Fly, little moth, fly

A once-larval academic spreads her new wings:

Anthropologists are known for their attentiveness to social inequality, but few have acknowledged the plight of their [adjunct] peers. When I expressed doubt about the job market to one colleague, she advised me, with total seriousness, to "re-evaluate what work means" and to consider "post-work imaginaries"* ...

In May 2012, I received my PhD, but I still do not know what to do with it. I struggle with the closed off nature of academic work, which I think should be accessible to everyone, but most of all I struggle with the limited opportunities in academia for Americans like me, people for whom education was once a path out of poverty, and not a way into it.

Every time I read a first-world problem story like this, I just want to ask the person writing, "How many anthropologists are there in America, and how many anthropologists are necessary to do all the anthropology that Americans need done?"  I suspect that they have no idea that the question might be important,** holding instead to the adorable idea that jobs appear magically whenever people are qualified to hold them. But the idea that the "limited opportunities in academia" is a problem of too few well-paid, unionized, tenurized teaching positions rather than a problem of too many PhDs seeking them, is ludicrous. Now that everyone has a PhD, the PhD is worthless.  It's a simple matter of supply and demand. 1950 was the first year that more than 5,000 PhDs were granted in the United States.  Every year since 1970, more than 30,000 have been granted. Since 1990, more than 40,000. How many new colleges must open to employ 40,000 new anthropology, art history, and religious studies professors every year?

But supply and demand aside, it's also a matter of most PhD degrees being intrinsically worthless. Sure, we don't need 40,000 new college professors every year, but the question is, do the ones we have even need a PhD? Well, of course, right?  We need PhDs to teach classes and make more PhDs. Actually, we don't. In fact, the truth is that we don't need PhDs to teach post grad-level classes because post grad students ought to be teaching themselves. We don't need them for lower level classes because adjuncts can do the job just fine - besides, what the students need to pass the course is usually in the book. We may need some for upper-level classes where the transition from power-point copier to actual researcher is taking place. But since upper level classes are often not even in the PhD's area of recognized expertise***, the PhD seldom holds any more knowledge on the subject than someone with a masters.**** There remains little reason why the class cannot be taught by someone with a master's degree. PhDs are awesome for research, I suppose, but that hardly makes a good argument for more professorships: professors are supposed to be teaching.

There is a problem with the "education is a path out of poverty" mindset, and our author comes oh-so-close to finding it. So close, in fact, that it's obvious one must hold a PhD in a worthless subject like anthropology to miss it.  Education is a path out of poverty, but only because work is a path out of poverty.  Education can make your work, and the products of your work, more valuable. But they only do so if the skills and knowledge you have are worth money to someone else in the first place. Zero times any number is zero: if your education-enhanced work offers nothing to those who can pay your path out of poverty, then what what possible reason could education, by itself, be a path out of poverty?

But never fear: if you choose to spend money you don't have to get an education that no one but you finds valuable, the result is a lesson in itself. So long as one is not too educated to learn it, of course.

* I have a very difficult time working up any sympathy for the work prospects of the kinds of people who would use the phrase "post-work imaginaries" in a sentence. After all, they are already drawing paycheck imaginaries for that.
** I have no idea how many, obviously.  But if I was going to drop six figures to become one, you can bet your ampersand I'd find out. Maybe as a thesis for my master's in anthropology.
*** My History of the South professor's PhD dissertation was on the effects of the 1919 Spanish Lady Flu among populations in northern Wisconsin. she's a great professor, but not because of her PhD.
**** any significant real-world difference in knowledge of a PhD vis-a-vis an MA is more likely a result of time spent individually studying and teaching, rather than the extra 24-30 hours of class time a PhD holds. I would rather learn at the feet of a 60-year-old MA than a 27-year-old PhD.

