Excellence Without Money

(Image Credit: Words by Moose; fabulously clever seal by Historiann, with help from the Official Seal Generator at Says-it.com.)

Game on, kids! Roxie's World and Historiann have joined forces to launch a movement aimed at saving higher education from the forces of evil and economic decline. Following up on Moose's reflections here the other day on the perilous budgetary situation facing public institutions, Historiann took our ball and ran with it, designing this eye-catching seal aimed at spreading the gospel of Excellence Without Money throughout our cash-starved land. We are humbled by her creative appropriation and invite all of you to join with us as we try to figure out how to survive in a period of plunging revenues and soaring workloads. Go read Historiann's excellent post on this subject, which is full of brilliant ideas for how institutions can go on pretending that the most severe budget cuts imaginable will have no impact whatsoever on the quality of the educational product. (Wouldn't want to give shoppers any reason to suspect they had wandered into an academic Target when they thought were going to Bloomingdale's, would we?) Make sure you check out the comments, too -- Historiann has a very smarty-pants group of readers, all of whom are welcome in Roxie's World any time.

So, we've got a slogan and we've got a symbol. By the logic of 21st-century capitalism, most of our work is done. All we need now is a marketing plan, but, really, what does that involve -- a Café Press account, a tech-savvy grad student with time on his hands and a homosexual's flair for design (qta -- Mama has a job for you!), and maybe a bored intern at The Chronicle of Higher Ed who stumbles across this crazy meme and decides to put it on The Chronicle's daily blog list?

Help us out, though, kids. Tell us what your schools are doing to advance the cause of Excellence Without Money. What are the rumors flying around your campus and the grim new realities that have already taken hold? Larger classes? Layoffs? Libraries Without Books, as Dog-Eared Book suggested here in comments the other day? What's the scariest thing you've seen or heard, and what is the most inspiring example you can offer of an administrator determined to maintain both integrity and true excellence in the face of enormous challenges? You know we're a glass half full kind of crowd around here. We laugh in the face of adversity, and we honor those who act creatively in the face of it. What can we say? It's a way we have of driving off the spleen. We're firm believers in hanging together rather than hanging separately, so come hang with us and we'll all muddle through somehow.

Special Note to Our Grad-Student Readers: We realize your anxieties right now are particularly acute. Let Roxie's World be your warm fuzzy friend in a time of trouble. Tell us what's on your minds, and we will look back at you with that gaze of total recognition and acceptance that only a dog can offer. I'm telling you, it's better than an on-campus interview at 5-Courses a Term/No Sabbaticals Ever College. Love you. Mean it!

Sykes to Watch Out For

Truth be told, we're feeling a little overwhelmed by our blogger's duty to compile gargantuan Best of/Worst of lists for 2008. Looking back, it seems we didn't pay attention to anything this year but the election. (Devoted readers may well agree with that assessment, but I guess you wouldn't be devoted readers if that bothered you, huh?) We only saw a handful of movies, and the moms saw fewer live performances than they usually do. (Even if they'd spent every night of the year rockin' out in some bar or concert hall, I'm betting they'd still rate the Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Raising Sand show they saw in June as the no doubt about it best live performance of the year. It was a stunning show -- sublime performances of the bluesy, soulful, rootsy songs that producer T Bone Burnett compiled for their collaboration, with a few amazing re-workings of selections from the singers' separate careers.)

Anyway, while we procrastinate on our solemn obligation to tell you what to think about everything that matters in the world, we are prepared to announce Roxie's World's Queer of the Year for 2008 (Grrl Division). (Stay tuned, pretty boys, for an announcement of the winner in the Non-Grrl Division. You may leave nominations in comments. No, Candy Man, you may not nominate anyone you are dating.) Our selection may disappoint some members of the Tough and Smart Grrls Caucus, who might have expected Rachel Maddow, aka Butch PhD, to win in this category in recognition of her breakthrough this year to something close to media superstardom, as she got her very own show in September on MSNBC. I know, I know, wimmin, it's disappointing, but before you get your boxer shorts in a wad, let me assure you that Rachel's accomplishment will be honored elsewhere on the hypothetical Best of list that our largely imaginary team of culture vultures and close readers is compiling somewhere deep in the bowels of RW Enterprises, LLC. We will celebrate Rachel, even though, to be honest, we think she's gone a little overboard with the make-up, the plunging necklines, and the reflexive defense of all things Obama. Cut back on the Kool-Aid, Rache, and wear a shirt with a collar every once in awhile. Trust me, large swaths of your audience will love you for it.

Nope, kids, the Queer of the Year for 2008 (Grrls Division) is comedian Wanda Sykes, who is no slouch when it comes to toughness and smartness either, of course.

