Okay, so here's what that whole "f*cked up 80 ways" thing was all about (I've been cleared to discuss it).  The interim chair of the Philosophy dept (hereafter PD) has been on sabbatical this year.  We got an email from him on Tuesday informing us that he has taken a chair position at a different university about 3 hours away, and is resigning. 

Hm.

So, let's give you a picture of the whole situation here.  When Brian came on board, he was the fourth faculty member of the PD.  You might have already picked up on the fact that this department is almost entirely disfunctional, mostly due to two of the faculty--hint: not Brian or the interim chair.  We just found out yesterday from a friend who was in the Dean's office during Brian's hire that the main reason for opening a position in the PD and hiring Brian was a desperate attempt to change the department dynamics and subvert some of the dysfunction.  But the dysfunction of the department would not be swayed, and has in fact escalated remarkably in the past year with the hiring of our new secretary.  There have been two incidents that involved Brian being deposed by the police as a witness.  Eesh.

So ANYWAY, now the chair has resigned.  This leaves a department of three.  Wait, no, two, cause they didn't rehire Brian.  And those two are entirely dysfunctional and incapable of running the department (this has now been established in both cases, it's not conjecture).  And one of those will be retiring in 1-2 years.  One faculty.

Obviously, this is the end of the PD, and probably of any philosophy program, at this University.  No big surprise, they've already stripped Philosophy out of the core entirely.  So maybe once the majors are all done, they'll just end the program, and maybe even the minor.  BUT, the University's big problem?  The majors.  The University MUST provide a way for them to graduate with their chosen degree as listed in the Catalog under which they enrolled.  To not do so invites lawsuits.  So...

There's a non-trivial chance that they will hire Brian back on a full-time, non-tenure-track basis to finish out the majors.  The (ex) department chair recommended this to the temporary chair and to the Dean.  This would be GOOD.

Now--my favorite part--Brian was discussing some of this with various majors after class yesterday, and was demuring a bit on whether or not the Dean would rehire him.  One of the majors said "What if I write a letter to the Dean about it?"  Brian said that he thought that would be fine, but he doubted that one letter from one student would have much impact on the Dean.  Then one of the officers of the Student Government said, "Well, it depends on how many students write to him...."  *snort*  When B told me this, I was in the middle of putting a fork of food into my mouth, and I literally froze, staring at him for about a minute--fork suspended in midair halfway into my open mouth.  I'm sure I was quite the vision.

So anyway, there ya go.  Maybe a rehire at our local University, but no offers yet.  Certain collapse of the department, probable collapse of the major program.  We shall see what we shall see.

So last Thursday my husband was giving a partial makeup test to one of his students (the poor guy had actually gotten sick in the middle of the test in class, and hadn't been able to complete it).  After the test, he hung around to talk with Brian for quite some time.  During the discussion, he told B a bit about himself, that he had flunked out of college three years ago, but had gotten himself together and was now back.  He told Brian that, about three years ago, before he'd flunked out, he was walking through the fountain square area during the Human Rights Day event, and saw the display Brian was running.  It's called "Free Speech Corner" and it's basically exactly what it sounds like--a small stage, a microphone, and absolutely anyone can get up there and say pretty much whatever they want (with some modest time constraints if there's a line).  He heard Brian speaking at it, telling everyone about how there was a major economic crash coming, and that it was crucial for everyone to start saving as much money as they could.  This kid believed Brian, and did exactly what he said.  Sure enough, the crash has come (or is in process, at least).  Now, he's in pretty good shape and even able to come back to college.  Once back in college, he sought out Brian's class.  =) 

My husband rocks so much.

Brian did the sermon at our church today.  His topic was the "What Would Jesus Do?" movement, its historical roots, and what we can learn from it (especially from the liberal christian tradition).  It was fascinating, and well-received.  Check it out behind the cut!

 

( WWJD? )

And here it is:

( graphic-heaviness behind the cut )

Overall, I'm calling it a success.  =D

Brian went to the optometrist today to see about getting contacts.  Some background here:  (1) Brian's eyes are terrible.  No, beyond terrible.  His diopter for glasses is so high it isn't listed in the automatic fields at the opthamologist office.  When we go to University medical centers, student opthamologists are called in to see his eyes.  He has some of the rarest eye disorders on record (note the plural there).  (2) Brian and doctors do not get along.  At all.  (3)  Brian and eye doctors really don't get along.  Like whoa.  (4)  Brian is phobic of anything going into his eyes.

I was nervous about this appointment.  But contacts might help Brian see a bit better (though they will not stop any degeneration), and would be all around more pleasant if he can handle them (see #4 above), so he wants to at least give them a try.

