Photo of the Day

(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

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

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

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

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

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'

A few days ago in this space, we asked,

• What would effective advocacy for higher education look and sound like?
• From where or whom should it come?

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'.