies are in the house, it's a fun, friendly, happy place to be, and that is by no means always the case when the non-Ladies take the court. Jack up ticket prices, and you run the risk of turning the women's game into what the men's game has become: a grim, money-grubbing diva dance in which every player has his eye on the best deal he can get for himself in the NBA rather than on what's best for the team. It ain't pretty, and a lot of the time it's damn near excruciating to watch.

Wait a minute, kids -- Did Roxie's World just say that sometimes gender inequity is good? WTF? Jump in here and tell us how wrong we are, folks. I think perhaps the high altitude has gone to my typist's head! Peace out and remember: the Lady Terps kick off their 2009-10 season at home against Bowie State at 7 PM on Nov. 4. Moose will be (barely) back from her undisclosed location by then. Where will you be, sports fans? It's the most affordable game in town -- and one of the most exciting!

Sabbath Snaps

2009-10-04T22:39:00.007-04:00

Sabbatical Thought for the Day from Moose on the Loose: How lovely that the words "sabbatical" and "sabbath" are drawn from the same root, from the Latin sabbatum, meaning "to rest." Which means, of course, that a girl on sabbatical is permitted to spend a Sunday afternoon roaming the streets of a historically Catholic town taking pictures of churches and briefly joining in a religious parade (accompanied by the Brother and Sister-in-Law of the Goosians, who happened to be visiting and are inordinately fond of parades).

It was a lovely day. Just remember to keep your hands off the links below if you don't want to know exactly where Moose spent it. ;-)

(All photos by Moose on the Loose. Top two are from here. Middle two from here. The dapper fellow in the snazzy scarf is here. And the bottom one is from this secular church of culture. 10/4/09.)

Saturday Night Snaps

2009-10-03T21:50:00.008-04:00

Our cowgirl Annie Leibovitz has been at it again. Apparently, she'd rather shoot than type, so here are a few pics from this week in Moose's undisclosed location. Don't look too closely, or it's possible you'll figure out where she is, and then all our fun would be spoiled. Again, darlings, you have been warned.

Last Sunday's Hike

To Market, to Market, to Buy Peppers and Cheese

The Sky Project Yields a Weirdly Beautiful Mistake

Am I the Only One Who Thinks Moose Has Gone Overboard With the Whole Trees Silhouetted Against the Setting Sun Theme?

Moonrise, Or, Finally the Sky Project Looks Elsewhere

(Photo Credits: Moose on the Loose, undisclosed location, 9/27-10/3/09)

CA Dreamin' -- And Doin'

2009-10-01T16:42:00.003-04:00

A few days ago in this space, we asked,

Today, in that way we have of answering our own questions, we offer some examples, all from the great, troubled state of California. We gather the material, which has been bouncing around the internets, for the convenience of readers and also for the sheer political pleasure and relief of hearing a full-throated, proactive, sustained critique of and alternative to the soulless, gutless, accommodationist rhetoric that has for too long dominated higher ed's efforts to speak on behalf of itself. (You know, like the kind of stuff we hear from this guy.)

Our first example comes from our new political heartthrob, UC Santa Barbara English prof Chris Newfield, whose blog we've been flacking throughout walkout season. Newfield and UC president Mark Yudof had a commentary smackdown in The Chronicle of Higher Ed the other day. We think the blogging prof won hands down over the funeral director, on the strength of his challenge to universities "to articulate a great social mission . . . that would justify the support they have needed all along." Newfield does a wonderful job of explaining how academic leaders have failed to articulate such a mission in recent decades and how they might begin to do so more effectively. The full commentary is accessible by sub only, but here is one paragraph that made our hearts go pitty-pat:

University officials must explain the humble yet extraordinary activities for which at public universities only public money pays. Everyone says knowledge economies require unprecedented powers of invention, vision, communication, and an understanding of other cultures and complex natural systems. Those capacities arise from the details of directed learning: math problems corrected, errors pains takingly explained, novel but unformed ideas elaborated through one-on-one conversation, intellectual goals and personal destinies developed class after class, office hour after office hour—with the kind of nurturing attentiveness that makes no one any money, but without which society doesn't move forward. The public needs to learn that government cuts fall the hardest on those unsung activities, all of which are crucial for fixing our underperforming states.

Here, here, kids! Sign me up! Raise my taxes! I want to get on board the Good Ship Higher Ed (gargantuan public model)! Let's hear it for directed learning!

Also in The Chronicle but x-posted on his more accessible blog, Marc Bousquet snags an interview with the unnamed spokesperson for the group of students still occupying the Graduate Student Commons at UC Santa Cruz. We're awfully curious to know who these folks are, but we are happy to quote them as an example of student speech, analysis, and activism on behalf of higher ed. The spokesperson speaks eloquently of the "deep critique" of a political economy "in which things are accorded value by nothing more than the bottom-line" that informs and inspires the occupation:

We’re tired of hearing UC President Mark Yudof talk about making the UC more “efficient,” more “competitive,” about “human capital,” not because we are against some notion of what it means to be efficient, to not be wasteful, but because his speech demonstrates he needs a more complex analytic of the dynamics over-taking the UC system in this crisis. A broad-based social movement that has the capacity to articulate an alternative collective vision to the narrow, corporatist special-interests that control our budgets and strategic planning will be necessary. Nobody is sure what this will look like yet.

For now, we believe one of the first steps to building such a movement is to show that escalation and occupation is necessary and possible. We hope that groups of students, faculty, and everyday Californians can begin to see themselves, too, as people who can organize, occupy, and escalate to fight back.

Damn, I wish these kids had a donate button on their Web site!

