After three weeks of utmost exertion and 24/7 travail, the Ol’ Bloviator is delighted to have a chance to break what seems like an eternity of eerie silence in this humble little corner of the cyberkingdom. While he was struggling to survive the very real threat of death by dissertations, theses, and seminar papers, he also passed a milestone (One that, I might add, hurt him about as badly as if he had passed a kidney stone) by marking his passage into the tattered ranks of the Social Security-eligible. I don’t know why I’ve always made a big deal out of turning sixty-two. Maybe it’s because that’s how old my Daddy was when he died, a few days after saying he was going to go to town to sign up for Social Security. SS was never supposed to be a retirement plan, of course, but a lot of things that weren't supposed to be retirement options are getting a second look these days.
For a great many folks who are hankerin’ to hang it up, the time they used to spend reviewing their 401-Ks is now more sensibly spent considering where they would bury their winnings if that lottery ticket hits. The OB ain’t quite in that situation, thank goodness, but his prospects damn sure ain’t as spruce as they once was. Consequently, his new magic year is now four birthdays on down the road. To make matters worse, some of our distinguished solons over there in Hot-lanta are convinced that now’s the perfect time for a swift kick to the corduroys of those elitist profs who have been living high wide and handsome, slurpin’ off the old public teat all these years while thumbing their noses at the decent folk who pay their inflated salaries. As a consequence, if I understand correctly, our contracts for next year will essentially obligate us but not our employer. We still have to work it seems, but they don’t have to pay us all they owe us.
We’re about to be “furloughed,” say our pusillanimous bureaucratic euphemizers who apparently lack the cajones to simply come out and say they’re going to cut our salaries. (To me, a “furlough” is a well-deserved respite from hazardous duty; so I’ve asked to be sent to Hawaii for mine.) It’s true enough that they’re also doing this with other state employees, but where our esteemed Lt. Governor and some like-minded (and slack-jawed) legislators are all apologetic about this in other cases, they are clearly relishing the prospect of putting the dog-ass, pinko, pointy-headed professors in their places. Moreover, after offering but the faintest of resistance, our leaders and supposed advocates for public higher education in this state appear now to be rushing to do the bidding of a bunch of folks who not only reject the idea of global warming but are just now warming up to the notion of the globe itself.
Personally, I reckon can survive the furloughs if they come, and I probably won’t even kick about them too much so long as our exceedingly well-heeled up-top admin types absorb a lot more of the pain of this furtive pay cut than our staff people who don’t even take home $20K per year. The problem, however, with the “do more with/for less” directives that have followed me everywhere I’ve ever taught and certainly govern higher education even more broadly these days is that the reward for complying is simply being asked to do even more with/for even less. After all, if you could do more than you were doing, you probably didn’t really need all you were getting in the first place, right? Thus, today’s “reduced budget” simply becomes tomorrow’s “budget,” that is, until it is “reduced” itself, and the cycle begins anew. You get the picture, but let’s not forget the appreciative “atta-boys” suggesting a nice raise, “soon as we get the money,” that will be going out to the campus brainstrusters who figured out how to squeeze another drop or two of blood out of the turnipheads on their faculties.
Beyond all this, simply altering contract language is troubling enough in itself, especially in a setting where your real higher-ups in system offices have made no secret of their disdain for tenure. Personally, I’ve never worried about shooting my mouth off, regardless of whether said mouth was tenured or not, but there are definitely situations, not excluding the one right here, where the faculty’s freedom to express their opinions, or even simply teach it the way they see it, could be in serious jeopardy without tenure. I can readily understand why even a great many folks who truly support higher education would be skeptical of tenure in some ways. However, I can say in all honesty (at least all the honesty I can summon) that I can count on one hand the number of tenured faculty I have encountered personally over the last thirty-something years who struck me as actually abusing the privilege, and this isn’t simply the result of my failing memory, either. For example, I can remember very clearly suggesting more than once in my early days that the old coots who whined constantly that everything they had worked for and held dear was being destroyed should not tarry lest the door hit them in the butt on the way out….By the way, does anybody know a good, gentle doorknob-removal specialist?
P.S. One of the benefits of being a bonafide senior citizen is a free subscription to the “Old Codger News Service,” owned and operated by my friend JL over there in Alabama. Here’s a tidbit or two from today’s edition, but be warned in advanced the following ain't exactly “P.C.”
People are still talking about Michelle Obama breaking protocol by touching Queen Elizabeth. Historians say it was the first time an American First Lady touched a queen since Eleanor Roosevelt shook hands with J. Edgar Hoover.
While most were glad the Obama girls got their Portuguese water dog, some people hated to see another American dog thrown out of work.
Amen to that. It also worries me, JL, that prior to settling on “Bo,” Pres. and Ms. Oby didn’t visit the invaluable and authoritative Urban Dictionary website, where they might have learned that the term “water dog” is sometimes used to describe the male sex organ in a state of partial happiness.