When I came to pick him up, he asked, "Well, do you want the good news, the good news, or the good news?"  Never mind that this is in regards to an eye appointment, you cannot imagine how rare a sentence like this is out of Brian's mouth.  Turns out that, among other things, they didn't even have to dilate his eyes, which meant he didn't kill an entire day for this appointment.  Contacts are indeed available for his diopter rate, even with the astygmatism (sp?), which surprised us mildly.  Further, they're even available in extended wear disposable, which is just really wonderful.  Now, sadly, Brian has a protein buildup condition in his eyes, so he probably will not be able to leave the contacts in for several weeks as other people can, but he may be able to leave them in for at least a few days, which will minimize the whole "things going into my eye" issue.  And, here's the real kicker, they are now cheap.  I cannot believe it, but disposables for his prescription are even being mass-produced now, so they cost less than the exam itself did!  Holy shit on a shingle!

So, maybe in a couple of weeks, Brian will give contacts a whirl.  I hope he likes them.  Ian has already expressed great displeasure at the idea of daddy not wearing glasses, but I think he might just have to learn to cope.

Brian took his Praxis II test, and actually he feels pretty good about it.  We won't find out how he did for about a month, but I'm glad he feels good about his performance.  BUT, the rumor mill at the test is that SMWC, where B is looking to enroll, may have just lost their teaching licensure accreditation for the year.  (nevermind--see comments.)  WHHAAAAAT THEEEE FUUUUUCK?!?!?!?  Does someone actually have it in for us?!  The HELL?  This is just the rumor mill, after all, and maybe if B can enroll for the June session he'll get in under the line regardless, but that was always up in the air due to test results turnaround time.  DAMNIT.  I guess we'll have to see what they tell us.  I did sit for over an hour chatting with one of the faculty in the Ed. department there at an earth day event, discussing among other things B enrolling in the accelerated licensure program, and she didn't say anything about ths

Our main backup plan right now, job-wise, is for Brian to get high school teaching certification in mathematics.  This means trying to get him into one of the accelerated licensure programs around here.  That means Brian has to take the Praxis II math content specific test on Saturday morning.  And that means that Brian has to, essentially, re-learn a bachelor's degree worth of mathematics, which he hasn't used in over a decade, TODAY.  Boy I really wish I were making that up.  Now, don't get me wrong, there's even odds that he can pull this off--his brain is essentially made of mathematics, and he does have a Ph.D in logic.  So it's going to be a lot of remembering things like matrices, and probability theory and such.  Lots and lots of it--roughly 8 content areas worth of upper division undergraduate math classes.  I think he can do it, and he's even somewhat optimistic about it (which is really weird).  But if he doesn't pass this time, that means that he has to take it again in a couple of months, which will give him a more reasonable chance to study for it, and he'll enter the teacher program in October instead of June, which he might do anyway.  So it might not be such a loss, really.  But I hope he passes. 

Oh, incidentally, he did pass the Praxis I, and pretty handily too.  He said that the math section on that was not quite, but almost, insulting.  However, one of our neighbors also took the Praxis I at the same time, and she did not pass it.  Again.  And I'm pretty sure that's not only the second time she's taken it.  Now, in fairness, part of the reason she didn't pass is that Indiana has some of the highest math standards in the country--I think there were only 2 states with higher requirements, and 3 others with identical requirements--so if she'd been nearly anywhere else she would've passed.  But... ah well, poor girl.

So Brian will be buried in his office for all of today studying math.  I am currently taking care of all of a friend's animals while they're gone for five days.  Basically, this combination guarantees that I will not see my husband for over a week (although, in fairness, I'm not sure how much of him I'd be seeing even if I weren't currently a goatherder). 

In odd news, I may be offered two philosophy classes to teach in the fall, which would be kinda cool.  A lot of work, but also some extra money, which would be nice (throw it at the house!).  We'll see.  I've TA'ed for lots of classes, but I've never taught a whole class stand-alone, so that makes me nervous.  And they would be Critical Thinking classes, which are a Class A pain in the butt. 

(Okay, this is a bit psycho, but this is a comment that Brian made on otterkin's blog which I liked so much that I copied & pasted it here.  Someday I might let him have his own blog... maybe once he gets tenure.)

I complain to Casaubon's Book a lot about plans for coping with the coming problems that involve the "political will fairy." As in there simply isn't enough political will to get hard things done yet. (BTW if you don't know about Sharon Astyk and Casaubon's book they are awesome.)

But the good news is that crisis is where political will, unity, and concern for the common good come from in the historical cycle. After decades of partisanship and everyone pulling for there little factions, as things get bad, people start working together and valuing the common good and sacrificing for the collective. As things get bad political will, will return.

