Apt. 11D

Catching Up

So many thing were put on hold this semester. The priority was getting the lectures done and tending to the basics for the kids. They have these damn laws about feeding and clothing children. But beyond those legal requirements, not much else happened around here.

Ian still has size four clothes in his dresser. When Jonah needed shorts, I didn't have the energy to drag the boys to Children's Place. So, I sliced the bottoms off a pair of jeans with a pair of gardening sheers. Jonah was shocked and impressed with that bit of handiness. Our closets still have woolen turtleneck sweaters. Bins of spring clothes are piled up in a corner. Just avert your eyes from the mess in the basement, please.

I have a short grace period before finals, so I spent the day cleaning up and puttering about the yard. I dumped a pile of the kids' papers from school. That chore can only be done when the kids are gone. Jonah likes to assume that I'm saving every page of his math workbook for posterity. I made a dinner that involved fresh vegetables and not some wilted numbers from day old Chinese takeout. I chased Ian down the block.

Last week, I climbed the ladder to Jonah's bunk. I whispered, "Tomorrow is my last day of lectures. I won't have to work so much after that."

Jonah said, "Tomorrow is your kids' last day?"
"Yes."
"You should bring in some floam for them to play with. They will want to do a craft on the last day of class."
"I bet they would love that."
"So, three days after the last day will they be grown ups?"
"Maybe the girls will. But the boys have to wait until much later."

Four Classes, Two Kids, 1/2 a blog

My last lecture was on Friday. I survived four classes and two kids. I'm not quite done yet -- a paper needs revision, recommendations must be written, finals graded -- but it's all down hill from here.

On Thursday, I sat in front of my computer for 14 hours straight finishing off review sheets, lectures, and office paperwork. On Friday, I had three classes. And then on Saturday, my in-laws drove in from Cleveland for Jonah's First Communion. Because I've been too busy to do much during the week, there were a ton of last minute chores -- a white shirt for Jonah, a card, preparations for the festivities on Sunday. Pictures later.

Thanks for being patient this spring. There were certainly long gaps between posts. This blog will resume business later today.

Blog Buzz Doesn't Not Equal Sales

Awhile back, I remember Dan and Henry discussing on bloggingsnores.tv that blogging is a good way to flog books. Blogging can fill the gap of weighty book reviews in mainstream papers. At the time, I agreed with them. I watched how Linda Hirshman was able to leverage all the negative blog buzz about her article in American Prospect into free publicity for her upcoming book. She was on the Today show pushing her book all because we kept writing about how much we hated her.

Smart, thought I. In fact, I've been pushing my dad to follow her lead. He has a book coming out this fall with Yale University Press, and it has the potential for a mainstream audience. One reviewer told Yale that his book was too good for them. So, we've been plotting a Hirshman-style, blog-flog fest.

I'm not so sure that is a good idea now.

Today's Times reports that only sold 4,000 copies of her book were sold. Mainstream publishers don't even break even until they hit about 10,000 copies. Did I snicker? Oh, yes I did.

Coincidentally, Hirshman has an op-ed in today's Times with more of her naughty mommy stories. So, maybe blog buzz doesn't lead to book sales, but it give you a wider stage for crazy ideas. Largely due to blog buzz, Hirshman has won the op-ed page in the Times and the Washington Post. Having that large of a stage has other rewards. Books sales be damned. God, I should just stop writing about her.

Fried. Burnt out.

Three days until my last lecture.

Boy, I sure am crispy. Fried. Burnt out. It's been a good semester, but my brain is finished. When the last final is graded, I'm going to log some serious time watching the first season of Prison Break on DVD. Reading through the other academic blogs, I see that everyone else is nearing exhaustion. (Shout out to New Kid on the Hallway who has had a rough month.)

Question of the Day - What do you do when your brain is flat lining?

Virginia Tech

I had a long, rambling post yesterday that brought up the Virginia Tech massacre, but it was lost in another discussion. I'm wicked tired, but I want to set up a Virginia Tech-only thread. Talk here about gun control or whatever.

I want to also put up some links. In between Lost and Idol, I've been running up the stairs following links about how this disaster has unfolded on the internet. Scott McLemee at Crooked Timber started the dominos by linking to a story at BookTruck.org. Booktruck has a wealth of information and links to another excellent link-fest over at MTV. One thing that is coming out of this analysis is that MySpace has come of age. We have focused so much of our energy writing about blogs and been all snoberoo about myspace. Maybe it's not greasy, kid's stuff after all.

And the analysis continues. Seen some posts and commentary that say that the campus didn't shut down, because domestic violence doesn't raise red flags anymore. (links to come)

My pet issue of the evening is campus anomie. The guy was clearly unhinged. The profile in the Times today was haunting. Where were the support system for this guy? Do large, impersonal campuses push border line personality disorders into horror shows? I'm at small, small college right now. Many of the kids transferred to my school from large, impersonal colleges, because the atmosphere was too cold and lonely. Someone should have been taking better care of this guy.

Killers on Campus and A Few Other Random Topics Before Bed

I slept for nine hours last night. I'm probably still recovering from illness. Or maybe I'm recovering from a whole semester of late night cramming. Does it bother me that I put in about 35 hour preparing for classes every week in addition the 15 hours in the classroom, while some of my students haven't even purchased the textbooks yet? No comment.

Despite their lack of class preparation, we still had some great chats at school today. Everybody wanted to talk about the massacre at Virginia Tech. In my media class, we talked about how the press covered events and the interpretation in the press of events. Earlier in the semester, we had talked about the way that the press covers crises with the eventual attempt to provide meaning to events. Current events conveniently brought the textbook to life. That textbook that some haven't purchased yet.