Meanwhile in Kansas

Conservatives are better than liberals

Or at least, here are the reasons that I, although a libertarian, prefer the company of conservatives to that of liberals:

1)  Conservatives are genuinely nice people.  I happen to know a good number of the really right-wing candidates, for example, for the Kansas House this year. While a pair of them (one thankfully defeated in the primaries) are crazy as a shithouse rat, the balance are genuinely good people who care about others and really want to do what they can to help Kansas flourish.  I may disagree with their methods, but I don't doubt their sincerity. The Liberals I have met, with a few notable and laudable exceptions, are bitter losers for whom I think therapy, rather than elective office, is in their best interest. Their therapy is also in the best interest of the rest of us. I would far rather spend a whole evening at pro wrestling or an NRA dinner with fire-breathing, Obama-was-born-in-Kenya rednecks than an hour at a brie-and-cheese party with ignorant, arrogant, world-saving, PhD-in-Literature liberals.

2) Conservatives are grounded in reality.  Despite the leftists' grabbing of the mantra "Reality-based Community" to describe their fantasy-based community, I think that, in general, conservatives better understand what is likely to be the results of their policies. They understand life, as a whole, better as well.  Of course, they are not wholly cognizant of those side effects that will surely arise unintended, and they are just as prone to wishful thinking as everyone else, but the fact that they seem to lack the world-saving gene so prevalent in leftist circles means that their policies lack the huge dose of wishful thinking and naked sentimentalism that seems to guide the know-it-all left. If a policy, over the course of two decades, accomplishes either nothing or the opposite of its public intention, 20-1 odds are standard that it was designed by liberals.

3) Conservatives concentrate on serious issues.* Or rather, the serious issues are only being addressed by them.  One will look in vain for a liberal who is publicly willing to deal with the fiscal train wreck that is Social Security and especially Medicare.  Instead, Liberals tend to pooh-pooh the math while claiming Conservatives want to push Grandma off the cliff.  Plus, they demand free babysitting for those kids not killed by free and legal abortion. While Conservatives occasionally obsess over non-issues that are long-decided, liberals can't help but obsess over non-issues that will make them look like the vanguards of radical social changes.  Mostly, they just look like crybabies, who, if they really understood Darwin, would understand that they are setting the entire human race on a course for extinction. There really is a great liberal death wish, and something more than a little anti-human in most of their policies.

All that said, I have no intention of once again self-identifying as a Conservative.  They have little ability to recognize, for example, the wolf among the sheep like George W. Bush, nor do they recognize any limits on American power, much less the American taxpayers' wallet.  The conservatives will get us to fiscal hell almost as fast as the liberals will; they just make much better traveling companions on the way.

UPDATE: 4) Conservatives never protest by dressing up as giant vaginas. Ever.

* With many notable exceptions. There is no dearth of conservatives willing to trot out a meaningless Constitutional amendment if such is willing to help election prospects. They are still politicians, after all.

Perhaps a card would help

Not for amateurs

 Good thing it's hard to get a gun in New York City:

NEW YORK (AP) -- A disgruntled laid-off women's accessories designer shot a former co-worker to death in front of the Empire State Building, causing a chaotic showdown with police in front of one of the world's best-known landmarks. Police killed the suspect and at least nine others were wounded, some possibly by police gunfire, city officials said.

Shooting random people on the street ought to be left in the hands of professionals.

Now that's what I'm talking about

Aim high, please

So anyway, El B has a new job on the near horizon. Just got off the phone with one of the IT directors, and it looks like I'll be a programmer again 2 weeks from today,* moving over to the other side of campus.** I start C++ programming classes Monday, and I'll be a C# programmer in two weeks.

And yes, I'm actually going to start costing the taxpayers now. Up until this point, my fat government salary has been reimbursed to Uncle Kansas by a private foundation, but now I'll be an honest-to-Topeka, classified, hourly government employee, with all the rights and privileges thereof.  If the union comes a-calling, however, I'm still going to laugh in their faces.

