Signs the Economy is Bad, November 8, 2013

Ah, it's time once again to notice the oh-so-subtle signs that the economy is bad. I know my four readers are busy people, so I scour the Internet (when I get time and/or feel like it) in search of the not-so-noticeable things that tell us that the economy is bad. So, what has been going on?

• This week's seriously grim news: the economy is bad in Puerto Rico, and I mean seriously fucked up (pardon the language, but we need to tell it like it is).  Colonial status, removal of a popular federal tax breaks many manufacturers used to set up shop in PR, a seriously fucked up and corrupt local government, and a consistent "ay bendito" attitude (a.k.a. "woe is poor me")  mean things are bad and will remain bad for the foreseeable future. In fact, there is a major brain drain going on as the smart people are leaving the island in droves. I can personally tell you, as Puerto Rican myself, I am not going back any time soon. I have managed to make a nice, modest life here where I can make a living. I don't do woe is me. Plus, at this moment, I am working where I can actually make a difference.
• As we all know (or should know), the Republican Party in the U.S. has been on a rampage to cut back food stamps and other social services. I am betting their new party platform is to decrease the surplus population. Sadly, stuff like this does affect real people, and real people DO suffer (not that they care). The Rude Pundit brings us "In Brief: A Personal Take on Food Stamps." He puts it very well when he writes, "When you are spit out of the middle class by the capitalist monster, it's a short trip to America's garbage heap of the disempowered." This is worth reading.
• Notoriously "hip" store Abercrombie & Fitch announced things are bad. Sales are plunging at the stores for the beautiful people, and apparently they are closing down some lingerie stores they owned. I am sure it has nothing to do with their CEO's remarks that only cool people should wear his company's clothes. Their recent decision to finally offer some larger sizes I am sure is all a coincidence. It could not happen to a nicer retailer. 
• Blockbuster video is still open? Apparently DISH Network, who now owns the company, is all but closing down the video rental chain.We had one here in Berea, and it closed down earlier this year. Basically, they got beaten by Netflix. A pity, since not all of us can or are willing to stream our movie rentals. The Redboxes in town seem to be doing ok if the people I see lining up to them on the weekends are an indication. 
• Collections in churches are going down (I believe we have mentioned this before). Some pastors have even gotten a little bitchy over the fact people are not giving as much. Hey, economy is bad, and let's be honest, ROI from tithing is not that great, so when you have to cut back, tithing and money on the plate have to go. So, how might you entice people to come back to your church? Serving some beer may be a good idea, they think.
• And in higher education news from my old stomping ground, the state of Indiana, Anderson University (a small private Christian school) is axing programs in theater, French, and philosophy. Yea, who needs that "high fallutin'" elitist stuff anyhow? The usual claims of loss of enrollment were made. Not saying they are not true, but I am sure with a little creativity we can keep exposing students to courses and majors that may encourage things like critical thinking and self-expression. And axing philosophy? Given the serious lacks of ethics in society today, that may be a curriculum they definitely need to keep.
• Of course, the economy is not bad for everyone. Oprah recently had a "garage/yard sale" to get rid of a few things cluttering up the house. I know when I declutter my house, it's not going to be $600,000 worth of stuff. However, today we are looking at her list of "favorite things." One of them? "$62-a-pound truffle-flavored cheese." Hey, if you need some seriously decadent early ideas for Christmas gifts, and you have money to burn, this may be your list. Now, please excuse me while I go cut some pieces of cheddar bought at the supermarket (supermarket brand, on sale if you go at the right time) to go with my Two-Buck Chuck.
• And if you need to wash down that fancy, schmancy truffle-flavored cheese, boy, do I have the cocktail for you. You can get this $176 cocktail in some high end hotel in New York City. But hurry, only available during the month of November.