Finally, we'll end with a couple of vids from the Save the University teach-in held at Berkeley the day before last week's walkouts. You can access the whole collection here, but below are the speeches by Robert Reich, former Clinton labor secretary and public policy prof, and Wendy Brown, political science prof. We offer these two examples in order to highlight the significantly different styles of two very effective presentations. Reich grabs the mic from the lectern and stands before the speakers' table to deliver an impassioned speech that seems off the cuff but is really quite polished. Brown stands behind the lectern and reads a carefully prepared list of ten effects or forces that "privatization generates as it brings market principles into the very heart of the university." Brown's much cooler presentation has its own stirring effect, as she shifts in her last couple of minutes to delineating all that a privatized model of education as an "efficient instructional delivery system generating human capital" cannot do in terms of developing, deepening, and broadening minds.

Take a look at both Reich and Brown. Listen to their language, with its concerted emphasis on public goods and public values. Then go stand before your mirror and practice the speech you'll make at your next meeting, in your next class, or at the next reception where you find yourself standing next to some dyspeptic administrator in a slippery suit. C'mon, kids. It's a group project, and we've all got plenty to do. Get crackin'.

CA Walkout Postgame Show

2009-09-28T14:09:00.007-04:00

Sorry to be late to the party on this topic, kids, but my typist was out trying to earn her hiker badge this weekend. (Old dog yawns, rolls eyes, and mutters, "So, when does the book-writing begin, eh?") Our tardiness enables us to point you straightaway to a link to Chris Newfield's wonderful roundup of coverage of the walkouts throughout the University of California system, held last Thursday to protest massive budget cuts, furloughs, and fee increases. Chris's excellent research means that we can move immediately to the question of the hour, which, obviously, is:

Would you buy anything this guy is selling?

(Photo Credit: Jason Madara, New York Times)

Oh, and I do have a follow-up question:

What exactly is this guy selling?

"This guy," of course, is University of California president Mark Yudof, who gave an interview to the New York Times' Deborah Solomon that was published (online) on the day of the walkouts and has had jaws dropping all over the country ever since. In the course of 15 rapid-fire exchanges, Yudof comes across as a stunningly insensitive leader whose response to every question is either a wisecrack or a callous shoulder shrug. Asked if he blames California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for the system's funding crisis, Yudof quickly says no. What then?

This is a long-term secular trend across the entire country. Higher education is being squeezed out. It’s systemic. We have an aging population nationally. We have a lot of concern, as we should, with health care.

Okie-dokie, sir. Not much you can do about that, I s'pose. And what does the chief pitchman for what many would consider to be the crown jewel of the nation's public higher education system think of the product he is supposed to be selling -- i.e., higher ed?

The shine is off of it. It’s really a question of being crowded out by other priorities.

Wow. Paging Don Draper. Don, we got to get our shine back! Can you help?

With friends like this, people, higher education needs no enemies. And what does Mr. Softy think about furloughs, which sparked the battle over shared governance that led to the walkouts? (Yudof overruled faculty senates on all 10 UC campuses, which had voted to allow faculty to take some portion of their 26 furlough days on instructional days to demonstrate the impact such cuts would have on every aspect of the universities' work.) Solomon describes "furloughs" as a "buzzword," to which Yudof replies:

Let me tell you why we used it. The faculty said “furlough” sounds more temporary than “salary cut,” and being president of the University of California is like being manager of a cemetery: there are many people under you, but no one is listening. I listen to them.

There are many people under you, but no one is listening -- Get it? Oh, man, this guy just kills, doesn't he?

(Click on that play button, kids. You'll be glad you did.)

I see then, Mr. Yudof. So it's burial plots and coffins you are selling for the dead enterprise of higher education. Thanks so much for explaining that! Much obliged to you, sir. These guys have a little bit of a head start on you in the coffin biz, so you might want to check them out, but I'm sure there are a couple of geniuses left at Berkeley who can help you catch up. Good luck!

Seriously, folks, we appreciate that it ain't easy being in the higher echelons of university administration these days and that the funding problem is in fact part of a much deeper political problem whose origins are way off campus. Nonetheless, it's hard to imagine a less sympathetic or effective advocate than Mark Yudof manages to be in this interview. It makes you root for the people all over California last week who were shouting, "Lay off Yudof!" Hell, it makes you root for the group, based at UC Santa Cruz, that is calling for ongoing disruptions to operations on campus in the service of launching an all-out war on the status quo. Go read this group's bracing "Communiqué from an Absent Future." Ironically, like Yudof, the communiqué's authors speak of higher ed as a dead letter office. ("Incongruous architecture, the ghosts of vanished ideals, the vista of a dead future: these are the remains of the university," states the funereal preamble to this call to arms. Go read the whole thing. It is a long but extraordinary document.)

Really, kids? Is that what it's come to? Nothing left to do but dig a hole, say a prayer, and dive into the Jell-o molds the church ladies have prepared for the wake? You know that we are committed glass half-fullers here in Roxie's World. We are not ready to declare that the ghost has been given up, and we're not sure occupying campus buildings is the way to go (though if Mark Yudof were the funeral director at our school we might be ready to take that step). For us, last week's actions in California and the signs of discontent we have sensed developing elsewhere in response to slice-and-dice budgeting in states across the country have engendered a series of questions we invite our readers to ponder:

What would effective advocacy for higher education look and sound like?
From where or whom should it come?
How is it that such intelligent people have by and large failed to this point to communicate effectively the value of what they do to the broader public and to state leaders who control the purse strings?

There are a million other questions, but it's late afternoon in the East and my mountain-time typist needs to get her walk in so that she can get to today's reading. Let us know your thoughts on the crisis in higher ed. How does it feel to be, you know, dead? Peace out!