It sounds like something from a science fiction film - a doomsday vault carved into a frozen mountainside on a secluded Arctic island ready to serve as a Noah's Ark for seeds in case of a global catastrophe.
http://tinyurl.com/gr36d
Tomas (the tank)
VietNam veteran - 1971
Norway to House Seeds in Doomsday Vault
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MKFaizi
No offense but who cares?
I saw that report on CNN. For starters, CNN has been piss poor for the past few months. The entire network is in need of an enema. Kind of bad when the only thing worth watching is Paula Zahn. I used to take a shower during her show.
Jack Cafferty needs his own hour -- replace Wolf Blitzer. Think Jack gives one shit about seeds being stored on an arctic island?
Is it a Masonic conspiracy; revenge of the Illuminati?
Give it a break. In a doomsday scenario, who is going to plant the seeds? Dick Cheney, already?
I think it is goddamn wonderful that they are storing seeds on an Arctic island.
The seeds can melt down with the rest of the planet in its global warming, for Al Gore's sake.
Woo hoo.
CNN stinks out loud. Unless they do something to pull themselves out of their present doldrums, I reckon they are going to bite moon dust. I don't even think hurricane season can save them. I think we have all had enough of Anderson Cooper blowing in the wind and keepin em honest.
My cable television is very limited or I would be watching something other than CNN. I cannot even get the Daily Show and I trust that program far more than other news shows for some grain of truth.
I KNOW!! I KNOW -- the Masons and the Illumanati and Skull and Crossbones are conspiring to store seeds on an Arctic island.
Like the shit is guaranteed to grow!!
Hhahahhhaahahahhahahahhahahhhahahhahhahahhahahhaaaa!!!
In the Arctic?
HHhahhahhahahhahahhahhahahahhahhahahhahahahahahhaha!!!
Faizi
I saw that report on CNN. For starters, CNN has been piss poor for the past few months. The entire network is in need of an enema. Kind of bad when the only thing worth watching is Paula Zahn. I used to take a shower during her show.
Jack Cafferty needs his own hour -- replace Wolf Blitzer. Think Jack gives one shit about seeds being stored on an arctic island?
Is it a Masonic conspiracy; revenge of the Illuminati?
Give it a break. In a doomsday scenario, who is going to plant the seeds? Dick Cheney, already?
I think it is goddamn wonderful that they are storing seeds on an Arctic island.
The seeds can melt down with the rest of the planet in its global warming, for Al Gore's sake.
Woo hoo.
CNN stinks out loud. Unless they do something to pull themselves out of their present doldrums, I reckon they are going to bite moon dust. I don't even think hurricane season can save them. I think we have all had enough of Anderson Cooper blowing in the wind and keepin em honest.
My cable television is very limited or I would be watching something other than CNN. I cannot even get the Daily Show and I trust that program far more than other news shows for some grain of truth.
I KNOW!! I KNOW -- the Masons and the Illumanati and Skull and Crossbones are conspiring to store seeds on an Arctic island.
Like the shit is guaranteed to grow!!
Hhahahhhaahahahhahahahhahahhhahahhahhahahhahahhaaaa!!!
In the Arctic?
HHhahhahhahahhahahhahhahahahhahhahahhahahahahahhaha!!!
Faizi
I'm an old farmboy ... so it is interesting for me. Plus, of Norwegian - Scandinavian descent, been to Norway three times, so seen the different weather climates.
The article stated that it'd last hundreds if not thousands of years ... that's a lot longer than the industrial age tho a speck in the nature of universal_rotation of the solar system. It being a few hundred miles from the North Pole should make its longevity a bit more secure.
The part of story (that caught my eye) was the free-roaming polar bears known for their ferocity. Acting as natural guardians of the island facilities. It's nice to see that there a few forward thinkers out there not caught up in here and now logic.
Other than the few years spent (wasted) in the military ... we've always had a bountiful garden planted. The rabbits and squirrels are annoying, but nothing that a .22 won't solve.
