"Why Do You Hate Religion So Much?"

My posts about the unconstitutional encroachment of religion on college campuses prompted one of my readers to write in asking: "Why do you hate religion so much? Granted, there are many religious fanatics who pervert the true teachings of various religions. But religion can be a force for good and this is a truth that even an atheist or an agnostic such as yourself has to acknowledge."

Well, dear reader, actually, I am neither atheist nor agnostic. I am a religious person, a believer. I dislike talking about it because this is a profoundly intimate issue, which, I feel, is profanated daily by showy public exhibitions from all kinds of fundamentalists. My deep religious feelings are the reason why the insistent, loud screeching of religious fanatics and their attempts to push their religion on everybody else pain me so much. It is almost physically painful to observe how so many people use religion to achieve their unconscionable political goals, oppress others, and foster their own sense of fake moral superiority. Vociferating about how spiritual you are and lording it over others is easy. Trying to live quitely and unobtrusively according to the tenets of one's religious doctrine is hard. Christianity, which I know more about than any other religion, is supposed to be based on humility and quiet contemplation. If you say "I'm Christian" and don't immediately ask yourself "Am I? Do I lead a truly Christian life?", then you are nothing but a fake.

Christianity has been colonized by so many loud individuals who screech about how much better they are than anybody else that I don't even want to identify as Christian any more. So many atrocities have been and still are perpetrated in the name of Christianity that the best thing people who want to consider themselves Christian can do is just shut up already and turn towards themselves, their own souls. In the words of Jesus himself, prayer should not be a public affair. It should be done, privately, intimately, secretively. In the words of Jesus himself, don't count everybody else's sins, go count your own and concentrate on bettering yourself. This is a religion that is murdered when it is imposed on people by stealth or against their will. This is a religion that, according to the words of Jesus himself, should be kept separate from public and political life.

As I said, I don't want to talk about this issue much because it's very personal to me. This is pretty much all I want to say about this topic on this blog.

Complaints

I've blogged about many important political, social and feminist issues but today I just want to use this blog to complain and have my readers feel sorry for me. :-) Maybe somebody faced a similar problem and can offer advice. That would be very welcome.

This semester, my Monday teaching schedule is insane. My first class that I teach in Spanish starts at 11 am. This means that I come to work at least an hour before to prepare and go over things I want to do in class. This first class is very innovative and interactive, so I have to work very hard to make it happen. Then, I teach a long lecture-type class in English from 1:30 to 2:45. After that, I have to teach my graduate course (in Spanish, of course) from 4:30 to 7:20 pm. The rest of the week is easy, but this Monday schedule literally kills me. The day after that (Tuesday) I feel completely wiped out physically and intellectually.

Maybe something is wrong with me, I don't know. Surely, one is not supposed to feel so drained after only one day of such schedule? The thing is that I can't teach a half-assed class, no matter how tired I am and how drained I will feel as a result. I never sit down in a class unless students are writing an exam or a mini-quiz and I always give every ounce of energy to teaching. Switching between languages (neither of which is my native language) several times in a row doesn't help either. Also, the last and the longest class of the day is the most challenging one. We read very complex Golden Age texts and getting the students to understand them and enjoy them is very energy-consuming.

I have only had three of these horrible Mondays this semester and there are many more to come. Honestly, I have no idea how I will be able to make it until the end of the semester. I tried doing everything I can think of to relax and rest the day before: cooking (yes, that relaxes me), reading murder mysteries (and that does as well), taking long baths. Still, after Monday classes end, I am a total wreck.

What should I do, people? Any advice and/or encouragement will be highly appreciated. :-)

Why Is American Education Circling the Toilet Bowl?

A spate of articles appeared recently trying to elucidate the causes of the decline in the quality of American education. The conservative pseudo-journalists at Washington Post and the New York Times think they have found the cause: the current generation of students is crappy and has no values. This is what Thomas Friedman has to say on the subject quoting his colleague at WaPo:

“The larger cause of failure is almost unmentionable: shrunken student motivation,” wrote Samuelson. “Students, after all, have to do the work. If they aren’t motivated, even capable teachers may fail. Motivation comes from many sources: curiosity and ambition; parental expectations; the desire to get into a ‘good’ college; inspiring or intimidating teachers; peer pressure. The unstated assumption of much school ‘reform’ is that if students aren’t motivated, it’s mainly the fault of schools and teachers.” Wrong, he said. “Motivation is weak because more students (of all races and economic classes, let it be added) don’t like school, don’t work hard and don’t do well. In a 2008 survey of public high school teachers, 21 percent judged student absenteeism a serious problem; 29 percent cited ‘student apathy.’ ” . . . In a flat world where everyone has access to everything, values matter more than ever. Right now the Hindus and Confucians have more Protestant ethics than we do, and as long as that is the case we’ll be No. 11!

