October Revolution Redux

Buttons donned proudly by faculty, students and staff can only mean one thing, that the labour dispute within the walls of Brock University has officially reached critical mass. As I walked to the room where I teach, and then to my office in the history department, all I could think was, “That didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would”. Our department’s secretary explained to me that eighty-eight percent of the faculty who voted yesterday, October 25, 2006, cast a ballot in favor of striking. Although it will be another six weeks before they can walk off the job, the wheels have been set in motion. Something similar happened when I attended Brock as an Undergraduate. The union blustered, the administration retaliated with bravado and at the eleventh hour a resolution was reached. Life returned to normal. Two years later, the same thing happened again. This time, it was the teaching assistants that were touting Marxist slogans in the name of wage adjustments in line with other Ontario universities. Debates and protests among students and staff had only once prior reached such a high water mark during my tenure; the time that Stockwell Day was invited by the administration to give a campaign speech. I doubt that I shall ever see so many Libertarians protecting my rights to marry a chicken against so called ‘fascists’ ever again. But, I digress. The Brock administration took a page from Chamberlain’s lexicon and played appeasement. Teaching Assistants won the day. Presently, it seems that the administration is on war footing, unwilling to budge an inch in their rejection of the faculty’s demands. From what people on both sides of the dispute have explained to me, the crux of the problem is that part and full time instructors are working on year by year contracts without any sense of job security. They can be replaced on a whim by an assistant professor despite, in some cases, years of service to the university. While the administration seems to find nothing wrong with this policy, the union views this as an egregious injustice. Amidst the cat and mouse game of negotiations, there has been much talk about what is fair and unfair when it comes to hiring practices. Fair and unfair: An interesting choice of adjectives for this situation. One of the first lessons I learned within the walls of academia is that naïve notions of what is equitable and just must be modified if not abandoned. As some professors bluntly put it, university is not a fair place. No matter how apt and erudite a person perceives himself to be, there is always another that puts in half the effort and gets twice the grades. It is, in fact, a sense of scholarly Darwinism rules the campus. Those that are best fit to adapt to the nature of university are those that flourish within its often cold and lonely embrace. My particular field, the social sciences, finds success dependent upon the qualitative assessment of professors and teaching assistants. Appeals are slow and bear meager fruits such that only the most resolute of malcontents follow them through to conclusion. Pleas for tolerance and mercy often fall on deaf ears and acerbic comments such as, “If you don’t like it then find a job in the food service industry”. In an institution where fairness is marginalized, it is a high irony that unions invoke it in negotiations with administration. Before class began today, a student of mine brought up the impending strike and her thoughts on labour inequity. She mentioned how many of her instructors in the Classical Studies department are contract instructors, not assistant professors. This piqued my interest. I was further told that many of these instructors hold a Ph.D. As a person presently working on my Ph.D. applications, I am fully aware of the limited career opportunities that accompany those letters when they are newly awarded. Until an academic publishes, their career opportunities are often limited to lecturer positions. Sometimes, if the gods smile, an assistant professorship can be obtained but never with tenure. So if there really are Ph.D. holding instructors, who after ten years have not yet successfully obtained a professorship from Brock University I am left to wonder if there is not, in fact, something wrong with them? Have they not published, either in journals or their own books? Is the quality of their teaching so poor that the administration won’t reward them with a better academic position? And more importantly, why have they not courted other universities? It’s no secret that Brock’s reputation, not to mention coin purse, is nowhere near as deep as other schools in the province. Am I to believe that there is a legion of Ph.D. holding instructors that have published above and beyond the call of duty, received excellent reviews from their students, attended more than one university in their life (See, triple play of Bachelors, Masters and Doctoral work all at the same school. See also, shooting oneself in the foot) and committed no misconducts that would result in a blackball at Brock and the administration refuses to grant professorships to them? It seems an unlikely situation. If the unlikely turned out to be truth, my advice would be to polish up your Curriculum Vitae and start applying to other institutions, not a strike.

Perhaps though, I judge too harshly. Often times, the portrayal of labour activists in the media results in a dismissal, either on a conscious or subconscious level, of legitimate grievances by the masses. Those that strike within a teaching environment rarely find public opinion on their side because it is commonly accepted that teaching is a trust where you put the education of your charges before yourself. But the university is an unfair place. In that light, we often remind our students that being there is not enough, you have to produce something. If injustices are being done to honest and true academics then simper fides, but you should know the game well enough to find another school. For the rest, I think thou doth protest too much. Write a paper, write a book or reap the rewards of doing all your education at the same school.