Always plant a few extra treats for the birds, especially the robins, grackels, sparrows and the ever-present crows. The crows and sparrows are my faves!
Anyways, depending on grocery stores and their GM frankenfoods seems utterly insane. Thomas Jefferson had it right. Visit Monticello for an eye-opener on wonderful farming practices.
This is a far-sighted idea that's been around for decades - good to see that it will be brought into reality. Not much of that around these days.
Tomas (the tank)
VietNam veteran - 1971
The article stated that it'd last hundreds if not thousands of years ... that's a lot longer than the industrial age tho a speck in the nature of universal_rotation of the solar system. It being a few hundred miles from the North Pole should make its longevity a bit more secure.
The part of story (that caught my eye) was the free-roaming polar bears known for their ferocity. Acting as natural guardians of the island facilities. It's nice to see that there a few forward thinkers out there not caught up in here and now logic.
Other than the few years spent (wasted) in the military ... we've always had a bountiful garden planted. The rabbits and squirrels are annoying, but nothing that a .22 won't solve.
Always plant a few extra treats for the birds, especially the robins, grackels, sparrows and the ever-present crows. The crows and sparrows are my faves!
Anyways, depending on grocery stores and their GM frankenfoods seems utterly insane. Thomas Jefferson had it right. Visit Monticello for an eye-opener on wonderful farming practices.
This is a far-sighted idea that's been around for decades - good to see that it will be brought into reality. Not much of that around these days.
Tomas (the tank)
VietNam veteran - 1971
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MKFaizi
It is (would be) a 'storage facility.'
Each respective country would send their seed stocks that grow there AND would retain ownership.
Example: Hard Red Spring Wheat grows best in North Dakota. It just doesn't grow well any other place on the planet. It was developed for the climate of a cool Spring with late May rainfall, then gets warm in late June to mid-July with intermittent rainfall and ready-ripe for harvest in mid-August.
Those who like bread and pasta - Hard Red is the way to go.
The only other places on Planet Earth are Australia and central-southern Canada where Hard Red has a rare chance to grow decently.
Wheat varieties are abundant in Iraq, but this current "War on Terrorism" (Humanity) is spreading depleted uranium far-and-wide. It is some nasty shit that will ever go away. Farmers die, animals die, water contaminated, soil rendered useless. (See Rocky Mountain Flats for test case)
Rice strains from VietNam would be sent and then foiled for storage.
If you (whoever) are so short-sighted as to miss the big picture of continual drought, too much rain or the nasty uses of Depeted Uranium, howitzers, cluster bombs, Agent Orange, pesticides, herbicides etc. well, blow me down.
Mexico would send seed varieties of wild bananas.
Indonesia would send coconut varieties.
Sorry, CNN would not be stored there.
Also, Zoloft would not be stored :-)
You'd have to go real-time in your lifestyle :-|
People want drugs ... not hugs :-(
Tomas (the tank)
VietNam veteran - 1971
Each respective country would send their seed stocks that grow there AND would retain ownership.
Example: Hard Red Spring Wheat grows best in North Dakota. It just doesn't grow well any other place on the planet. It was developed for the climate of a cool Spring with late May rainfall, then gets warm in late June to mid-July with intermittent rainfall and ready-ripe for harvest in mid-August.
Those who like bread and pasta - Hard Red is the way to go.
The only other places on Planet Earth are Australia and central-southern Canada where Hard Red has a rare chance to grow decently.
Wheat varieties are abundant in Iraq, but this current "War on Terrorism" (Humanity) is spreading depleted uranium far-and-wide. It is some nasty shit that will ever go away. Farmers die, animals die, water contaminated, soil rendered useless. (See Rocky Mountain Flats for test case)
Rice strains from VietNam would be sent and then foiled for storage.