The press seems to be spinning events in one of two ways: gun control and campus security. Some are blaming this massacre on the ease of buying guns in Virginia. Others, like a commentator on Fox news, say that if professors were armed, this would never have happened. I assured my students that they really didn't want me armed. If I was packing some heat, the first ones to go would be the unprepared students.

The issue of campus security was a more serious topic, because it is basically nonexistent on our campus. Anybody can wander into the campus and slip into the dorms or the classrooms without any problem. They felt that campuses should be more secure. The fact that this massacre happened at the hand of a student was a bit of a stumper. Dan Drezner writes that the flags were raised by this guy's creative writing teacher. Perhaps there should be mandatory creative writing classes for freshman to weed out the wackjobs early on. However, Dan worries that this could lead to over reactions.

I taught three classes, checked in with my mom who was minding a sick Ian, corrected page proofs for an article, and then zoomed home to pick up Jonah from the aftercare program at school.

When I got him, he was distraught. All the boys in aftercare had been playing with their GameBoys and DS's or Webkins, they wouldn't share, and he had no one to play with. The girls were playing board games and drawing pictures at the desks, but the boys were clustered around the video games. It's probably not accidental that girls are better represented in colleges than boys.

Before Christmas, Steve and I went through major soul searching about whether or not we should get the boys the big video game systems. We relented and picked up one of the cheaper models, a Game Cube. We decided that it wasn't worth turning our kids into a social lepers, because of our high minded, intellectual beliefs. Well, the Game Cube isn't enough, because the boys all have the deluxe models and the portable games, too. Do we buy more video games, so that Jonah gains some hand in the social dance of elementary school?

It isn't only access to computer games that boys need for social status. There's sports, too. Yet another area that we're failing as parents. We don't watch sports at home. Steve doesn't toss a ball with the boys on the weekend. He would rather go for a hike with them or read books. I'll review the baseball scores, but I would rather sit in Yankee stadium than watch it on TV. Jonah isn't bad at sports; he got some good hits at Little League on Saturday. But the other kids at school play sports seven days a week. In second grade, the sporty kids play tackle football three days a week. They also attend traveling soccer games. The little girls are at cheerleader practice. The parents drive them around to their games and spend Saturdays in folding chairs on the sidelines. Sports are a big part of suburban culture. One mom said that a typical Saturday could involve a football practice, a game, and then a soccer game. I really don't want to do that.

So, how much do we turn our lives around to make our kid popular? If he really loved sports a lot, we would help him out. But he isn't begging for day long sports. He is begging for the computer games. We'll probably give in. Again. Yeah, parenting is easy.

Sunday Night Journal

Well, it's officially a sinus infection. I'm at that sweet spot in the illness when the antibiotics have kicked in, so my nose is no longer emiting green boogers, but I have that husky, Demi Moore voice thing going on. Maybe I should do a Podcast or one of those bloggingheads things tonight.

Spreadin' Love

Jimmy Kimmel grills the editor of Gawker for Gawker Stalker. Some of the best eye rolling that I've seen since 9th grade.

Question of the Day -- Who's Your Daddy?

This week. we finally learned the identity of little Dannielynn's real daddy. Yes, it was a huge relief.

I have to admit that I was on Team Stern, even though I knew the team was doomed. Birkhead wasn't offensive, but I felt sorry for the toady, Stern. He had been kissing Anna Nichole's ass for so many years. They clearly weren't really together, and she actually looked a little repulsed by him. But still, I hoped that the princess had kissed her toad.

Question of the DayWhich team were you on: Team Stern or Team Birkhead?

A Paper Assignment.

Like Lileks, I have a crushing cold.  And like Lileks, I  feel the need to write every day, even though my head is full of green and brown nastiness.  I blog, therefore I am.  So, let me tell you about the writing assignment I just gave my Intro students.

I teach two sections of Introduction to Political Science.  It fulfills a requirements for all students at the school, so I get a wide range of students in there.  The point of the class is to prepare the students who want to take more advanced class for the terminology and the subdivisions of the discipline.  The class also has to reach those communication and nursing majors, who have no plans to ever take another political science class. I want those kids to come out of the class with a basic understanding for how our system works, so they'll be able to enter that very small rank of people in this country who have a basic clue. 

I assigned a  short paper assignment last week.  They had to figure out who their representative was.  They had to write down three political issues that were important to them.  Then they had to formulate those interests into three questions, call the local office of their representative, and find out what his or her position was on the topic. 

I've done this assignment many times in the past.  It serves many different functions, but the most important function is that it empowers students.  It transforms them from politically passive to politically active.

The students handed in their papers today, and we talked about their experiences in the beginning of class.  A few of them had very positive experiences.  They found a knowledgeable staffer who explained the Representative's position on the War in Iraq, abortion, or gun control.  However, most of them had terrible experiences.  The staffer refused to answer the question and transferred them to the Washington office.  Then the Washington office gave them the run around, sent them back to the home office, where they were shuttled off to a website.

Outrageous. 

How can I get young people interested in politics, when they come face to face with incompetence and roadblocks?  How can anyone get excited about government when Congressmen refuse to let people know their positions on key issues?  Extreme disgust.

I've done this assignment many times over the years, but I have never had this many students receive the run around. I wonder if the Internet has made things worse.  Congressman can put up vagary up on their websites and says that it substitutes for knowledgeable staffers.  I'm going to write an essay about this for the Bergen Record with the names of the worst offenders.