Excellence Without Money: The Movie

Raise your hand if you had figured Excellence Without Money (™RW Enterprises, LLC) would be the title of our second contribution to the Disgruntled Academic Animated Short Film Festival that has been going on in the blogosphere lately. Good for you, darlings. You know us well, and you have been paying very close attention, as always.

Well, here it is, just in time for your weekend movie-watching pleasure. In this followup to our debut flick, "I Want to be Promoted," Professor Louise Sawyer (who, as we told you before, is entirely fictional) sits down with her (also 100% imaginary) dean to discuss the budget for the (nonexistent) program Professor Sawyer directs. Sparks fly as the two women debate the relationship between resources and (insert groaning sound here) excellence.

Moose is so fond of our latest cinematic masterpiece that she is considering taking it to La La Land for the MLA Convention in January, where she will be presenting on a roundtable (that will include our blog boyfriend Chris Newfield and MLA Exec Direc Rosemary Feal!) called "New Tools, Hard Times: Social Networking and the Academic Crisis." The session is part of a series of panels and workshops on the timely theme of "The Academy in Hard Times." What do you think, kids: PowerPoint or snarky cartoon? Snarky cartoon or PowerPoint? Leave your votes in comments, please.

Oh, and lest there be any confusion: Our film is in no way intended as a response to this peculiar little video that was flying around the campus of QTU this week at the behest of an extremely high-ranking administrator. Nope, not no way, not no how. Far be it from us to try to figure out whether building a car is anything at all like running a university or whether the color beige is the universal signifier of the opposite of excellence. No, my darlings, such conundrums are way beyond our (furlough-depressed) pay grade. Just watch the movie. Send it to your favorite adjunct or, if you dare, your favorite dean. Feel free to pass it along with our motto: Serious times call for unserious responses. Or, pass it along with this handy little phrase, Excellentia sine pecunia. That's "Excellence Without Money" in Latin, of course. Big wigs just love fancy-sounding foreign phrases, especially in dead languages!

Have a lovely weekend, my pretties, and enjoy the show. The soundtrack for this one? I'm thinking it's gotta be R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)." That sound about right to you? Yeah, I thought so. Peace out.

"I am an Eater of Chips"

Dear Mr. President,

Next time you sit down with a comedian, you might want to click on this vid a few times beforehand, just to see how it's done. Yep, this gal's got some serious comic chops, Mr. President. She can sit down with a couple of Aussie snark wizards, crack 'em up with some dead-pan looks and a couple of well-timed jokes about potato chips, and probably still create world peace by dinner time. Meantime, you are -- Oh, well, never mind, sir. We know you've had a rough couple of weeks. Everybody deserves to get out of town every now and again. Anyway, that SOS of yours -- Heck, Mr. President, she's so funny we're thinking of trying to snag her for our next Intertoob cartoon sensation. We think she'd be a huge hit with our core audience of hormonally unbalanced feminazis. Would you, um, let her know we'd like to talk to her? I mean, you know, if you happen to run into her somewhere in your travels. Tell her that we, too, are eaters of chips. Big time, as a former vice president used to say.

Anyway, sir, click on the vid. You'll be glad you did. Honor bright. Oh, and if you'd like a little insight into the incredible meltdown of your presidency, click on over to our old pal Anglachel, who is suddenly blogging up a storm again, mostly upon that very subject. You may not like what you read there, but, well, the truth, like election results, may hurt sometimes. We still think it's worth knowing. Dogspeed, Mr. President. We wish you all the best.

Yours sincerely,
Roxie

I Want to be Promoted

Blame it on Tenured Radical. She jumped onto the Xtranormal bandwagon earlier this week with a side-splitting text-to-movie cartoon about a tenured professor demanding a raise from a priggish, tight-fisted department chair. Her directorial debut followed on the heels of the brilliantly sardonic tale of a naive yet determined undergraduate seeking a letter of recommendation from a jaded professor, "So, You Want to Get a PhD in the Humanities." Finally, at the end of the week, thanks to Facebook, we stumbled across a masterful bit of dreamwork, "One Professor's Fantasy," which finally answers the question, "What would you say to slacker students if you were supremely clever and didn't give a rat's hind end about what might happen if you said what you were actually thinking?"