If you (whoever) are so short-sighted as to miss the big picture of continual drought, too much rain or the nasty uses of Depeted Uranium, howitzers, cluster bombs, Agent Orange, pesticides, herbicides etc. well, blow me down.
Mexico would send seed varieties of wild bananas.
Indonesia would send coconut varieties.
Sorry, CNN would not be stored there.
Also, Zoloft would not be stored :-)
You'd have to go real-time in your lifestyle :-|
People want drugs ... not hugs :-(
Tomas (the tank)
VietNam veteran - 1971
Doomsday Vault
This Doomsday Vault thingy actually got mentioned today on Something Awful.
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Lincoln Wilkinson
- Posts: 17
- Joined: Fri Jun 16, 2006 5:24 pm
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Dan Rowden
- Posts: 5739
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- Contact:
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MKFaizi
Well, I hate to be negative but the plan is a crock. But if you think it is great, cool.
I am happy to be wrong. I just have trouble believing storing seeds can save the human race.
I mean, if there is a world holocaust, how could seeds stored in the Arctic be helpful?
If I am in Virginia and manage to survive a global holocaust, how would I benefit from these seeds in the Arctic?
What if I was one of two humans left on earth and the other human was at this place in the Arctic?
Is the plan that I would walk from Virginia to the Arctic?
Would the Illuminati be there?
Faizi
I am happy to be wrong. I just have trouble believing storing seeds can save the human race.
I mean, if there is a world holocaust, how could seeds stored in the Arctic be helpful?
If I am in Virginia and manage to survive a global holocaust, how would I benefit from these seeds in the Arctic?
What if I was one of two humans left on earth and the other human was at this place in the Arctic?
Is the plan that I would walk from Virginia to the Arctic?
Would the Illuminati be there?
Faizi
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MKFaizi
Ha ha. I forgot to laugh when you made fun of me taking Zoloft.
So, there it is -- ha ha. Oh, ha ha ha.
I would be glad to stop taking it if I would not die from clinical depression.
I do not like being dependent on it for my life. But it's a fact. Just like others have to take medicine for hypertension or diabetes.
The difficult thing about antidepressants is that they mask the depth of the depression. I am ten times more depressed than when I started the medication. If I come off of it now, I would kill myself. Not just like that -- with a gun. It would be a slow decline.
However, given a doomsday scenario, that might be the best thing.
Oh, hhaa ha ha ha aha haha hahhaha ha ha hah hah ha ha ha.
Faizi
So, there it is -- ha ha. Oh, ha ha ha.
I would be glad to stop taking it if I would not die from clinical depression.
I do not like being dependent on it for my life. But it's a fact. Just like others have to take medicine for hypertension or diabetes.
The difficult thing about antidepressants is that they mask the depth of the depression. I am ten times more depressed than when I started the medication. If I come off of it now, I would kill myself. Not just like that -- with a gun. It would be a slow decline.
However, given a doomsday scenario, that might be the best thing.
Oh, hhaa ha ha ha aha haha hahhaha ha ha hah hah ha ha ha.
Faizi
And you haven't considered that your attitude may be a factor in it?MKFaizi wrote:I do not like being dependent on it for my life. But it's a fact. Just like others have to take medicine for hypertension or diabetes.
You are an unbelievable downer, but I think it's your nature, not a condition. You aren't depressed, you are depressing.
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lightsmitten
- Posts: 8
- Joined: Sat Jun 10, 2006 3:04 am
- Location: Teutondom
- Contact:
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MKFaizi
Well, it is probably true that I am depressing.You aren't depressed, you are depressing.
I am also depressed -- not sad, not unhappy. I get no pleasure out of being depressed. I am not proud of it -- like some people with fibromyalgia -- "MY depression is flaring today..."
My father is a depressive, my aunt, my nephew.
As for my attitude, I consider it to be very positive. I am suspicious of anyone who expects an attitude of a certain standard. I am not even sure what that means.