(Photo Credit: Richard Hartog, Los Angeles Times)

We honor Sykes for years of edgy, brilliant, hilarious truth-telling but also for her decision to come out in November as a fierce, proud, married dyke in the wake of the passage of California's Prop 8. We might have wished Sykes had made the announcement before the election rather than after, but late is better than never and there's still (obviously) plenty of work to be done. If the defeat on Prop 8 is to become the catalyst for an angrier, more righteously determined movement for LGBT civil rights -- Stonewall 2.0, as it's been called -- it will be in part because people like Sykes realized they had to step into the fray. They couldn't go on being privately gay and publicly silent, not using the bully pulpit offered by their celebrity while citizen-fans voted their rights away.

In the week after the election, Sykes gave a stirring speech at an anti-Prop 8 rally in Las Vegas. (Go watch the vid if you haven't seen it already.) She followed up with a rather extraordinary conversation with Jay Leno this week on The Tonight Show. The clip is long, in part because it contains commercials, but we wanted you to be able to see the whole thing. Her appearance begins with a comic moment of non-appearance, as Leno waits for Sykes to come out on stage. When finally she emerges from behind the curtain, she explains that she was doing her part to honor Day Without a Gay, which had asked people to phone in gay on December 10 and devote themselves to work for LGBT rights instead. The bit was funny, and the ensuing conversation with Leno is masterful in its blend of humor, indignation, and confident visibility as political pedagogy. If the aftermath of Prop 8 is to be a teachable moment, Sykes is a strong candidate for teacher of the year as well.

Wanda, baby, sister/friend, you made all the girls (and probably a few of the boys) in Roxie's World wish they had detachable, um, privates a long time ago, but we'll never detach ourselves from our admiration for your moxie and your devastating wit. With all paws high in the air, we proudly declare you our Queer of the Year for 2008.

Now, children, honor your new queen by watching the Leno vid. Wanda would want you to:

Hard Times

Times are hard, you may have heard. Here in Roxie's World, where the primary wage-earners are state employees facing the prospect of furloughs in the next six months, we've had a series of increasingly frantic messages from our accounting firm (a now sad pair of number crunchers that we will call, let's see, not Dewey, Cheatem & Howe, but, um, TIAA & CREF) urging us to cut costs, increase efficiencies, and seize upon any available opportunity to make money. Right, guys -- Money-making is what we're all about here in the ad-free zone of Roxie's World.

Anyway, like other academics who got their holiday buzz killed by bad budget news this week, both moms sat in on a grim departmental committee meeting devoted to going over a list of cuts that might have to be made once the state lets Queer the Turtle U know how much of a hit it's going to have to take to get through fiscal 2009. And, please, don't even think about 2010.

Folks, we're real sorry to hear that the bailout for the auto industry has apparently fallen apart, but have you noticed that no one is even talking about a bailout for higher education? For years, public institutions like Queer the Turtle U have been stuck between the rock and the hard place of declining levels of state support and mounting pressure to keep tuition affordable. Caught in that vise, schools have fought to do more with less while scrambling to catch up to private institutions in the game of fundraising. That strategy worked reasonably well when times were good and the bubbles in stocks or real estate had a lot people feeling rich. Now? The party's over, public and private revenues have dried up, and schools are desperately trying to figure out how to cut costs without compromising the value of their brand (the ne plus ultra of higher ed under the consumer model).

Moose, who has a healthy respect for academic entrepreneurship, has a slogan for public institutions eager to prove that larger classes, smaller operating budgets, and reductions in advising and other forms of academic support are no threat whatsoever to the quality of education. She's been using the slogan informally all over campus at Queer the Turtle U this fall, but it hasn't been officially adopted yet, so, in the spirit of academic capitalism she has decided to auction it off here to one of my legions of loyal fans who works at some other cash-strapped public school. Listen up, Historiann! How 'bout it, Dog-Eared Book? the Shy One? Get in on the action, because this won't last long. Bidding opens now. Name your price in comments. All marketing suggestions (tee-shirts? coffee cups? backpacks?) welcome. Are you ready? Here is Moose's slogan for hard times in higher ed:

Excellence Without Money

Brilliant, don't you agree? Can't you just see it festooned on banners all over your campus, inspiring the young to scale the heights of pretending that everything is really just fine, no matter how many staff are laid off or how many searches are canceled or how many lines are cannibalized? Imagine the cool video your marketing department could produce, featuring a racially and ethnically mixed chorus line of smiling students dancing as fast as they can to a happy tune played by your school's marching band. Cue the tubas, kids! Let's show 'em what we're made of!