We're thinking it's just a matter of time before the Academy Awards adds a new category, "Animated Short Films by Disgruntled Academics." That's why my typist spent most of this week -- when she wasn't teaching, presenting a paper, preparing for a dissertation defense, or conceding defeat in her campaign to become governor of Maryland -- working up Roxie's World's first foray into video blogging. Hey, she set up a YouTube channel for us and everything! Our debut film is a heart-breaking work of staggering silliness also focused on life after tenure in the age of Excellence Without Money (™RW Enterprises, LLC).

Couple o' things you need to know before you gather 'round the laptop for your first viewing of "I Want to be Promoted":

1. The soundtrack for the film would, of course, be this song, which has been banging around in Moose's head for the entire week as she fiddled with Xtranormal's not especially user-friendly interface. Please click on that link so that the song will move out of her head and into yours. Please. Give a working girl a break, will ya?

2. The film is a work of fiction. Totes. Swear to dog. It depicts a conversation that never took place between two people who do not exist, though the clever might detect an allusion or two to this also fictional work. That means the Huck Finn rule applies:

PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

Interpret at your own risk.

3. Despite being a work of the imagination, the film makes reference to certain true facts of academic life, most notably that standards for tenure and promotion have changed significantly over time and vary widely from institution to institution. As for the claim that as late as 1969 a third of American professors did not have PhDs, we ran across it in Louis Menand's The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University. Page 121.

OK, kids. It's time to press play! Be kind in your reviews, and then run on over to Xtranormal and get in on the action yourself. Ballots for next year's Oscar noms go out December 27! See you on the red carpet, darlings. It's never too late to become a star, is it? Is it?

Election Day 2010

Good morning, citizens! It's Election Day! Time to get our sorry a$$es out the door and party like it's, um, oh, you know, 1994! Raise your hand if you are old enough to remember that long, strange night. If your hand is up, tell us if you think it's worse to have been pretty much in the dark about what was coming in 1994 or to have been beaten over the head for months and months with confident predictions about the size, scale, and nature of the bloodbath, as has been the case this time. Tough call, isn't it? Me, I don't know, I'm thinking a little more ignorance might have been a lot more blissful, but, hey, it ain't over till the votes have been counted, right? Right?

Get out there and do your duty, and remember: If you are a Maryland state employee bitter about furloughs and underfunded pension obligations, you can write in Moose for governor. She's running on a platform of no more furloughs, legal (and taxable) marijuana, and an end to state-sponsored marriage for everybody.

Moose: Responsible Radicalism for Ridiculous Times

Speaking of responsible, Moose has to vote and teach today, so she can't sit around typing for me all day. Spend a couple of minutes watching this odd slideshow WaPo did on how "ordinary voters" are feeling about government on the brink of the election. The first voter featured has her hands on her cheeks in a gesture reminiscent of Edvard Munch's The Scream and describes the government as "freedom-robbing." Which made us want to, you know, scream. Anyhoo, kids, have a great day and remember: We survived impeachment over a blow job. We survived the stealing of an election. We have survived -- so far -- nine seasons of American Idol. I feel confident we can endure whatever the results of today's election might bring. Yep, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Peace out.

Rally to Restore Sanity/Fear

Or, Irony in Defense of Liberty Is No Vice

Uh, really? You sure about that? You'd think the committed ironists of Roxie's World would be on board with the above proposition, which was impressively affirmed on the National Mall yesterday at the joint rally staged by Comedy Central fake news geniuses Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

For darn near five years, after all, this blog has offered up a steady diet of parody, irony, and satire as ways of criticizing and coping with the social and political madnesses of our civilization [sic]. We believe with all our hearts that hypocrites in high places deserve the calling to account Stewart delivers night after night on his show. We believe that comedy is a supremely effective means of truth-telling and that humor is essential to the health of the body politic in a democracy. (For more on this subject, see this illuminating 2008 conversation between Moose and the patron saint of irony in Roxie's World, Mark Twain.) We are also hip enough to get that media critique and signs mocking the tradition of carrying signs ("Americans for . . . oh look! A puppy!") are politically potent gestures. And we are not worried that the 200,000+ citizens gathered on the Mall the Saturday before election day should have been out knocking on doors or calling up registered voters to urge them to get their sorry a$$es to the polls come Tuesday. Such calls are mostly automated these days, and nobody answers their doors to anyone who shows up on the doorstep with a Bible or a clipboard in hand anyway.