Brief example: If there is no lab tech, I have to cover the lab. When I cover the lab, I also have to do my usual nursing duties. Very stressful. If I did not cover, no one could have their labs drawn -- doctors and patients are frustrated. Yet, when I do cover, the lab boss gets pissed off because not all of the controls have been done. I well understand that controls should be run.
However, when I also have to attend to the various emergencies and give shots and run EKGs and schedule this or that and do urgent insurance referrals and take calls from patients, I cannot get to the lab controls right away. If a person needs to be sewn up and I have to assist, I cannot say, "I can't come now because I have fifteen controls to run."
If I said that, I would be told that my attitude is bad. By the same token, when the lab boss comes in and I tell him I have not had time to run all of the controls, I am told that I have a bad attitude.
Lose-lose situation.
Once, I asked the lab boss to please run the lab since we had no tech and I did not have time to run all fifteen controls.
Know what he said? You guessed it. I have a bad attitude.
I think his attitude sucks.
The way I interpret it is that one who tells me that I have a bad attitude is one who sees himself as my superior. Cool but I cannot kiss every ass. I cannot perform my job and the job of
others. If I was the lab tech, I would run all the controls every day. As lab tech, I would not have to participate in emergencies or take phone calls from patients or assist in procedures or do urgent referrals. My attitude would be excellent. I would smirk in a superior way at all times. I would brag about my high intelligence and how I am going to be a cardiac surgeon when I grow up.
And that is exactly your manner, Pye. You are a self gratifying pompus punk who has your attitude stuck up your pink hairless hamster arse. You would not know the meaning of attending to and prioritizing life and death matters worth jack. You are a nose picker -- always seeking but never finding more than the snot of your own mouse penis brain. You are not even as good as microwaved jack-off.
Like my attitude now? It's about to get better.
Late afternoon. Eighty two year old woman has a myocardial infarction in the office. I am running back and forth -- getting oxygen, calling 911, doing a quick EKG -- following the doctor's orders. Very fast pace. I am wheeling oxygen through the front office area for this woman -- very bradycardic -- having a massive heart attack -- and the receptionist says, "Marsha, Jodi called and she wanted to remind you that the pharmacy closes at five thirty and she needs her poison oak medicine."
Very politely, I said, "Too bad so sad. I really don't give a damn."
So, I will probably get reprimanded for my bad attitude. Shithead says, "Don't shoot the messenger, Marsha."
Well, you know, we are on the verge of defibrillation and CPR here. I don't give a royal fuck about goddamn poison oak. Jodi can last until tomorrow. I kind of have to tend the the woman having the heart attack first.
But I have a bad attitude.
Philosophically, I think you should take your school marm's ass and listen to some David Allen Coe. Evidently, you live in some kind of pristine environment where you don't have to deal with matters of life and death.
You can look down your considerable English stuck in the hog's slop nose at those of us who make do in order to administer humane treatment to a human being in need. I have to suck up a lot. Recently, I had to suck being written up by a queer person whom I had never met because I was attending to urgent medical matters rather than faxing business office audits to the business office. Holy moly -- I was unprofessional enough to say that I do not have time to do such crap. I was killing myself so I got written up.
I would rather be written up for not doing the bidding of an asshole than to neglect humans who have needs.
Goddamn right, I have a bad attitude and it is getting badder by the minute.
The first business of medicine is to save lives. If you want to make a ton of money, open a casino.
Same thing goes for philosophy. I am interested in philosophy because philosophy promotes freedom of the mind. It is not an academic commodity, like math or art or sports. It is strength of thought, ideas.
You are like the lab boss. You want the controls done. You want everything on paper. You are an academic.
You could not care less about any cause for philosophical enligthenment. You just want the certification to teach.
You cite me for my bad attitude. I think your attitude stinks.
You have the prim-nosed attitude of an academic. You are a school marm.
How dare you tell me about my attitude. If you ever end up in an emergency room or office or urgent care with a heart attack, you better hope you have a nurse with a bad attitude.