Leaving aside Friedman's latent racism (the brown and the yellow people are coming to conquer us, oooh, scary!), I take issue with this journalist's desire to dump on the younger generation. Unlike Friedman, I happen to see students in my classroms and my office every single day of the week. Based on my experience with today's students in Canada and different schools in the US, I can say that the kids I teach are simply fantastic. They are extremely hard-working, curious, motivated, smart, kind, and a lot more open-minded than their parents. Un fortunately, our education system often has no idea how to tap into this great potential. This is the real cause of the apathy Friedman and Samuelson refer to. Blaming the students is easy, while addressing the true ills of the system is a lot harder. This would require a lot of hard work, that same hard work that Friedman believes his generation can provide in spades.

As I said before, when a person starts explaining how the current generations of youngsters are a lot worse than the previous ones, this is the surest mark of intellectual and spiritual old age for me, irrespective of the person's chronological age. There are innumerable problems in the American education system but blaming the students for being spoilt and lazy is not a way to address these issues. Every day after leaving the classroom, I feel very glad that our future is in the hands of these great kids. If we fail to put this potential to its best use, that's our fault, not the students'.

What Should College Administrators Do?

Too much time has come from yet another rant from me on the subject of college administrators, but today is the perfect moment to regale my readers with yet another series of complaints.

College administrators think that they should justify their exorbitant salaries by messing with the way we teach our students, govern our departments, and conduct our research. While they are enjoying themselves by making our lives miserable, their actual administrative duties remain unattended. To give an example, my university decided to change the carpeting in the building where my department and a few others are located. This could have easily be done during the summer holidays when nobody would have been disturbed. Doing that, however, would have required somebody to arrive at the complex idea that the learning process at a university actually matters. Apparently, this thought is completely unattainable for some people.

Today, our department has been rendered completely uninhabitable by the process of carpet installation. The noise is horrible and the stench is even worse. I am teaching all three of my classes today, which means that I have to stay at work until 7:30 pm. The noise and the smell have already chased most of the professors away from the department. I feel nauseous and have a horrible headache. And it's only 10 am here. Imagine how I will feel after 8 hours of this.

I'm not asking for anything huge from the university. Our funding has been frozen for the second year in a row, so I keep buying all the supplies I need for my classes with my own money. There is no chalk in many of the classrooms, so I bring my own. I go out of my way to make sure my students get the benefit of all my technologically advanced activities, even when the classrooms I get assigned don't allow for that. I struggle with an antique computer that keeps breaking down on me and swallowing all of my class materials. Is it too much to ask at least to be able to come to my office and work in a quiet environment that doesn't stink (physically and metaphorically)?

More Religion on Campus

What I find really annoying is that on this fine Sunday afternoon I have to be bombarded with chain e-mails from my colleagues about "the power of religion and prayer to bring inner peace." We have a service where you can e-mail every single professor at our university at once, which is useful for work related purposes. It's annoying enough that people use this service to find homes for kittens and puppies (accompanying each such e-mail with endless pictures of said dogs and kittens that make your mail-box crash), sell football tickets, houses and cars, and share their general dissatisfaction with the universe. (I'm sorry your students prefer checking their Facebook pages to listening to your ununspiring lecture, but how does it help to fill my mailbox with your complaints?) Inconsiderate as hell, that's what it is.

However, when this service is used to expose me - completely against my will, mind you - to religious propaganda coming from my workplace on my day off, that's simply unconstitutional. We are a state university. The US Constitution guarantees separation of Church and State. This means that at my state university I have a constitutional right to be protected from other people's religious rantings. I don't dump my religion on them, so why do they dump theirs on me? These are educated, well-read people we are talking about. Is it possible that they don't understand how offensive (let alone unconstitutional) their attempts to proselytize amongst their colleagues are?

9/11: It's Tragic

It's tragic that so many people died a horrible death.

It's tragic that their families have lost people they love.

It's tragic that so many questions remain unanswered.

It's tragic that the promise "to find, to get them running and to hunt them down, those who did this to America" has remained unfulfilled.

It's tragic that so many heroic firefighters and police officers died on 9/11 because their equipment was substandard and outdated.

It's tragic that the events of 9/11 have unleashed a pro-macho, anti-woman fury in the American media.