A Call to Arms

Friends, Citizens and Country folk of the Copyright AD Fiefdom, As your benevolent Duke, I ask very little of you. I am satisfied in tasking you all to keep an open mind to the wonders that surround us, to think a thought for nothing more than the value of thinking itself and to never dismiss a critical mind as a mark of weakness. But today, I call you to war. With the assistance of one of Fiefdom's citizens, we have tracked down a distributor of the "Genuine White Boy" clothing. While I do not suggest returning hate for hate, I strongly advise all of you to email and snail mail this company demanding they cease their activities. Additionally, I call upon you to make your disgust known with your Member of Parliament such that a nation wide embargo can be placed against this company and their ghastly and sordid t-shirts. Here is their website: http://www.ssenterprises.com/covrpage.html Here is their mailing address: CINDY FIDDELKE PO BOX 5436 FRESNO, CA. 93755 LONG LIVE THE FIGHTERS

I Like To Watch

My apologies for all those who were expecting the Copyright Adam Durrant quarter century in review. By the time I had finished 1987, the post was more than three thousand words long and I had only managed to talk about was Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Buck Rogers and fast food. How did I write eight hundred words on Buck Rogers? Well, most of it was a rant against Glen Larson and his overuse of Mormon theology that boarded on L. Ron Hubbard’s subtle infusion of pre-Dianetics Scientology theory into Battlefield Earth. The discourse really broke down into my crying over a highball of Jack Daniels as I found out that my literary hero, Robert Heinlien, praised Battlefield Earth as “A terrific story”. Say it isn’t so Mr. Heinlien, say it isn’t so! And now for something completely different. I recently found myself at the Fallsview casino and resort. There is nothing exciting or thrilling about the casino. Anybody that tries to tell you otherwise should be shot for telling such a heinous lie. Having been to Vegas, I find Niagara Falls to be rather underwhelming when it comes to “dealing excitement”. No free beers, no faux opulence, and no illegal Mexicans flicking prostitute trading cards at you (Gotta catch em’ all). Any halfwit that’s seen an episode of C.S.I. can tell you that Vegas makes Niagara Falls look like Pennsylvania Dutch country. So unless you have more money than brains what is there to do at this particular gaming establishment? If you’re like me, then the answer is simple: Make quiet commentary to your friends about the manic behavior of people with more money than brains. Case in point; Ray at the twenty dollar a spin slot machines. At the time, I didn’t know who Ray was, or why sat at that machine. All I did was watch him from five meters away, letting his story unfold before me. When I first found Ray he had ten credits in a slot machine where each credit represented ten dollars. Ray wagered two credits with each spin of the reels. In thirty seconds I saw him push the button four times. Eighty dollars passed on to the master coin bank and the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Association. The stoop in his posture betrays his middle age as Ray pressed the button again, trying to forget about his boring job as a shipping clerk On the last two credits he had in the machine Ray lined up three sevens. Barely aware of his triumph, Ray’s eyes ever so briefly darted to the reels before returning to the credit count. Little red diodes in the bowels of the machine respond to a rudimentary computer program, showing one hundred credits now at his disposal. One thousand dollars, it was enough money that Ray didn’t need to worry about the mortgage payment for this month and would still have enough leftover to buy his wife dinner at the Brazilian steak house around the corner. At least, he would if his wife hadn’t divorced him and taken the house. But Ray, is far from done. What’s a thousand dollars when, if it is your night, you can win a hundred fold that amount? Besides, it’s not his money anymore. Ray has all the angles covered now. Fifty more spins and none of it will cost him anything. Tonight has to be his night, the day when he finally gets what is coming to him. Everything that has happened to him over the last three months was all leading up to ‘Ray Day’. ‘Ray Day’: Where the equation that is his life gets balanced. There’s no need to gaze aside to the spinning sevens and cherries. All Ray has to do is bide his time. Soon the light above him will flash. He’s a good guy, he deserves to win. Or so Ray keeps telling himself with every other spin. Temporarily, I parted Ray’s company as the desire to explore overwhelmed my voyeurism. It was a Tuesday night, which translated to my being able to go to places that people like myself don’t usually get to see. Nobody questioned me as I strolled through the part of the casino where only people with six figure lines of credit get to gamble. Even as I put my feet up in the Platinum lounge Big Brother’s security minions had better people to scrutinize, leaving me free to bask in the presence of twenty dollar martinis. There was no reason dwell in the lounge. I knew, just as the people gambling one hundred dollars per hand of blackjack knew, that I did not belong. The excitement was in getting into a place not permitted unto me and then leaving of my own accord, not at the hands of a steroid addled security guard. It had only been five minutes since I left Ray and his thousand dollars. Turning my attention to his score counter, I saw that he was down to fourteen credits. In the time that it had taken me to charge and then retreat from the lair of my social betters, Ray had given the casino back nearly all of its money. Where was ‘Ray Day’? What had he done while I was gone to so forsake the gods? The stoic expression and lifeless eyes stared into the credit counter and I knew something raged within Ray. More than anything he must have wanted to rip the machine from the wall and tear its circuits out with his bare hands. Each push of the button was a desperate stab at the unholy heart of the reels. Until, he won another twelve hundred dollars. Maybe it was ‘Ray Day’. After all, he’s a good guy, he deserves to win. I didn’t stay to watch the rest of the show. Compared to what I measure a rational person as, a case could easily be made for Ray having a gambling problem. Although, I think people who play the lottery hoping for some Deus Ex Machina to turn their lives around have a gambling problem of a different sort, so I might not be the best person to judge. Psycho-socio arguments on neurotransmitter imbalance leading to predispositions for manic behavior aside, Ray seems like one of those people that simply did not know when to quit while he was ahead. He probably is a nice guy that is deserving of a ‘Ray Day’. But, to turn to a slot machine, and like an automaton feed it bills until the lights flash seems like a pathetic cry for validation. Gambling, if practiced with a modicum of common sense – a commodity that I have determined to be in short supply on this planet - is harmless. Once it becomes a hunt for something more than 30 seconds of cheep thrills its time to step back because you’re looking for something more than what the machine can give you.