A bad attitude will save your meaningless life.
I think you should get one.
Faizi
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MKFaizi
Funny as hell. I hope you can see it that way. Got my P names mixed up. God, I was extremely tired -- not that I mean to excuse my mistake.
Prince has been pricking at me for some time so I finally let him have it full force. Unfortunately, I had your name mixed up with Prince. Prince wanted the full monty. Begging for it. I figured I owed him.
I have no problem with you as far as I know and I apologize for calling you a school marm. Prince is a school marm and I reckon he does not even teach.
Only thing I saw was someone citing me for having a bad attitude.
That is a red light for me currently. I have been told about my bad attitude plenty over the past several months. I have to suck that up some at work but I don't have to take it here. Zero tolerance.
My bad attitude includes going to a pharmacy to pick up medicines for a patient; answering the telephone to help out the receptionists when I do not have to do that; dropping medicine off at patients' homes because of the cost of gasoline; tolerating calls at my home that have to do with work; going to peoples' homes when they call me to come; filing charts to help out the front desk.
I run ragged for nothing. I don't expect thanks. I do not expect or want credit. God knows, I don't expect a raise.
My last evaluation said that I should provide a friendlier environment. The only thing I can figure that could mean is crawling up on the cross and dying for the sins of the patients. I might be willing to do that but I kind of resent the possibility of having my tombstone read, "She had a bad attitude."
I attacked you in name only -- I meant to roast Prince.
I apologize to you, Pye. I was depleted by attending to an in house heart attack and everything else. I am weary of being told that I have a bad attitude when I do everything in my power to save lives. Saving lives is good for business. Business is booming. Lots of heart attacks.
How could my attitude be bad when we are drawing patients like water to a puddle?
Yet, I had to travel thirty miles to meet a so called manager who cited me for unprofessionalism and a bad attitude because I said I did not have time to fax business audits.
A good teacher with a bad attitude is as good as a nurse with a bad attitude. Hardest thing in the world. No reward. Reprimand.
Faizi
Prince has been pricking at me for some time so I finally let him have it full force. Unfortunately, I had your name mixed up with Prince. Prince wanted the full monty. Begging for it. I figured I owed him.
I have no problem with you as far as I know and I apologize for calling you a school marm. Prince is a school marm and I reckon he does not even teach.
Only thing I saw was someone citing me for having a bad attitude.
That is a red light for me currently. I have been told about my bad attitude plenty over the past several months. I have to suck that up some at work but I don't have to take it here. Zero tolerance.
My bad attitude includes going to a pharmacy to pick up medicines for a patient; answering the telephone to help out the receptionists when I do not have to do that; dropping medicine off at patients' homes because of the cost of gasoline; tolerating calls at my home that have to do with work; going to peoples' homes when they call me to come; filing charts to help out the front desk.
I run ragged for nothing. I don't expect thanks. I do not expect or want credit. God knows, I don't expect a raise.
My last evaluation said that I should provide a friendlier environment. The only thing I can figure that could mean is crawling up on the cross and dying for the sins of the patients. I might be willing to do that but I kind of resent the possibility of having my tombstone read, "She had a bad attitude."
I attacked you in name only -- I meant to roast Prince.
I apologize to you, Pye. I was depleted by attending to an in house heart attack and everything else. I am weary of being told that I have a bad attitude when I do everything in my power to save lives. Saving lives is good for business. Business is booming. Lots of heart attacks.
How could my attitude be bad when we are drawing patients like water to a puddle?
Yet, I had to travel thirty miles to meet a so called manager who cited me for unprofessionalism and a bad attitude because I said I did not have time to fax business audits.
A good teacher with a bad attitude is as good as a nurse with a bad attitude. Hardest thing in the world. No reward. Reprimand.
Faizi
.
Faizi,
"On [Not] Being an Academic" . . . .
Here's a typically constructed conversation that might go on between myself and an Academic:
Academic: What are you working on?