It's tragic that the events of 9/11 have been used as an excuse to start horrible, bloody wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It's tragic that soldiers are still dying in those wars.

It's tragic that so many Muslim people suffered persecutions on religious and racial grounds after 9/11.

It's tragic that the American response to 9/11 confirmed all of the worst stereotypes about this country among the people of the globe.

It's tragic that 9/11 was used to strip the American people of their freedoms.
It's tragic that in response to religious fanatics attacking this country on 9/11 we allowed another group of religious fanatics to hijack the White House.

It's tragic that the suffering of the victims of 9/11 and their families is still being used by politicians for ideological manipulation.

It's tragic.

As a tribute to the events of 9/11, I wanted to share with you a poetry by a talented Palestinian poet-song writer Ikhlas ("Yasmin") Jebara. You can find more of her poetry here.

TO SAY OR NOT TO SAY

I wonder whether to say or not to say
To be enthusiastic
to revolve
or to obey
For God or for people to pray
Or like a refugee without home to stay
Or like a child in the streets to play
Or to pass through a narrow or wide way
Or our hopes for future to delay
Or to sit under the red x-ray
Here we are my friend
with no decision
Whether to be or not to be
we do not know
Whether to say or not to say

Alliteration

The author of http://www.michaelalanmiller.com/ came up with the following great sentence:

I write about a lot of topics where I am already fully fed up with the feckless fuckers whose faults I flay.

I don't often feel envious but I can't help it when somebody can achieve such a perfect and beautiful communion between the meaning and the sound of a sentence. That's art, people.

Check out the entire post here to see the context of this great utterance.

Markos Moulitsas' American Taliban: A Review

Due to Blogger trouble, I couldn't blog almost for the entire day yesterday. As a result, many things I wanted to say have accumulated. Now I will be bombarding my readers with posts. I hope nobody minds. :-)

So I've been reading American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin, and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right by Markos Moulitsas, the founder of DailyKos, and I love it. The book is both insightful and entertaining, and I recommend it to any one who loves making fun of the right-wing stupidity and hypocrisy.

The main idea of the book is to show that

the Republican Party, and the entire modern conservative movement is, in fact, very much like the Taliban. In their tactics and on the issues, our homegrown American Taliban are almost indistinguishable from the Afghan Taliban. The American Taliban—whether in their militaristic zeal, their brute faith in masculinity, their disdain for women’s rights, their outright hatred of gays, their aversion to science and modernity, or their staunch anti-intellectualism—share a litany of mores, values, and tactics with Islamic extremists.

Sure enough, the Republicans insist that more and more of our poor teenagers from disadvantaged backgrounds should be sent to Afghanistan supposedly to fight Taliban. They denounce the "uncivilized," "medieval," and "barbaric" Muslim terrorists. They even oppose the building of a peaceful Muslim house of prayer because they believe that their own religious fanaticism is vastly superior to Islam. In reality, though, they should be the last people to condemn anybody for barbarity and terrorism. When the conservatives denounce American progressives for supporting the Taliban, they are completely dishonest:

Progressives hate the Taliban and other Islamic fundamentalists precisely for the same reason we hate rabid conservatives at home: their fear of change, their contempt for nontraditional lifestyles, their mania for militaristic solutions, and their fascistic efforts to impose their narrow worldview on the rest of society.

Markos draws very convincing parallels between the actions of our homegrown religious fanatics and those we see in other countries. He writes in his incomparable sarcastic style that made his blog so loved by the good guys and hated by the idiots. This, for example, is what he has to say about Texas secessionists:

I’m partial to ceding a portion of the Texas Panhandle to these wackos, naming it Dumbfuckistan, taking it off the federal dole, building a wall around it, and arresting anyone trying to enter America illegally. I can always dream.

The book offers a lot more than humor, though. There are some really great insights about why the conservative message attracts so many people in spite of being both oppressive and contradictory. Markos doesn't shy away from pointing out how often women participate in their own oppression and why:

Promise Keepers proclaims its mission to be “to ignite and unite men to become warriors who will change their world through living out the Seven Promises”—one of those promises being to commit to “building strong marriages and families through love, protection and biblical values.” Such talk of “protection” can have an appeal, and not just to the biblical “warriors” declaring their belief in the inerrancy of scripture and their god-given right to be head of household. In a world fraught with economic uncertainty, the notion of being shielded from the harshness of the free market, with its downsizing, outsourcing, and discarding of workers, can be deeply appealing, particularly to conservative women. In the wake of 9/11, we’ve seen how quickly Americans are willing to surrender democratic values—such as the need for search warrants and the right to free speech—for even the appearance of security. It should not surprise us to find women willing to give up autonomy, choice, and, yes, even the right to vote, in exchange for “protection.”