So, why did the moms walk away from the Rally to Restore Sanity/Fear with a feeling roughly similar to the message on this sign?

It's hard to say, really. The moms don't usually do indifference. It could be their reactions to the rally were impaired by the struggle required to get there. They didn't reach the Mall until nearly 2 PM, in part because Moose insisted that her personal restoration of sanity required her to attend her Saturday morning yoga class before heading downtown and in part because Washington's Metro system was overwhelmed by the crowds trying to get to the rally. (The crowds were sizable, yes, but the real problem was that Metro didn't have enough trains running and stuck to a schedule of weekend maintenance that meant north- and south-bound trains were sharing a single track in some of the busiest parts of the system.) Once they got there, the audio was so bad it was hard to know what you were hearing (Hey, um, is that Tony Bennett? Wow, yeah, OK, Tony Bennett!), and the crowd was packed in so tight it was hard to see anything but the jacket of the person in front of you.

As veteran march and rally attenders, the moms were prepared for that special sardines-in-a-can feeling you get at big public events in relatively small spaces, but in this case they couldn't shake the feeling that the crowd was all there was to the event. From where they stood, it felt like the political equivalent of Seinfeld, a show famously described as being "about nothing." The signs participants carried were, as coverage has noted, all over the map and frequently off the wall. The most consistent political message the moms noted was support for legalizing marijuana. We are down with that idea, kids, but its prominence at the Rally for Sanity left the impression that the politics of the event, such as they were, were a hollow libertarianism that strikes us as inadequate to the urgencies of the present. It's impressive that Stewart and Colbert were able to draw such an enormous crowd to the nation's most sacred political/civic space, but to us it was sad that participants were asked to do so little once they got there. "Don't litter," Stewart repeatedly implored the crowd. Cute, Jon. Would it have killed you to tuck in a mild suggestion that folks get their sorry a$$es to the polls come Tuesday? Apparently, it would have. In remarks after the rally, Stewart rejected the idea that he should have done that, saying, "I think people should do what moves them. It's not my place to make that choice for them." Indeed, his closing words to the attendees suggest that, even in Stewart's mind, the crowd really was the point: "If you want to know why I’m here and [what] I want from you, I can only assure you this: you have already given it to me. Your presence was what I wanted" (emphasis added).

Media prof Jeff Jarvis seems to have had a better experience on the ground than the moms did, and his commentary (H/T Dog-Eared Book) offers a more optimistic takeaway than we can offer here. Jarvis is right to call out coverage of the event that dismisses it as mere entertainment. It wasn't that, but as a political action it was pretty underwhelming, even if we appreciate it as a mass act of media criticism, which we do. We saw lots of signs lambasting Fox News and other purveyors of disinformation and a few, like the one below, criticizing new media tools we habitually use:

We paid tribute recently to candlelight vigils, video campaigns, and other political gestures that may not change the world but perform the vital function of creating opportunities for people to demonstrate their determination to be kind rather than unkind. Perhaps the Rally to Restore Sanity/Fear was for those who organized it and many who attended it an event of that sort. For us, it felt unsatisfying to stand on that ground, where countless citizens, ourselves included, have stood over the years for great causes and high stakes, and to feel purposeless. Called to nothing, we groused that our cell phones couldn't find a signal that would have enabled us to call others. When the rally was over, we wandered off to the National Museum of American Art and killed time in the Norman Rockwell exhibit, chuckling mildly over the contrast between the goofy ironies of the spectacle we had witnessed on the street and the utter lack of irony in the paintings on the wall. En route, Moose snapped a last shot of the thinning crowd ambling past the National Archives. It seemed fitting to her that the people in the picture are out of focus. Alas.

Peace out, fellow citizens, and a Happy Halloween to you. And please do get your sorry a$$es to the polls come Tuesday. This morning, over coffee, Goose slammed down the Times and muttered with disgust, "Idiot voters and hapless Democrats." The remark captured the state of the nation on the precipice of this election more clearly than the thousands of words of prognostication Moose read in the WaPo over on her side of the breakfast table. Idiot voters and hapless Democrats: That's where we are, but is it where we have to be, darlings? You tell us. Please.