Das Boot in the Mouth

Movie night: Is it possibly the greatest night that has ever come to pass? Methinks the answer is yes. From the popcorn romantic comedy starring generic white actor #1138 and generic white actress #451, to the indie art picture so laden with nuance and subtext that it demands of its viewers doctoral degrees in both political science and metaphysics, North Americans love their movies. Do we simply want to be entertained? Or do people find something more intrinsic about an evening out watching a talkie? Arguably, movies have always been a communal experience. Everybody seated in the theatre has at least one thing in common, they wanted to see that movie and were willing to exchange the fruits of their labour, money, to sit in the dark for ninety minutes to four hours. In a world where individualism is its own means to an end – a global community where people struggle to stand out from the masses and not simply be a product of institutional entanglement vis a vis university student numbers, a drone in a large corporation or any number of modern environments that reduce the individual to a kilobyte of information in a spreadsheet, it strikes me as interesting that so many of us choose to sit around in the dark with strangers on such a regular basis. Furthermore, not withstanding irreverent teens, we all abide by a set of unspoken rules while watching the film. Courtesy, communalism and a life affirming plot on screen, what more could a person ask of a night out on the town? Last Friday night I stood in line waiting to pay for over priced popcorn contemplating this very notion. Then I saw a Nazi. No, I am not talking about a poster featuring Mel Gibson and his upcoming movie that will no doubt beat me over the head with his moralistic sermonizing approach to cinematography. In truth, I am fairly certain that this gentleman was not an actual member of the National Socialist party. However, his dress clearly indicated that he venerated a certain organization; let’s call them the SS-Waffen for argument’s sake. Adorned with a red shirt upon which the words “Genuine White Boy” were embossed above the SS lightening bolts, this individual proudly ordered an extra large fountain drink. Still not sure what an SS lightening bolt is? Then here is a picture for you. The arms and back of this gentleman’s shirt also bore the above iconography and repeated the "Genuine White Boy" title. While I have little doubt over my own perceptive capabilities, I pointed out the shirt to a friend of mine who was also horrified to think that somebody would actually wear something like that in public. After I got home that night, I googled “Genuine White Boy” and various permutations there of, in an attempt to find the clothing manufacture that would have the chutzpah to sell something like that. Granted it was not an extensive search, but I could not track down the culprit. In telling this story to others, somebody suggested that it might have been a skater line of clothing. I restrained the urge to throttle said party, settling, instead, for a stern glance of contempt. While I don’t claim to be an expert on skateboarding, I’m relatively certain that the accepted skater norms of flouting the establishment and their “no skateboarding” signs does not extend to passive endorsements of fascism. Hopefully the guy wearing the shirt, probably a member of the same dinner club as Prince Harry, does not really comprehend how ignorant he is truly being. On the other hand he might be a Jew hating, Hitler loving Aryan youth counting down the days until hate and intolerance assert a chokehold over the world – spare me any commentary on “America is already like that man, open your eyes.” No it isn’t, go read a book you hippie. Hate for the sake of hate. That was the modus vivendi for Germany under Nazi rule. Sixty years later it seems that we have come to terms with the legacy of fascism enough that clothing can now be sold to the ignorant such that they can proudly wear about the town square. If that’s the case, and taking inflation into consideration, then the Copyright Adam Durrant line of “Go Saddam Go” t-shirts should be in stores by Christmas. Irreverence aside, the message this shirt conveys is one of fascism being trendy and hip and that, my friends, is simply something I will not stand for. I might not have had it in me that night to go up to that guy and punch him in the face, or tell him off for his ignorance – considering he was six feet tall and look like an angry Manchester United hooligan I stand behind my decision – but at least I can make my thoughts known in this forum.