Meantime, here on the home front, we're considering a broad range of revenue enhancers to try to weather the storm of Great Depression 2.0. We realize we've been remiss in not seeking to capitalize on Roxie's World's strategic location near the epicenter of Obama Nation as the date of the coronation of the Precious approaches. That, I assure you, is about to change. Having no senate seat to auction off, we've decided to jump on the bandwagon and rent out space to the thundering hordes of Hopers and Changers preparing to converge on the national capital area around January 20. Why the heck not? Apparently, everybody else is doing it. We've already promised beds to three friends who will be in town for the occasion and actually plan to go, while we stay home and watch the festivities on teevee, having recently decided that inaugurations are like football: You see more of the action and are a whole lot more comfortable curled up on your couch than freezing your tush off in the not so great outdoors.

So, here's the deal. We figure we can sleep six more people in the house and maybe a hundred or so out in the ridiculously large back yard. We hadn't planned on renting out space there, but with word yesterday that camping will not be allowed on the national mall, we decided to make a play for the cash-poor granola-eating set insane enough to sleep outside in January. Take a look at our packages, and let us know what you'd like. Make your reservations in comments or by e-mailing me at roxieblog@gmail.com.

Bed Only:

Bed (shared) indoors, with bath privileges: $1500 @ night
Couch (shared) indoors, no bath privileges: $1200 @ night
Lawn space (no fires allowed), 1/2 bath: $800 @ night

Board Packages:

Pre-inaugural scrambled egg breakfast: $250
Eggs with Kraft cheese slices: $299
Eggs with Kraft cheese slices, coffee, and glass of Cold Duck: $499
Post-inaugural dance party and cold buffet: $899
Post-inaugural dance party and hot buffet, with Cold Duck: $1799

Transportation Packages:

Pickup/dropoff at National (no, we don't call it Reagan) Airport: $399
Pickup/dropoff at Takoma Metro (extra for early a.m. or late p.m. rides): $299

Discounts:

Students: none
Seniors: none
Disaffected Clintonistas: free drinks and an "Old Bitches for Hillary" tee-shirt, slightly worn

Yes, times are tough, kids, but if we all stick together, if we share the sacrifices and embrace the opportunities, we will get through our current challenges with our souls -- and, if we are lucky, our senses of humor -- in tact. Roxie's World is here for you, but as the bleeping governor of Illinois says, you've got to pay to play. So pay up, beloveds, and let's play on.

(Image credits: Seat for sale, via NYT; Rooms for rent, via PB)

Totally Gay Newsweek

(Marchers in a South African gay pride parade. Photo Credit: Nic Bothma/Corbis, by way of Newsweek.)

Newsweek seems to have taken a turn for the lavender. If you are not yet sick to death of the subject of same-sex marriage (but, please, how could you not be?), run over there and read Lisa Miller's cover story on how much more complicated the biblical view of marriage is than the fundamentalist caricature of "God didn't create Adam and Steve" would have one believe. Long story short: Most of the patriarchs of the Old Testament were polygamists, and the unmarried apostle Paul, chief architect of the New Testament's sexual morality, might actually have preferred the company of Adam and Steve, so it's fairly tricky to claim that the Bible is strictly committed to the one man/one woman model of "traditional" marriage. The article is already being denounced by the usual suspects, and it isn't likely to win a lot of converts or keep a lot of biblically inspired homophobes awake at night trying to counter the fine points of its theological arguments. Still, it's good to see a religious point of view more sympathetic to queers acknowledged in the mainstream media, which too often assume that Bibles are for banging and "religious" equals "homophobic."

While you're over at Newsweek, check out the results of a new poll purporting to show a post-Prop 8 surge in support for same-sex marriage. Moose realized she was officially sick of the subject and all public discussions of it when she ran across this line early in the (annoyingly triumphalist) story on the poll:

Americans continue to find civil unions for gays and lesbians more palatable than full-fledged marriage. Fifty-five percent of respondents favored legally sanctioned unions or partnerships, while only 39 percent supported marriage rights.

Moose for some reason became incensed at the words "more palatable than" and immediately fired off a message to a listserv on which the article had been posted declaring that she found caviar more palatable than poop on toast. She ended with this snarky salvo aimed at her fellow citizens: "As the good Rev. Wright said, 'God damn America.'" Perhaps now you see why Moose's writing privileges around here are so severely limited. I'm the dog, but she is the one on the leash. It's the only way to assure that Roxie's World remains the patriotic, family-friendly place my readers expect it to be.

Finally, because we don't want you to miss one single tidbit in the "gay is the new black" meme, we leave you with this vid, also from Newsweek, in which a number of queers weigh in on the aptness or inaptness of the black/gay analogy in arguments for civil rights. Especially helpful are the comments of Michael Crawford, who blogs at the Bilerico Project, on the problems of the analogy, one of which is that it erases individuals who are both black and gay. Go watch the vid. Y'all have been pretty quiet in comments here lately, but we're not giving up on the colloquium on history and the perils of analogy. It's exam season, kids. Study up, and weigh in:

Cover Stories

It's Friday evening, and my typist is hoping to get in a long overdue workout before settling in for drinks before a roaring fire at Ishmael's, the seedy yet cozy bar around the corner from the global headquarters of RW Enterprises, LLC, but we couldn't resist throwing up some provocative eye candy to get your weekend off to a pleasant start. As America's favorite dog blog devoted to politics, pop culture, and basketball, it is of course our solemn obligation to showcase the New Yorker cover that shows President-Elect Obama vetting candidates for the all-important position of First Dog. And, yes, this cover was done by the same artist, Barry Blitt, who did the infamous terrorist fist-bumping cover last summer.