Campus Event: The Normal Heart at Berea College Theatre Laboratory

I had the opportunity to watch a powerful performance here on campus. The play tells the story of the very early days of the epidemic that would be known to the world as AIDS through the eyes of a group of gay men and a doctor researcher in New York City. Nowadays people take for granted that AIDS can be treated, or at least kept somewhat under control with various drugs. But back in the early 1980s, it was a new disease that seemed to only attack gay men. This brought forth a lot of ugly prejudices from religious zealots like Jerry Falwell, who is mentioned in the play, to disregard and arrogance from the medical community to flat out governmental neglect at all levels-- city, state, and federal.

In the play, the medical establishment's "debate" on the issue was well portrayed by the characters of Dr. Emma (portrayed by Ms. Victoria Brown), the doctor caring for these new patients,  and the Examining Doctor, (portrayed by Professor Shan R. Ayers), representing the arrogance and infighting of a medical establishment more interested at times in glory and fame than helping people. I think the fact that the Examining Doctor is unnamed only adds to the cold, impersonal and really uncaring nature of the medical establishment at this time when it came to gay people and the epidemic. This scene was a powerful moment in a play that has many moving and powerful moments.

Once the play starts, the audience is riveted for the performance as the actors take us back to the New York City of the early 1980s. The cast puts forth a solid and passionate performance. I want to specially highlight Mr. Robert "Chip" Plummer as Ned Weeks, the passionate, headstrong write and activist who tells it like it is with no apologies. We can also note Mr. Joseph Cross, portraying city health worker Mickey Marcus, who does a great job showing us and exposing the divisions in the gay male community. He also showed us the frustration of being a health worker in the front lines of the new deadly epidemic and not being able to provide help due to lack of information and bureaucratic obstacles. Together with the rest of the cast they bring the play and its times to life. If this play and this production do not move you and make you think, you are probably not paying attention. The AIDS epidemic continues to rage on around the world, and those who suffer it face ignorance, discrimination, and neglect. Thus the play remains as relevant as ever.

On a brief technical note, there was good use of lighting. Plus the use of selected 1980s musical pieces enhanced the production's ambiance.

Overall, this is an excellent production right here in Berea that should not be missed. I highly recommend it. To those of us who saw the rise of the epidemic, it will bring back memories and remind us that there is still much to learn and do. To those who have only known a time with AIDS being there all the time, the play offers a valuable lesson.

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Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart runs this week from Tuesday February 19th to Saturday February 23, 2012 at the McGaw Theater on Berea Campus. Performances are at 8:00pm. I caught the Wednesday evening show.


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Since I am a librarian, I have to recommend at least one book. A very good treatment of the early days of AIDS is Randy Shilts' book And the Band Played On (link to my very brief review on GoodReads). The book as I recall particularly brings to the life the infighting and constant attempts to jockey for position in the medical establishment, their petty squabbles and flat out refusals to cooperate at times when they could have saved lives for fear some researcher would scoop out another and steal the spotlight. And there is more in the book. Worth a look.

Campus Event: Dr. Lisa Dodson on "The Moral Underground: How Ordinary People Subvert an Unfair Economy."

This event is part of Berea College's Convocation series. This convocation took place on November 29, 2012, and it was the last convocation for the fall 2012 term. I am running a bit behind on posting my notes of convocations that I attend. Part of the reason I am posting these notes now is that I just started reading her book, The Moral Underground, and I want to have these notes handy in case I decide to review the book later. I will be upfront and say that given the current U.S. climate of blaming and demonizing the poor that is so pervasive, much of what Dr. Dodson says would probably not be very popular with certain people. I know that she probably would not have been very popular in a place like Tyler, Texas where I used to work. Here in Berea, where folks have a stronger sense of social justice and caring for the community, the message fits in well.

The only quibble I had with this event is that it was too short. As she was getting interesting, she ran out of time. By the way, that is a bit of a disadvantage with the convocation series, especially the ones that happen in the daytime. They try to keep them to about 50 minutes no matter what (about the length of a class period). They take place on Thursdays, and after the convocations, campus usually holds labor meetings (every student meets with their work unit), and students are fairly anxious to make that meeting on time, so convos are naturally restricted. I did mention to one of the convo committee members that they really should consider a different weekday to avoid that conflict. I don't think much will come of that, but I did mention it. Anyhow, let's leave that aside and get to my notes.