It's great to see a progressive writer who is not afraid of going in this direction in his analysis.

The book is very well-researched. There is a lot of interesting data that I never saw before. To give just one example:

In a study published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives in the winter of 2009, Benjamin Edelman examined the zip codes associated with all credit card subscriptions of a top online adult site, over a two-year period between 2006 and 2008. Here are some of his findings: In the 27 states where “defense of marriage” amendments have been adopted (making same-sex marriage, and/or civil unions unconstitutional), subscriptions to this adult entertainment service are... 11 percent more [prevalent] than in other states. ... Subscriptions are also more prevalent in states where surveys indicate conservative positions on religion, gender roles, and sexuality. In states where more people agree that “Even today miracles are performed by the power of God” and “I never doubt the existence of God,” there are more subscriptions to this service. Subscriptions are also more prevalent in states where more people agree that “I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage” and “AIDS might be God’s punishment for immoral sexual behavior.”

How cute is that, huh?

The book costs less than 8 bucks on Kindle and is honestly worth every cent. I still can't stop laughing over some of Markos's brilliant quips.

My First Article

What does it say about my scholarly career that I still consider my first research article to be the best I've ever produced? I was 25 years old and had only been learning Spanish for 2,5 years. My knowledge of the Spanish language, let alone the literature written in the Spanish language, was obviously pretty limited. I had no idea how literary criticism was supposed to be done. I had even less understanding of how academic publishing works. The positive side of all this ignorance, though, was that I felt completely free to write what I wanted exactly as I wanted to write it. Today's beautiful rainy weather makes me feel nostalgic, so I want to share the story of that article with my readers.

When I decided to create my first research article, I started by going to the library and choosing the thickest novel I could find. The thinking behind that was that a long novel would definitely provide me with enough material for research. So I read this novel by the great Spanish realist writer Benito Perez Galdos and came up with my interpretation of the novel. Happy as a clam, I went to look at the research that had already been done on the novel and immediately discovered that what I wanted to say about it had already been said a hundred times before. In those days, it took me forever to read a novel in Spanish, so I didn't have time to pick another work to analyze.

"OK," I said to myself. "It makes no sense to repeat what others have said before. So why don't I argue the exact opposite of what everybody else is saying? Critics agree that this is a novel about religious intolerance. And I will say that it isn't." Strange as it may seem to proceed in this way, it actually makes sense. Whenever there is a general agreement on something, whenever something seems completely obvious, that means the phenomenon in question hasn't been subjected to a truly rigorous analysis.

I started analyzing the novel from this perspective and came up with some very interesting observations that never occurred to anybody before. At that point, I didn't have the slightest suspicion that writing "Critic such-and-such is completely wrong" might not be a good idea. I didn't know that the critic in question can turn out to be one of the people who will review the article for publication. Or that scholar's friend, spouse, or former student might review it and take umbrage at your argument. I actually believed that if that happened, the critic might feel flattered that their work was noticed by another scholar. I thought a scholar might be excited to enter into an intellectual discussion about the fruits of their research. Stupid, huh? But as I said, I was young and idealistic and had no idea how things worked.

So I finished the article and proved that my innocence truly had no bounds by sending it to one of the most prestigious journals in my field. At that point, I didn't even have a Bachelor's degree yet (the article was initially meant to be my Senior Essay.) The funniest thing is that when this eminently respectable (and to many scholars even scary) journal accepted it for publication, I didn't feel even marginally surprised. I knew the article was good, so of course it was going to be published. There is always space in a journal to publish articles by promising young scholars. It's not like space would be occupied by the friends and the relatives of the editors who need to get published even when they have nothing to say. That never happens. Hard work is always rewarded and good guys always win, right? God, I miss being young.

A short time after I got the letter of acceptance, I visited a conference where the editor of this journal was present. He was sitting in the first row next to the Chair of my department and obviously he asked her to point out this academic whose article he'd just accepted for publication. She turned around and pointed me out to him. I have a tendency to look younger than I am and "like an innocent angel." Which is something that I heard so many times in my life that one of these days I'll just scream "No, I'm a total bitch, and I'll start letting you see that right now, jerk!!" On the day of that conference, I'd also had the brilliant idea to put my hair in braids and tie it with cute little blue bows. I thought that one's appearance has nothing to do with one's intellectual capacities. See, I told you I was young and stupid.