Myself: Currently, The Weird Kinship between Nietzsche and Zen.
Academic: Whose ideas are you using to look at it?
Myself: erm . . . Nietzsche's and Zen.
Here's some typical behaviour from an Academic, too:
The big uni hired in a visiting professorship position last year a very up-and-coming young female professor whose degrees came from expensive (and respected) universities and whose career-path was already rising through the journals and whose presentations of papers were well-known. She's already gone, the 2-yr. appointment abbreviated (on her part) to just 1, already hired at another more illustrious university.
She leaves in her wake an pile of disgruntled student evaluations and a number of disgruntled colleagues who had to cover for her frequent absences whilst she was going to conferences and schmoozing with other universities and academics her entire year here. My very self sat her student's final exams for her last semester (I swear, I was pled-to, no-one else would help by then, so she had to hit-up the adjuncts.). On the evening of those back-to-back finals, both classes of students, right at the start, seeing a substitute, settling in, asking questions, treated me to an unprovoked litany of complaints and distrusts that I had to derail them and reshift focus toward the exam. These students didn't know me from squat, which all the more for the intensity of it blew me away.
On the instruction sheet thanking me profusely for administering her final exams, the Academic called me by someone else's name (minor detail). The exam itself had one question repeated twice, and another question worded so ambiguously, that two approaches were discovered by myself and the students (so I told them to identify whichever approach they were using and then sally forth). When the department chairperson sent out the e-mail to us all regarding 'our colleague's' departure and promotion elsewhere, he wrote that our departing colleague enjoyed her stay at [the big uni] and would report too all and sundry what a fine uni we were. It seems that the privilege of having your uni on the resume of an up-and-coming Academic who once taught there is worth a couple hundred pissed-off students with a fucked-up impression of philosophy, along with a used and abused staff.
The tenured faculty is actually obsequious to me. They can also tell a student who came from one of my Intro classes because they're better grounded, as they tell me. I have subbed for many of them in six-of-nine of the specialized categories for which they each have their PhDs. I've won an obsequious little award for adjunct teaching excellence; I have the highest student evaluations in the philosophy department entire, tenured faculty and adjuncts combined (please don't give me bragging crap for this point I'm trying to make), and they often freely point to it. They have to do this, because they cannot point to any [recent] publications.
When they facilitate any introductions of me to others, they often make the distinction, "She's a [emphasis] teacher" and big obsequious smiles. (I'm not sure what the fuck they consider their jobs to be). I am a dead-forward reminder of the students (people) upon whose backs this great big awfully expensive playground for the academics is built. And I have leapt over and moved forward a number of their reasonings in departmental discussion, when I am required to attend. I have not had one single philosophic exchange of any depth with any of them, even when I venture some enticing ground. They have other things on their minds.
Really, it is a very funny and unique thing. Two tenured profs have come to me before to discuss ways to improve their own teaching; three of them have borrowed class designs from me and used them themselves. I am always being encouraged to apply for full-time lectureships when they open up. The whole department from chair to secretaries is very nice to me; they treat me very well. In every way but $. That gap between myself and $ is where whatever one might call my integrity lays. After that, I become one of them. I lose the fluidity of the whole thing.
Most every uni has one of me, or at least room for someone like me whose impoverished and respected position stands in example to the whole poorly kiltered thing. The sorry-ass condition of university teaching system and abuse of adjunct labor is one of the most frequently mentioned woes for which nothing but a show of social consciousness takes place. I am so far from academics that the light from academics cannot reach me; we are infinitely easy to tell apart, amongst ourselves, within the university, and in the world at large. I counted upon the intelligence of most of the people here to apply any necessary labels to my thinking itself -- and not get themselves stuck in a tape-loop accusation of everything I think and do as being "academic," for we all know what a horrific accusation that is.