Notes are what she said that I heard and jotted down. I may add comments or clarifications in parenthesis:

• The country (the U.S.) has become unbalanced in a short amount of time. In the last 25 years, the disparity mirrors Third World countries. 
• In her research, she has uncovered an underground response. Dr. Dodson argues that this response matches with our history; it is a response to unfairness (and the U.S. has a history of responding to unfairness). She argues that this is the best of the nation, even if it is hidden. However, she has been challenged on this notion. 
• Why does inequality matter? 
• The national well-being declines with the erosion of children's well-being. 
• Child health and education are undermined. 
• More births to unmarried and teen mothers and social ills. These are ills that do not have an impact on the wealthy. 
• Low wages and family unfriendly jobs. Low wages and little to no benefits, flexibility for parents, etc. Also, no paid leave days for care of new children-- none, zero. (And before anyone wants to bring up the Family and Medical Leave Act, which employers love to hide behind to say "hey, we do something," keep in mind that FMLA does NOT provide for paid leave. It is unpaid, and it has all sorts of other restrictions on it). 
• Politicians and policy makers fail or neglect to see the faces of people. 
• Poverty conditions are often under the radar. The poor keep low profiles. Why? Because social and governmental agency response is not to help, but to punish. For instance, taking the kids away instead of helping with child care. 
• Morally ambiguous moments become more common in conditions of inequality. With unfair rules, some managers and others in positions of authority or in positions to help "bend" rules for their workers. 
• Question: do we have a responsibility to care for others beyond ourselves? (We pretty much know the answer most conservatives and right wingers in the U.S. would give). Those in the moral underground conclude that if they stand idly by, then they are colluding with unfairness. Small, quiet, hidden acts of civil disobedience or human decency. 

You can learn a bit more about Dr. Dodson from her official website. 

Holiday Post 2012: Some reflection as the year is almost here, or just getting some stuff out in case the Mayans were right

I just realized I am running a bit behind in my holiday blogging this year. Usually, I would have posted my traditional holiday posts by now. What can I say? It has been a busy year, and there were some changes.

The big change for my family and I was the new job and move to said job. I started my new job as Coordinator of Information Literacy for the Hutchins Library of Berea College in Berea, Kentucky. This is a bit different for me. My previous workplaces were public, state institutions. I was a state employee. Berea College is a private liberal arts college. It is also a religious school; they are non-sectarian. Some of you who know I am a bit of a heathen are probably wondering what would make me come to a religious school, liberal or not. Well, to be honest, their mission is one I can get behind. In addition, the job is the kind of work I have wanted to do for a long time: to lead an instruction and information literacy program, so when I saw the opening, I applied. While I am geographically flexible, usually what takes me to a place is the job, then the place. For others in the job market, place is probably higher on the list. For me, it is more of where can I go and make some difference, where can I go and use my skills to best serve the students and community I will be working in. Those are the kind of questions I ask when I go out into the librarian job market. Sure, I look at other factors (I am not that naive or idealistic), but mainly I look at the job. As for Berea College being a religious school, it turns out they take inclusiveness and diversity here very seriously, and those are things I take seriously as well. So far then it has been a good match. I am happy here. The family is happy here. I can say that my employers and colleagues are happy I am here.

Berea College is a small school. We have about 1500 hundred students here, so it is much smaller than other places I have worked in. But for me, and I say that I am most fortunate, it is starting to feel like home, both in terms of the campus and in terms of the community. It is not a big city, but if I want "big city" stuff, a drive up I-75 to Lexington fixes that (it is only about 40 minutes away give or take), and other areas are not too far. The people here are very nice, in an honest and sincere way I had not experienced in a while. I am trying not to sound like I am bragging, but I think I may have found my best destiny here. I have made it through my first semester, and I can say that, while ready for the holiday break, I do look forward to the spring semester. We have a few good ideas and projects to work on. On another note, I am feeling like blogging again, including blogging a bit about librarianship again. That may well be a good sign that things are looking up. So, stay tuned here and at The Gypsy Librarian for more. 