(Photo Credits: Moose, 10/30/10.)

Days Like This

Rather than apologizing for yet another prolonged blog silence, we'll post a picture of a cute little lion cub at the National Zoo being tossed into the chilly water of a moat to see if it can swim before it is too big and dangerous for a human trainer to be in the water with it. You may regard this photo, which was above the fold on the front page of the dead-tree edition of today's WaPo, as an apt metaphor for -- take your pick -- the state of the moms at midterm, the state of the Dems at midterm, or the state of your own frantic self paddling around in a chilly moat of student papers and meetings and assorted impossible expectations. The cub has no name yet. Feel free to call him by yours.

(Photo Credit: Karen Bleier, Agence France Presse, via.)

Welcome to the world, little fella. Sink or swim. Suck it up, dude, but try not to suck in a mouthful of dead leaves in the process. That would be unpleasant.

Meanwhile, in lieu of a post, which would require brain power that isn't currently available, here are a couple of updates and delectable treats from the Intertoobs and other places:

• The write-in campaign to make Moose governor of Maryland, launched here last week by one of our very prettiest readers, has taken off like a shot! Sister blogger Clio Bluestocking, who actually resides in the state, promised her vote via the Twitters, while Tenured Radical generously promoted the campaign over at her place. Meanwhile, on Facebook, we've been flattered to note the spontaneous emergence of an Out-of-State Straight Guys for Moose caucus, headed up by a much loved pal and new blogger, the author of Benglish, who has vowed to ride naked through the streets of Philadelphia if Moose prevails. Latest polls show that Gov. Martin "You, Sir, Are No Jack Kennedy" O'Malley has widened his already impressive lead over former Gov. Bob "Big Hair" Ehrlich. O'Malley is now 14 points ahead among likely voters, as even the state's registered Republicans -- yes, both of them -- seem to have lost confidence that their guy can prevail. That means, of course, that state employees angry that the fauxgressive O'Malley decided to balance the budget on their backs, through salary freezes and furloughs, rather than through more broadly distributed fiscal sacrifices can feel free to vote their consciences -- by writing in Moose! -- without worrying that they'll run the risk of putting Ehrlich back in the governor's mansion. Need help writing in Moose's actual name? See the photo on this post.
• Speaking of anger, frustration, and revenge, don't miss the amazing cluster of posts on rising dissatisfaction with stagnant academic salaries and non-stagnant workloads being produced this week by some of our bestest blog pals. Tenured Radical got the ball rolling on Monday; Historiann picked it up on Tuesday, prompting a followup from TR on the importance of organizing in order to combat the neoliberal policies that are destroying higher ed; Dr. Crazy gets in on the action today with a post that ends with a passionate call for leadership and vision on funding and the value of higher education. It's a great conversation to which we have little to contribute at the moment, beyond saying that we think this gal has some awesome thoughts on precisely the issues Dr. Crazy raises. Just sayin'.
• Finally, as a follow-up to our optimistic assertion a couple of weeks ago that blogs come and go but blogging will abide for a good long while yet, we are pleased to announce the birth of a brand new blog by devoted reader and most excellent RL pal, June Starr, who is on leave this year and has launched an ambitious project to read and post her way through all 243 books shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize since its inception in 1969. Her blog, which Moose helped name because she is good at that sort of thing, is called Reading the Bookers. Give it a click, you bookworms, and show a new blogger some love. Have fun, June Starr, and please remember that when your blog is made into a major motion picture Meryl Streep should be cast in the role of the lifelong buddy whose insane adventures in online self-publication helped launch you into the blogosphere. Just sayin'.

That's all we got for now, kids. Except, of course, for the musical mood-matcher tucked in below, which will explain our post title to those who haven't yet figured it out. Mama was right, my little swimming lion cubs. There will be days like this, but soon enough you will find your way to the safety of dry land, and before too long you will be big enough to bite the hand of the jerk who tossed you into the water. Keep paddling, and keep eating. Tomorrow is another day. Peace out.

O'Malley v. MOOSE?