Like Sapius was saying, knowing ages and kids and occupations carry big, sometimes accidental templates with them. Try being an adjunct philo prof who shows up in places like these. To some, I am either an academic, or I should be able to quote Kant, book; chapter, and verse and never make a typo. I promise you all, I don't know a single academic who would have enough interest in philosophy to write and think it actively in their off-time with people here. And they're all mostly nervous around the word 'truth.' You people are more active thinkers than they.
.......................
When I casted about the entire of the manifest world, and asked myself, what, amongst every human activity in which a person can work (and I mean this more like Heidegger's sense of human inclination to work; to activity) - what in all this I would do, I chose this, and this way of it exactly. That's it, that's really all there is to it.
.
Faizi,
"On [Not] Being an Academic" . . . .
Here's a typically constructed conversation that might go on between myself and an Academic:
Academic: What are you working on?
Myself: Currently, The Weird Kinship between Nietzsche and Zen.
Academic: Whose ideas are you using to look at it?
Myself: erm . . . Nietzsche's and Zen.
Here's some typical behaviour from an Academic, too:
The big uni hired in a visiting professorship position last year a very up-and-coming young female professor whose degrees came from expensive (and respected) universities and whose career-path was already rising through the journals and whose presentations of papers were well-known. She's already gone, the 2-yr. appointment abbreviated (on her part) to just 1, already hired at another more illustrious university.
She leaves in her wake an pile of disgruntled student evaluations and a number of disgruntled colleagues who had to cover for her frequent absences whilst she was going to conferences and schmoozing with other universities and academics her entire year here. My very self sat her student's final exams for her last semester (I swear, I was pled-to, no-one else would help by then, so she had to hit-up the adjuncts.). On the evening of those back-to-back finals, both classes of students, right at the start, seeing a substitute, settling in, asking questions, treated me to an unprovoked litany of complaints and distrusts that I had to derail them and reshift focus toward the exam. These students didn't know me from squat, which all the more for the intensity of it blew me away.
On the instruction sheet thanking me profusely for administering her final exams, the Academic called me by someone else's name (minor detail). The exam itself had one question repeated twice, and another question worded so ambiguously, that two approaches were discovered by myself and the students (so I told them to identify whichever approach they were using and then sally forth). When the department chairperson sent out the e-mail to us all regarding 'our colleague's' departure and promotion elsewhere, he wrote that our departing colleague enjoyed her stay at [the big uni] and would report too all and sundry what a fine uni we were. It seems that the privilege of having your uni on the resume of an up-and-coming Academic who once taught there is worth a couple hundred pissed-off students with a fucked-up impression of philosophy, along with a used and abused staff.
The tenured faculty is actually obsequious to me. They can also tell a student who came from one of my Intro classes because they're better grounded, as they tell me. I have subbed for many of them in six-of-nine of the specialized categories for which they each have their PhDs. I've won an obsequious little award for adjunct teaching excellence; I have the highest student evaluations in the philosophy department entire, tenured faculty and adjuncts combined (please don't give me bragging crap for this point I'm trying to make), and they often freely point to it. They have to do this, because they cannot point to any [recent] publications.
When they facilitate any introductions of me to others, they often make the distinction, "She's a [emphasis] teacher" and big obsequious smiles. (I'm not sure what the fuck they consider their jobs to be). I am a dead-forward reminder of the students (people) upon whose backs this great big awfully expensive playground for the academics is built. And I have leapt over and moved forward a number of their reasonings in departmental discussion, when I am required to attend. I have not had one single philosophic exchange of any depth with any of them, even when I venture some enticing ground. They have other things on their minds.
Really, it is a very funny and unique thing. Two tenured profs have come to me before to discuss ways to improve their own teaching; three of them have borrowed class designs from me and used them themselves. I am always being encouraged to apply for full-time lectureships when they open up. The whole department from chair to secretaries is very nice to me; they treat me very well. In every way but $. That gap between myself and $ is where whatever one might call my integrity lays. After that, I become one of them. I lose the fluidity of the whole thing.
