9/8 First day of classes. Today I am sitting behind the desk dealing w/panicking students. Actually, not many have come by. I predict later in the week things will be livelier. I expected total mayhem today, but so far (knock on wood), a trickle of phone calls, a sprinkling of forms. No blizzard, no bonnie. But tonight at six, I re-enter academia.
*modified venting*
Yesterday I was stuck in a room with an absolute loser. Now actually, I don't like to use that term, because it's embarassingly american. The concept of "the kind of person who loses" as an insult is kinda sick. Especially in the US, where personalizing or internalizing things like how much money you make, or how much you succeed is so pervasive. Blaming the victim. Not the victim, the oppressed, the exploited. Not recognizing the causes, the structures that create. Then again, there's the yiddish "schlemiel" and "schlemazel" (phonetic approximations), characterized as (Schlemiel) the guy who, at the family banquet, stands up and catches the tablecloth in his beltbuckle and dumping everything onto another poor guy, (the schlemazel) who is the person it always lands on. But anyway, I'm at a loss to describe this guy in a word. He's neither a schlemiel or a schlemazel, because it has nothing to do with luck. he's made very specific choices about who he wants to be. In fact, I'd say he's wallowing in it. Excerpts of conversation follow:
him: "I want to be rich!"
my friend: "how?"
him: "By screwing other people outta their money!"
.........
him: "I hate school. I go in high. As long as I get a D I'm okay. And it's not so much work. School sucks."
"then why do you go?"
He never had a good answer for this one. He also showed off his exctensive knowledge of the area's strip clubs (The Golden Banana, which despite is name is not a gay club, the Squire, the Naked Eye). This guy was obviously so into his own scene, and y'know thats fine, except I would prefer it not intersect with mine at all. It all just reminded me of when, in highschool, I was in a hardcore/metal band with a bunch of guys from a neighboring suburb. being trapped in a van with them and their friends who "roadied" for us on the way to a show, "yah dood lets get some beers. who do we know who can buy for us? Dood that bitch is hot!! I wish we had groupies." Luckily this time I had an ally. I kept my mouth shut the whole time because I couldn't think of anything nice to say. What is there to say? I like to think about things. I like to get together with other people and analyze discuss chew over try on ideas. Splash around in books and articles, essays and poems. I think it's pretty kool that there's a place where you can do that.(one might ask why I was in a hardcore metal band. Ah the sweet idealism of youth.)
Reading the Aug. 29th-Sept 4 issue of The Economist , I am reminded that I want to subscribe. It's not that they are particularly radical. But they give you more of the news than most newspapers. Their editorial on the US missiles (although conceding too much to the US view of itself as global policeman) is much more balanced than most I've read in mainstream publications. The best indication of this is their mentioning of the US, 10 years ago, mistakenly shooting down an Iranian airliner with 290 civilians on board. Incidents like this (as well as more clearcut instances of CIA directed coups, assassinations and the like) should be much more in the public eye. This magazine has a sense of the practical which appeals to me. The editorial discusses the way people in the US and broad about terrorism, puts it in the context oif the above incident and the alternative way the Lockerbie incident was dealt with and talks about the likely end result. As they point out, this time, the US may have created 10,000 new 'fanatics' where there would have been none. The definition of 'fanatic' also being open to question.

9/2Preparing to take American Economic History this fall. Class starts next week. The professor is a guy who has known me since I was born. I've no idea how this dynamic will work in the classroom. It's also a night class. The students are even less likely to be "traditional college students." This could make for an interesting class. One of the biggest problems I had with early econ courses at Oberlin (besides the biggest problem, the teacher --check here for the best summing up of him), was the way the students responded to what the professor said. Whetever pronouncements he made about the world and human economic decisions, most of the students just too notes dutifully. Nobody seemed to think about the implications of what he was saying with regard to people with less freedom and money than themselves. Remember this is a private, very expensive school ($24,000 a year, then), and these were potential econ majors, a self-selected bunch. I was the only person who brought up the idea that an economic decisionmaker might be (or feel) responsible for people other than themself, or that one might not be free to make choices. I think few of the students had much experience with the economic world except as leisure consumers. Most that I talked to had never lived on their own, paid their own rent, shopped for food for themselves. College was their first experience with that, and it isn't really on your own at all, especially if your folks pay for housing, food, books, etc. Economics was very abstract to them. But comfortingly hard-edged and scientific. it allowed them to make broad statements about the world and how it works, without having experienced it. The whole class drove me nuts. Actually, school drove me nuts that year. I was surrounded by some of the most spoiled, self-indulgent, sheltered people I had ever met, and I couldn't understand why they were screwing around so much when somebody was spending a ton of money for this experience. you can get drunk anywhere, but a class like "Autobiography and Performance" or Astronomy, or whatever, comes only in school. Actually, it's only in school, that anyone gives a damn what you think about things. So never doing the reading made no sense to me. I took a semester off and went to UMass Boston instead. Here the average student age is 26. you have grandmothers in the classroom, alongside recent immigrants, local folk, veterans... The world is present in the classroom. My labor economics class was taught by a man who had been a janitor at UMass, originally. Now a ful professor. And , he said "I was a fluke. Don't use me as an example of how our system works, cuz I just got lucky. There were plenty of janitors smarter than me." How kool is that? And the students... Not to romanticize, because every place has its problems. But at least when folks missed class it was more likely that they had a sick child or parent, or they were coming from a job across town, than that they couldn't get out of bed after a tuesday night Triple-Strength-NyQuil binge. And you couldn't make the same pronouncements about life in economics class. Students there were in the workforce, they were in unions, in minimum-wage jobs. When you talked about the economic significance of those things, they sat up and paid attention, because he was talking about them. This professor couldn't have gotten away with saying "minimum wage is a nice idea, but it's economically inefficient" and going unchallenged. It's not that everyone would have agreed, but people had experiences to talk about besides being a highschool kid and working for spending money.
So anyway night classes usually means people who work fulltime, like me. Older people, like me (heh heh). Although people still THINK I'm 18, which is pretty irritating.

9/1 Just was reading the always-interesting adbusters site. I've been snickering at their magazine for years. they're doing something really cool now, though. One of the reasons why america is a skewed towards corporate influence as it is is because corporations are legally treated as if they were people, with inalienable rights, etc. Adbusters folks begin one rant with this point, with some useful historical background of the judges' decision, in 1886, that this was the case, and are launching a campaign to stop it. To reverse that decision. Right on! They'll need all the help they can get. For those (like me) whose consciences tweak them, after bringing home that last pair of fabulous boots, go read their site and sign the petition at least. I won't call it hypocrisy, but inconsistency is one of my virtues. faults. whatever. these guys are good for a kickstart to the o' brain. They're extremists in the best way, they are a reference point for my ideals.