You will no doubt have noticed that Roxie's World has kept silent on the sad news that the Obama administration clearly plans to continue the abominable War on Terriers. We are still trying to come to grips with the president-elect's unprovoked attack on Barbara Walters' cute little Havanese terrier, Cha Cha, whom Obama contemptuously dismissed as a "girly dog" when Walters proposed the hypoallergenic breed as a good candidate for the Obama family dog. We suspect the incoming president may harbor some kind of grudge against the terrier group because he is still bitter about not having earned the coveted endorsement of America's favorite dog blog devoted to politics, pop culture, and basketball, but we are sorry indeed that he feels a need to lash out in such a vindictive fashion. We plan to let the new secretary of state know that we hope she can prevail upon Obama to let bygones be bygones and, for dog's sake, end the War on Terriers!

Next up on the pile of magazines is this cover of the December 16 issue of The Advocate. We haven't gotten around to reading the story yet, but Melissa McEwan of Shakesville has, and she criticizes the framing of the piece (in a magazine catering to a disproportionately white audience) for seeming to appropriate the black civil rights movement while too breezily implying that the struggle for racial equality is finished. We think Liss is probably right, and we have noted before the problems of positing analogies between the struggles of different oppressed groups and of relying on a "march of progress" narrative to frame a history of civil rights. We want y'all to go read The Advocate story, though, as well as Liss's critique, and then come back here to talk about it. Does being careful about analogies mean we have to abandon them altogether? To avoid offending some African Americans, should queers (of every color, shape, and creed) never dare to invoke the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. -- even when his widow embraced the struggle for LGBT equality as a civil rights issue comparable to those for which her husband gave his life? These are complicated issues, we realize, and we have been relentless in our criticisms of LGBT advocacy groups for their failures to organize in communities of color and address the concerns of racial minorities, but we still feel the analogies can be strategically valuable and are not always unwarranted. What do you think?

Finally, because we think in threes, we offer up the cover of last week's New York Times Magazine. Again, we haven't read the article, because my typist has been trapped in the seasonal hell of post-Thanksgiving / pre-end of semester "good lord, what 17 things do I have to try to finish in the next 15 minutes?" Fortunately, Historiann read the story and blogged it with her usual mix of smarts and snark. Go read both of them, and come back here. The seminar on feminism, surrogacy, and the conundrums of privilege will convene as soon as the colloquium on history and the perils of analogy has concluded.

Drinks for everybody at Ishmael's as soon as the work -- and the workout -- are finished. Oh, who am I kidding? It's after 7 -- Belly up to the bar, kids. It's Friday night and high time we tied one on. Pour me a tall one, Peter Coffin, and bring a couple of orders of your delicious fried mozzarella sticks. My typist promises she'll go to the gym tomorrow, which is, as you well know, another day. Peace out.

Prop 8 -- The Musical

Roxie's World orders you to get up off the couch and go to the bathroom. Now.

Very good. Now, watch this vid. You will love us for making you watch it (and you'll be grateful for the empty bladder when Jack Black starts singing his Jesus song), even if you are one of the more than 800,000 people who have already seen it, including most of our Facebook friends. Can someone please explain to us why the homo mafia that supposedly runs Hollywood wasn't smart enough to get this on the air before ballots were cast on Prop 8? Do they not realize that America absolutely depends upon the gay community for verbal wit and precision chorus lines and would be happy to support our right to wed if only we would promise to continue supplying an endless stream of entertainment and elegance? Watch the vid, kids. We're sleepy.

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

A New Dawn

Substance Makes a Comeback:

(Senator Hillary Clinton and President-Elect Barack Obama leave the stage at a press conference in Chicago at which he announced she is his choice to be secretary of state. Photo Credit: Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, via New York Times, 12/1/08)

Style Takes a Backseat:

(The North Portico of the White House festooned with a red ribbon for World AIDS Day. Photo Credit: Jason Reed/Reuters, via New York Times, 12/1/08)

Transcript of the press conference announcing Obama's national security team, in which he declared "a new dawn of American leadership," is here. Chris Cillizza's short but smart take on why Obama would have offered Clinton the job and she would have accepted it is here.

Roxie's World officially celebrates President-Elect Obama's choice and hereby orders all Clinton haters on the left to shut the hell up. Time for a new meme, people. Bitch is going global. Paws up to that!