Shanghai Moon

As a species, we have never really had any good motivations to go into space. Despite the altruistic humanism of John F. Kennedy’s support of the Apollo program, which in reality represents the high watermark of human achievement in space, the only reason we went to the moon in 1969 was because the Reds beat America to the punch on every other astronomical first. Lunar naysayers and conspiracy aficionados need not respond with accusations of a Hollywood fraud, nobody is listening. The perceived neutering of communist Russia made manifest by the slide rulers and pocket protectors of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, dulled the blades of American interplanetary cultural imperialism. Since Apollo seventeen, the last time man set foot on the moon, American space exploration has been uneventful. Fourteen astronauts have died and their noble sacrifices have been for what? To build the world’s largest orbiting Lego toy? Resting on the laurels of the Apollo program, America, Russia, the European Union and China have really just exploited space as a means to further telecommunications and espionage. Taking a page from the Viking attitude toward North America, we know space is there, we have seen it, and as a people we seem mostly content to leave it alone. Without any group or nation setting a moral benchmark to the great beyond, and the very real fact that we can barely manage earthbound affairs, outer space is in danger of becoming nothing more than another grounds for economic exploitation. Said exploitation, in its newest iteration, comes through Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson, dyslexic turned billionaire eccentric media mogul. Apparently being worth billions of dollars is now a knightly virtue. Branson, through his company Virgin Galactic, has planned to turn space into a tourist attraction beginning in 2008. For only a quarter of a million dollars you too can train in the Virgin Galactic spaceport and then strap into a commercial rocket for the most fun you can have clothed. Guffaws about joining the thermosphere high club aside, does anybody else not see the inherent wrong in this? Perhaps I am still somewhat moved by John Kennedy and his thoughts that space exploration and technology require man to give it a conscious and make it a force for the greater good. Some small shred of my soul that has not otherwise become filled with the malaise of 21st century North America, still believes that there is knowledge out there that is meant for all people. Now the door is open to anybody with six figures of disposable income and a desire for a cheep thrill. My nightmare ensues: Reporter: “Miss Hilton, Miss Hilton, what was it like going into space?” Paris Hilton: “Yeah space…its really empty and I think it would be really hot to have sex without gravity because you know gravity holds us all down and we should all be free without gravity” Reporter: “Tom Cruise how did you feel about your time in space?” Tom Cruise: “I felt a fear that the intergalactic Lord Xenu would detect my presence and come get me in his space plane. NO PICTURES OF MY BABY!” As much as we should consider that actors in space seems like a preamble to the apocalypse, there is a greater issue at hand. Since the Ansari X-Prize, an international contest to develop a reusable space vehicle, was won in October of 2004 it will have only taken four years for commercial space flight to become a reality. Virgin Galactic’s pimped out ride, the SpaceShipTwo, is, in fact, a direct descendent of the X-Prize winning SpaceShipOne. Assuming that Virgin Galactic launches on time and as projected, one is left to ask a simple question, what’s next? From Mercury 3 to Apollo 11 it only took NASA eight years to go from sub orbital fights to landing on the moon. If Branson has as much business interest in space as NASA had impetus to beat the Ruskies then we could potentially see a Virgin Galactic mission to the moon by 2012. For the record, G.W. Bush has promised that Americans will return to the moon no later than 2014. While the American’s planted a few flags on Lunar soil, it was always in the spirit of, “for all mankind”. What if, like a swaggering Spaniard of the fifteenth century, Richard Branson, or an appropriate proxy, goes to the moon and plants a flag claming the moon as an acquisition of Virgin Galactic and its shareholders? Is it really that unrealistic to expect? Space exploration requires more of a conscience than business, by its nature, can possess. Business is driven by bottom line day by day profits. Do we really want monopolies and economic competition defining our ventures into outer space? I don’t suggest that governments have any more of a moral compass than Virgin Galactic would, let’s be honest, the only way you could get America back to the moon in a hurry would be if Osama Bin Laden filmed a video from the Sea of Tranquility. So in the final assessment who is to say what would be worse, Richard Branson presents “The Moon” featuring Blue Man Group or American space marines leading a coalition of the willing to liberate the moon from the evil freedom haters that have oppressed it for so long? Should we really be forced to chose between these two options? Does it really ask too much of this cynical world to harkon back to the ideology of the past, even if it was an excuse for cultural imperialism, and have people believe that somethings are worth doing for intangible reasons? Becasue if nobody is willing to belive that there is a greater good that is worth the investment, then perhaps we should just let Branson conquer space.