Or, Revenge of the Furloughed

On Sunday, WaPo endorsed Maryland Gov. Martin "You, Sir, Are No Jack Kennedy" O'Malley in his rematch with former Gov. Bob "Big Hair" Ehrlich. The editorial praises O'Malley for taking "tough, decisive steps" to close the budget deficits the state faced (thanks in part to Ehrlich) even before the recession seriously depleted revenues. It mildly chastises O'Malley for failing to take action on $33 billion in unfunded pension obligations but sharply criticizes Ehrlich for refusing to say how he would recover a measly $600 million in revenue that would be lost if his (nutty) idea to roll back a 2007 increase in the state's sales tax were to pass.

Let's see, though, what does the endorsement have to say about higher education? And about O'Malley's three years of furloughs (="temporary" pay cuts) for the state's 70,000 employees? I'm sorry, but I didn't hear you. What did the Washington Post endorsement have to say about tuition freezes and budget cuts and three straight years of asking state workers to do more and earn less?

(Please click on that sound file. My typist is banging her head against her laptop in political frustration and won't be able to resume typing for the next little while, so you might as well do something to amuse yourself.)

So, things are looking good for "You, Sir." He snagged the endorsement that eluded him four years ago (when WaPo thought the mayor of Baltimore "had failed to make a persuasive case for toppling a generally proficient incumbent [Ehrlich]"). As we noted here a couple of weeks ago, O'Malley has also opened up an impressive lead over his opponent. Shoot, he'll even have the Big Dawg rallying for him Thursday in Baltimore! Polish up the saxophone, Bill! Here's one Dem who stands a chance of surviving the Screw Hope and Give Me Back My Change tsunami of 2010!

Despite all the happy news, it would appear that O'Malley's March to a second term isn't entirely thrilling the state workers whose pockets he has been picking for the past three years. (Not, I hasten to clarify, that we long for an Ehrlich Restoration, but, well, you know: three. years. of furloughs.) The evidence? Look what showed up in the in-box yesterday -- a photo of the absentee ballot of one of this blog's most faithful readers, a hard-working young QTU prof with a family to support and no patience left for fauxgressive Democrats who don't have the guts or the brains to explain that civilization costs money, fer dog's sake, and things will go better if we ALL pitch in our fair share rather than forcing a few to shoulder the burden for the rest of us!

Yes, fellow citizens, our beloved Candy Man has submitted a write-in vote for MOOSE as governor of Maryland! With less than two weeks to go until election day, it's a little late to be launching a campaign, but Moose is so flattered by the idea that she is thinking seriously about giving it a go. I mean, think about it. She is no crazier or less qualified than a lot of the nut jobs that have managed to get on the ballot in this loony election season. She would fix the budget by taxing the rich, booze, and marijuana, which she would decriminalize on her first day in office (H/T Joycelyn Elders!), just as soon as she ordered the state to stop issuing marriage licenses and find other ways to distribute benefits and protections that all citizens should enjoy regardless of their relationship status. She hasn't picked a running mate yet, but he will be pretty and smart and able to eat crabs without making a mess of himself. Goose will make an exceptional First Lady. Her pet project will, of course, be assuring access to high-quality, affordable education. We will call her initiative, um, Excellence With Boatloads of Money. She will travel the state giving her "The Humanities Are Not a Luxury" lecture to watermen and schoolchildren and waitresses who really do say, "Welcome to Bawlmer, hon." Today, at Chesapeake House, the First (I Ain't No) Lady of Maryland explains money, metaphor, and better thinking through poetry! Stop in for a Cinnabon with a side order of truth!

It's pretty to think so, isn't it, darlings? Politics got you down? Worried that the world is succumbing to furloughisme and other forms of short-sighted, destructive cowardice? Sick to death of the major parties but still too ticked off about the 2000 election to vote Green? Write in Moose for governor of Maryland.  Tough times require a tough broad with a sharp tongue and a big heart. Moose: Braver than Martin O'Malley, tall enough to leap over Barbara Mikulski in a single bound, every bit as liberal and very nearly as funny as Al Franken on her best days. Moose: She'll balance the budget and make sure there are no misplaced apostrophes on highway signs. Moose: Because Annapolis isn't quite queer enough.

Vote Moose. It won't be the stupidest thing you've ever done. Peace out, citizens.