Most every uni has one of me, or at least room for someone like me whose impoverished and respected position stands in example to the whole poorly kiltered thing. The sorry-ass condition of university teaching system and abuse of adjunct labor is one of the most frequently mentioned woes for which nothing but a show of social consciousness takes place. I am so far from academics that the light from academics cannot reach me; we are infinitely easy to tell apart, amongst ourselves, within the university, and in the world at large. I counted upon the intelligence of most of the people here to apply any necessary labels to my thinking itself -- and not get themselves stuck in a tape-loop accusation of everything I think and do as being "academic," for we all know what a horrific accusation that is.
Like Sapius was saying, knowing ages and kids and occupations carry big, sometimes accidental templates with them. Try being an adjunct philo prof who shows up in places like these. To some, I am either an academic, or I should be able to quote Kant, book; chapter, and verse and never make a typo. I promise you all, I don't know a single academic who would have enough interest in philosophy to write and think it actively in their off-time with people here. And they're all mostly nervous around the word 'truth.' You people are more active thinkers than they.
.......................
When I casted about the entire of the manifest world, and asked myself, what, amongst every human activity in which a person can work (and I mean this more like Heidegger's sense of human inclination to work; to activity) - what in all this I would do, I chose this, and this way of it exactly. That's it, that's really all there is to it.
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MKFaizi
Interesting post, Pye. I read it but I have no comment except I can imagine the frustration of being in a position such as yourself. I think you described the tenured academic super-stars well. They are kind of like star college athletes, recruited not for any wisdom or knowledge they can impart but because of their academic publication. Their goal is to get to the point of playing for a lifetime on the academic playground of word crunching -- not even that good -- more like processing. It's a good ol boy network that allows a few to do nothing and get paid for it. As you described, the aspiring academic stars do not even teach. They pass that off to others who are paid less.
The system stinks but I don't think it will change. I doubt that you will become one of them. I don't think you would have the stomach for it or, to put it more precisely, I reckon you have too much stomach for it.
Faizi
The system stinks but I don't think it will change. I doubt that you will become one of them. I don't think you would have the stomach for it or, to put it more precisely, I reckon you have too much stomach for it.
Faizi
Faizi, I didnt say "bad" attitude. Read my post again. I was suggesting your attitude compounds your depression etc. But you just saw red at the word attitude, and I don't give a rat's ass about your work situation. You brought it here, and it seems you have spewed all your rage and frustration about it onto me and my post.
That is emotion in full display.
That is emotion in full display.
-DHodges wrote-
This doomsday thingy actually got mentioned today on Something Awful.
-Tomas-
No cable, no satellite or TV ... Please tell me, what and/or where is Something Awful? Clicked the link but is taking "forever" to load or has expired.
And also, as you recall, (in what positive/negative light) was the Doomsday Vault "thingy" mentioned?
Tomas (the tank)
VietNam veteran - 1971
This doomsday thingy actually got mentioned today on Something Awful.
-Tomas-
No cable, no satellite or TV ... Please tell me, what and/or where is Something Awful? Clicked the link but is taking "forever" to load or has expired.
And also, as you recall, (in what positive/negative light) was the Doomsday Vault "thingy" mentioned?
Tomas (the tank)
VietNam veteran - 1971
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MKFaizi
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Trevor Salyzyn
- Posts: 2420
- Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2005 12:52 pm
- Location: Canada
Link to Doomsday Article in SA archives (Dave's link just hits the frontpage)Tomas wrote:-DHodges wrote-
This doomsday thingy actually got mentioned today on Something Awful.
-Tomas-
No cable, no satellite or TV ... Please tell me, what and/or where is Something Awful? Clicked the link but is taking "forever" to load or has expired.
And also, as you recall, (in what positive/negative light) was the Doomsday Vault "thingy" mentioned?
Somethingawful is a mildly entertaining humour website with a large following of 18-25 year-old white males. It exists for the sole purpose of making fun of all other websites and internet content.