Oliver Stone is a boomer's boomer, but is brilliant nonetheless, and Wall Street is one of his masterpieces. In it the wise old broker, the ethical good-guy father figure who serves as a foil for Gordon Greco the evil substiture father, speaks in wise epigrams. Just before the kid is about to be arrested he says "Man looks into the abyss, and there he finds his character." America is looking into the abyss. And we will find poverty, and risk, and hard times. But we will also find our long lost character, our higher ideals, our best selves. As the non-essential is stripped away by hardship we will experience "return to essentials." Oh I have plenty of despair, but I have plenty of hope too, and reading of past crises, intensifies both.

OK Jedimomma has asked me, JediDaddy to do a brief over view of basic Strauss-Howe Theory.  Neil Howe was a demographic historian/economist, and William Strauss was an activist, comedian, playwright.  They worked together on a history of the anti-vietnam war movement looking and generational issues, and wound up with a general theory of generations in Anglo-American history, (with ties to other theories too).  The early version was a book called generations in 1991, the mature version was called The Fourth Turning in 1997 and is brilliant.  They wrote a few books on specific generations too, like Gen 13: Abort, Retry, Fail, Ignore with is profound, theoretical, applied, hilarious and infuriating.  I haven't read Millenials go to college yet.

The basic idea is that there is a fourfold cycle of generational types, linked to the kind of historical phase that they "come of age" in (say 15-35 ish).

Brian is grading his religions midterms.  Gaaaa.  So, here's a treat for you:

(A question from his test):  Christianity is the #1 religion in America according to census data.  Not counting non-religious categories, what is the second most populous religion in America?

Guess what one of the most frequent answers was.

Go on, guess! 

.
.
.
.

Well, I said Judaism, and then changed my mind to Islam.  Turns out I was right the first time.

And his students said????

Catholicism.

Yup, Catholicism.

And the ones who didn't say Catholicism--what did they say?

Protestantism.

I believe a few said "athiesm" (which, apparently, is not a non-religion to them).

I couldn't make this up if I tried.

*headesk*

Sounds like the start of a crappy poem, right?

Anyway, Brian's eye appointment went... er... I guess it went.  It could've been worse.  But it could've been better.  Basically, he got a diagnosis and something of a cause behind what's happened, and there's essentially nothing they can do for him.  The doc considers this a chronic problem, and one that will probably degrade over time.  He doesn't think it's likely to get worse soon, maybe for as long as a decade or more, but unfortunately docs have been telling Brian this for years, and it's never true.  *sigh*  The doc did give us some strategies for trying to cope with the situation, and we're in the process of trying one of them--we'll see how that goes.  It's a cheap, quick-fix.  If it doesn't work satisfactorily, the other solution is expensive and difficult, but definitely try-able.  And then, in the worst-case scenario, there is a surgery we might consider, although it won't fix the current problem, and it may not prevent or even slow the progress of it in the future.  We may look for a second opinion.  We don't necessarily think that this doctor is incompetent or anything, but this is fairly serious, and having a second opinion for serious matters is often a good idea.

Brian is currently reading at roughly quarter speed.  For a philosopher, This. Is. Bad.

So a little while back I posted one of Brian's satires of those terrible "10 Things YOU Can Do!" lists.  I hate those lists.  When I'm being charitable, I assume that they probably only do as much damage as good (that is, it's a wash), but I cannot imagine that they're particularly helpful.  But then again, I'm a cynical twit.

So does individual action matter?  Hells yes!  I've always thought individual action matters, just not for the reasons that most people probably do.  I've talked a bit about this elsewhere, but Brian has a great piece (below the cut) about why individual action does matter, matters a lot in fact, and why we all need to take it very seriously.  I hope you enjoy.

Yeah... don't you just love those assinine lists?  Well, my husband feels the same way, so here is his list of 10 ways to fight global warming.

Brian and I both follow via blog the exploits of the No Impact Man--a fascinating project out in NYC where a family of 3 is attempting to spend one year making no net impact on the environment.  So, for example, right now, living in Manhattan, they are off the grid.  This project has gotten lots of press, including such venues as the NY Times, Good Morning America and the like.  Yesterday, Brian emailed NIM with a response to the posting about what Kant would say about the NIM project--and today he's been quoted extensively!  You can find his post here:

http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/2007/06/the_original_no.html

Please check it out if you have a chance!

This is from the brain of my dearly beloved husband, and I think it's just abso-frickin-lutely brilliant.  I'm not even sure I agree with him yet, but it is a damned good thing to think about.  Read it.

R.