* I was going to announce that I was the new head of IT security for the campus, but that job went to a gal who has in the past been known as my "travel wife." So congrats Amanda, you'll be great.
** This will be the side where I can't concealed carry.*** Up until now, since I was working for a private foundation and sitting on foundation property, typing on a foundation computer, I could.  No more. At least until the new legislature convenes.
*** That said, I just received my paperwork for a Florida concealed license which, combined with my Kansas one, will give me rights in 38 states.  I just need to dig my hunter safety card out of the safe and write a check. 

It's free

(language warning)
(more than just a language warning)

The liberal view of Kansas

Brownback and his religious wingnuts know exactly what they're doing. Theocracy has replaced democracy in kansas, Taliban style, and the dark ages will be a fond memory compared to what's going to happen to people here. There won't be any jobs because the workforce will be uneducated. Anyone intelligent will leave this miserable state. Ten year old girls will be forced to bear children even if they were raped by their uncle. LBGT people will continue to be victimized in every way possible with no legal recourse. The poor will continue to eat cake and pay a greater share of the tax burden. Humanity and compassion are not important to those who've got it. The brownbackistanis have and will continue to go way too far and they'll be smug about it.

I don't have anything to add to that, I just thought it was so funny I'd better save it for posterity.

But you didn't build that

You'll never guess what the post is about

El B is the guest blogger today over at Civil War Horror, a very nice little Civil War blog hosted by freelance writer / historian / novelist Sean McLachlan. Go check him out if you're historically inclined or just like much better writing than mine.

Moderate Math

See if you can spot the problem:

State Sen. Jean Schordof was a pretty typical victim. She was challenged by Witchita city councilman Michael O'Donnell, who told reporter Dion Leftler that the incumbent "doesn’t want to do anything to stop Obamacare." Schordof outraised O'Donnell, $115,000 to $72,000, but the Kansas Chamber PAC spent $36,000 to help the challenger, more than eight times as much as a teacher's union spent to help Schordof. So O'Donnell won, and won easy -- 2,745 votes to 1,897 votes, in a district that's home to around 70,000 people.

So the moderate raised $115k to the conservative's $72k. The Kansas chamber gave the conservative $36k, bringing his total to $108k, still less than the moderate. Even with incumbency, a few thousand dollars from the teachers' unions, and doubtless more than a couple of crossover Democrats who voted her way in the primary, the moderate incumbent was still able to garner barely 40% of the vote.

David Wiegel concludes that this little story problem demonstrates, "how far money can go in a small state election."

And he's absolutely almost correct.  Oh, he's wrong in concluding that $36k in PAC money made the difference - the incumbent still raised and spent more money than her conservative challenger.  But he would be correct in concluding that the $36k made money unimportant, as it allowed both campaigns an even playing field. It also proved that when money is not the issue, a decent conservative is likely to win 60% of the vote.

Commentators bemoaning the Great Kansas Republican Purge of 2012 have missed a lesson that conservatives have known for a long time: it was only the moderate advantage in name recognition, gerrymandered incumbency, and money that allowed them such a stranglehold over the legislative process.  Now that those advantages are all but gone, rainmaking moderates are for the most part exposed as second-tier candidates.

Conan, what is best in life?

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the liberals:

TOPEKA, Kan. — Conservative Republicans who’ve been working to push GOP moderates out of state legislatures in a large section of the country have scored big victories in Kansas, where a state Senate that has been an obstacle to fiscal and social policy changes is likely to have a solid majority on the right next year.

Here's to hoping they don't overstep*, but in the meantime, it's pretty fun to read the lamentations coming out of Lawrence** this morning.  While I was hopeful that my state senator would be ousted, I did not expect his conservative opponent to win by 15%.  In the last numbers I saw, of the 21 races where a conservative and a moderate faced off, the conservative was winning 17. Nine incumbent moderates were turned out including the Senate President, 2 retiring moderate incumbents were replaced by conservatives, and I did not see a single conservative incumbent defeated.

The great irony is that it is the moderate court system*** that enabled this thumping.  As y'all know, this was redistricting year. But you might not know that the conservatives in the House and moderates in the Senate could not agree to maps, each side demanding a senate map that would either facilitate or hinder the promised conservative onslaught.  The SecState sued the legislature and the court drew maps of such integrity and honesty that ten districts suddenly had two incumbents and in one, three incumbents were put in the same district.  A corresponding number of districts were thrown wide open.