The move here was not easy; in fact, it had some very stressful moments. It was not easy to move out of Tyler, Texas. In fact, Texas has given us all sorts of headaches when it came to transferring some paperwork for things like our vehicle registration in KY, and hell, The Better Half had to make a few phone calls back and forth to explain to those hicks that we no longer lived in Smith County, TX, and therefore could not make it to jury duty (true story. And I call them hicks because The Better Half had to deal with quite an asshole, to be blunt, over the phone who just was too attached to his or her script to actually figure things out and use common sense. I think we finally have it sorted out, and they won't be sending the Texas Rangers to bring her back). However, those moments were made easier by people here at Berea who helped me through various steps along the way from the housing (it turns out the campus offers some transitional housing for incoming faculty, and I got lucky to get one) to students from the library who came and helped us move stuff into the house. I cannot thank them and other people who helped along the way enough, so I am writing about it here as another way to thank them for their kindness and generosity.

So, what the heck have I been doing?

• For one, we are reviewing how we assess our information literacy program. As of this writing, we are working on a new pre- and post- instruction session assessment to use with our General Studies students. We are experimenting with LibAnalytics for the implementation.
• We are looking at our teaching practices. I am trying to move us to a more reflective practice for our teaching. We are working on and using more active learning techniques. We are lucky to have two Immersion-trained librarians here (one of my team members and me). 
• We are starting a library blog. It is "live" now, but we are not really launching in full til the spring semester. Feel free to take a small peek here if interested. We hope it will make a good tool to go along with our Facebook page and other social media. One thing that is good here is we tend to feel free to experiment, but we also know not to jump into every bandwagon. We do think it over whether a tool will serve us or not. 
• We teach. We teach a lot. Our big client here is the General Studies program, but we also provide some instruction for other classes. Down the road (as in soon), we plan on doing some curriculum mapping to see where else we can "deploy" our services to better serve our faculty and students. 
• We are exploring outreach ideas. We have a small calendar for displays now, and I have some ideas for possible library programs to implement. 
• Also, looking into solidifying our liaison work with faculty. 
• I lead a small team of instructional services librarians. It is an interesting experience as one of them is an older (both in age and experience) librarian and the other is a newer, eager, but very knowledgeable in instruction librarian. I think they give me the best of both worlds. I am learning to become a mentor to the younger librarian while I strive to learn all I can from my older fellow. And yes, I am their manager, but I strive for a form of service leadership where I lead more by example. 
• And I try to participate in campus life as much as possible, both for outreach (to represent the library) and just for personal satisfaction. 

That is just a little bit. I am hoping to also find time to write a bit more professionally, something that is encouraged here. I am faculty, but as library faculty, I am not tenure-line, or do I have to publish or perish. I do have full privileges like the rest of the faculty, including vote in the faculty senate, being able to be drafted for committee work, so on. It's not bad. It's different since I was always a staff member. Now, I am officially an Assistant Professor of Library Science (it does sound cool, huh?). However, if I want to publish and write, it is encouraged. Maybe this will be the year I publish something other than a mere blog that four people read. Don't hold your breath though. I am not one for resolutions, but this is something I want to try. Also, get my bearings on other professional development, something also encouraged here. We'll see.

All in all, the latter half of 2012 was pretty good overall. Well, as long as I did not watch too many news (more on that on other posts of the holiday series), and for that, I am grateful.

Coming up next, the fun posts, so stay tuned. And before I go for now, I want to wish my family, colleagues, friends near and far a safe and happy holiday season in whatever form they celebrate it (or choose not to celebrate). If you drink, please do so in moderation, and whatever you do, do not get into a motor vehicle intoxicated. There are enough tragedies already, please don't add one more.