As the new district maps came down from on high literally three days before the primary filing deadline, and as only the conservatives had the farm team to throw candidates into every district, the right started off with an advantage that they leveraged into an absolute crushing of the moderate faction that had aligned itself with the Dems to hold power in the state senate. Buh-bye, rainmaking moderates.

* They will, as does anyone put in charge for the first time.
** "Taliban!" "Heading to Canada..." "They are closer to Nazis." "The sheep have lined up for the slaughter and won't know what hit them until it is too late." It's a gas, gas, gas.
*** A court system that will, most likely, endure a change in how its members are chosen.  As of now, the state bar association has complete control over who the governor may appoint to the bench, resulting in moderate-to-liberal judges even as the state and legislature grew more conservative.  I smell a constitutional amendment in the air...

Losing their fastball

Science Blogging says, "That's Racist"

It's American election season and that means it is time for psychologists to introduce racism again - not whether you are racist, but how much...

Are you white and want to find out how secretly racist you are?  Go here.  

Obviously I'm not a big fan of the monstrous scam that is taxpayer-funded psychological research, but I decided to take the test anyway just to see how racist they thought I really was.*  And I was a little surprised at the result, because after about 15 minutes of pushing buttons, I received the following result:

Your data suggest a moderately stronger implicit association between Romney and Mormonism compared to that between Obama and Mormonism.

Well I should freaking hope so, he's a Mormon, after all.  But that's it. Come to think of it, there weren't even that many questions about race.  No watermelons or fried chicken. No patent leather shoes, no lack-of-rhythm, no inability to start as a free safety in the NFL. Perhaps a couple of liberal talking points questions and some steered answers.** But I really expected those tour guides who organize racial guilt trips to at least misuse standard linguistic euphemisms to 'prove' that the language and everyone who speaks it properly is raciss thereby. I'm a little disappointed.

* After all, you have to appreciate the kind of psychology that can prove race is more important to whites than blacks by adjusting for the the fact that blacks generally vote about 19-1 for the black candidate.
** Questions about the President's religion should not be a Christian/Muslim binary.  How about an "As religious as is necessary for electoral politics" choice?   

Used to

My birthday present

The girl lay in the road, clothed only in dirt. Her tongue, caked with dust, pushed out of her mouth and her limbs lay twisted. The soles of her small feet were scraped raw. 

Dawen, kneeling next to her, noticed that her pale skin was crisscrossed with half-healed welts and cuts. Those weren’t what killed her, Dawen thought; they were old wounds. Whatever stole her life had left behind no more than a frozen mask of fear and exhaustion; it hadn’t touched her, at least not in any place Dawen could see. She glanced up at the bystanders, seeking a face that showed something other than curiosity or dread. None of them seemed to recognize the girl any more than Dawen did. 

Her father wrapped the girl in an old blanket. Dawen grabbed the lower half of the bundle to help him lift it, careful not to touch the body with her bare hands. She was always careful when they died violently. As she struggled with her end of the awkward burden, the blanket unraveled and a small arm swung free. Dawen’s hand shot out instinctively to catch it but pulled back in panic. As she touched the slender fingers, laughing mouths flashed before her eyes and heat engulfed her body. She screamed and collapsed to the ground, shaking and sobbing. The laughter faded. 

She looked up and saw her father struggling with the unwieldy body. He recovered and set it softly into the wooden casket. Then he knelt in the dirt, taking both her hands in one of his. His other hand gently pushed the hair from her face. She looked into his eyes. They were filled with concern but rimmed with guilt. 

“I am sorry,” he said. “I should not have let you help with a murder victim.”

I'm pretty pumped that my daughter put together a few of the short stories I wrote for her years ago and published them on Amazon. I wonder, however, if should have chosen a nom de plume for the fiction.