Happy Holidays!

Campus Event: Reception and Conversation with Cheri Honkala 2012 Green Party VP Candidate

The event took place last night at Berea College's Appalachian Center. This was a rare opportunity, so I decided to go and learn a thing or two, and I took the family along as well. I can say my daughter was impressed after the event. The following are some notes I took from the event.

• Ms. Honkala opens her remarks by acknowledging the efforts of community organizers. 
• She spent the day touring the mountains and hearing stories from the locals. She notes that Dr. Jill Stein, the Presidential Candidate for the Green Party, and her have made it a point to go to places that the two major parties have neglected. 
• Things we know: poverty, short life spans, mountaintop removals, coal dust, and other environmental issues (and in the case of the mountains and coal, very significant issues here in Kentucky) as well as human issues. We need to act now and remove the blinders so we can have a future. 
• The theater of the national debates is similar to the theater (spectacle) in the film The Hunger Games. And we are then told to vote for the lesser of two evils. As voters, we should be looking at the facts. 
• Ms. Honkala's story is the story of a woman who was homeless, a single mother, and the last person who would ever think of running for any political office. She decided that the basic necessities of life are not negotiable.  Her mother taught her it is more important to do what is right. So, 200-plus arrests later for various acts of civil disobedience, she finds herself on the path of running on a Green Party Ticket. First, she was approached to run for sheriff in Philadelphia. She ran on a no foreclosures campaign. She was the first woman to run for his office. Later, stemming from her work with homeless people and the poor, she was asked by Dr. Jill Stein to be her running mate. Honkala's mentors all told her it was her responsibility to run, to give back.
• Ms. Honkala says she tried hard to be a Democrat. But no one in that party was concerned about what she thought, the concerns of a poor single mother nor the concerns of people losing their homes and suffering. No one wanted to talk about poverty. 
• Briefly mentioned the work of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign.
• The law of humanity: keep each other alive and take care of each other. 
• Honkala will be in Danville, KY marching to protest not being included in the National Vice-Presidential Debate. (By the way, as a side note, Danville is only about 40 minutes from Berea. If I was not working the evening shift in reference, I'd be very tempted to go). There is a problem with democracy when third parties, even if they have no mathematical chance of winning the White House, are excluded from any of the national debates and effectively silenced. These voices do need to be a part of the national conversation and debate. In spite of that, the Green Party has worked collecting signatures, and they are now in the ballots of 38 states. 
• You may want to check out some coverage at Democracy Now! For instance, Jill Stein and Rocky Anderson (the presidential candidate of the Justice Party) were featured answering the same debate questions from the presidential debates. They may be doing it again for the vice-presidential debate. The Green Party has used other media, including international media, to get coverage. For instance, Dr. Stein was featured in Al-Jazeera feature on third party candidates. This is also a tactic to force the American mainstream media to cover third party candidates (which, as we know, the American media treat as a joke, a sideshow, or they just don't cover them at all). 
• The building of an independent party should be a revolutionary act.

After the candidate delivered her remarks, which were very informal, she had time for photos and questions from the audience.

Lisa Rivera talks politics and American history with Ms. Honkala

Our daughter Lisa got to talk to Ms. Honkala, discussing how some of the candidate's ideas connected to lessons she is just learning in her social studies class (they are covering the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans). For her mother and I, experiences like this are a way to supplement her school education, plus, Lisa gets to see a good role model of a strong woman in politics and an activist.




Overall, we had a small but enthusiastic gathering of people from in and out of the college. I did wish a few more of our students would have made it for this is the kind of opportunity you do not get very often.

Caprice and Angel Rivera with Cheri Honkala

Ms. Honkala also talked a bit about issues of access to information and a bit on people using their public libraries. But there is still more to be done to bridge that digital divide. Certainly an issue close to this librarian.

You can learn more about the Green Party and its candidates from the links in this post.