When the esteemed editor saw me, he looked like he was on the verge of tears. He put his head in his hands and sat looking completely desperate until the end of that panel. The article had just gone to the presses and it was too late to recall it. Then, of course, he collected himself and congratulated me.

It's sad to think that the knowledge of how things work in academia did nothing to improve my research. Just the opposite, it made me think of all the things I should fear every time I sit down to write.

Random Things I Don't Like

1. Cauliflower. Unexplainably, even seeing somebody eat it at another table in a restaurant makes me gag. This is weird because I love broccoli and kohlrabi, which aren't that different from cauliflower. Now that I wrote this word twice, I already feel like throwing up.

2. Hot, sunny weather. Unlike most people on this planet, I hate it when it's hot and sunny. Late Fall is my favorite season. I love Fall clothes, shoes, umbrellas. I wish it were always raining, like today.

3. Split infinitives. Make fun of it all you want, but my hatred of expressions like "I want to honestly believe" or "we have to very seriously consider" is profound. The worst thing is that these offenses against the English language have become so ubiquitous that you hear them in newscasts, White House press releases, and official letters from the university administrators (well, actually no surprise there). I have even caught them seeping into my own conversations a couple of times.

4. Aggressive anti-Kindlers. I understand perfectly well that not everyone needs and wants a Kindle. It's OK not to like the way it looks, the way it works, the amount it costs, or simply not to have any use for it. What annoys me, though, is those people who find it necessary to subject me to passionate anti-Kindle rants whenever they see me with one. I mean, what's the point of trying to convince me Kindles are evil? I obviously already paid quite a lot for one (or three, actually), so it's not like I'll see the light and throw it out if you explain to me why it's such a horrible thing.

5. Dogs. I know many of my readers will hate me for this, but I can't help it, people! I'm terrified of dogs for some reason, even the small, supposedly cute ones. They bark and they make these nasty panting noises. They also salivate all over people and destroy their pantyhose with their paws. It's especially annoying when dog owners think that I'm just being coy when I ask them to take their dog off me. "Oh, she's just playing around!" they say, looking proud of their pet. It doesn't seem to matter to them much how much discomfort a person experiences when played with against her will.

6. Insects. I'm terrified of insects. Even butterflies are scary. You'd say they are beautiful but have you ever seen a butterfly's face (or whatchamacallit) up close? Look at it through a microscope and you'll see what I'm talking about. Those things are nasty and mean-looking like nothing else I've seen. I don't mind worms, though. They are kind of phallic-looking, so they give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.

7. Students who give me long explanations on why they missed class. I have never asked anybody why they were absent. I tell students all the time that I understand perfectly well that every once in a while one can't make it to class. And it's fine. I really don't mind. I couldn't care less, to be honest. Still, there are people who subject me to long, convoluted stories about how the entire universe conspired to prevent them from coming to class. I always tell them: "I don't want to be a police woman or a truancy officer. Please don't try to turn me into one." But it's no use, they still do it.

8. Drivers who think pedestrians are outdated and need to be punished for their temerity of actually daring to walk by speeding into them and splashing them with mud.

9. Unsolicited advice. Last week, a colleague subjected me to a 15-minute rant on how I could improve a course I'm teaching. Did he ever teach a similar course? Not even close. Has he observed my class and seen any problems in it? No, he's never been near my classroom. Does he have more teaching experience than I do? Ha ha ha. Does he, in fact, have any experience teaching this type of courses? Not even remotely. Still, he thinks it highly necessary to inform me of his views on how the course needs to be taught even though there is no possibility that I will change my syllabus 3 weeks into the semester.

10. Unconsiderate conference speakers. Few things are as annoying as knowing that you will be the last speaker on your panel and listening to a colleague mumble and stumble through 40 minutes of a talk instead of the 20 they were assigned. Don't such people realize that they force colleagues who have to speak after them rush through their presentation as a result of their total lack of consideration?

11. Birds singing. I understand that birds have to sing for whatever biological reasons. But, gosh, do they have to start doing it so early?? I love to sleep with my window open in all seasons, but these birds start persecuting me with their chirping even before 5 am. I now know the voices of all the most vocally active creatures that live around my house. There is a particularly nasty one who starts screeching as early as 4 am. How evil is that?

I have more but I've got to run to work now. Feel free to share your dislikes in the comments.

Modern Languages at Swansea: The Fight Continues

The folks at Swansea University started their own blog where they share details of their struggle. Check it out here and send the link to your friends.

I really admire these people because they are not giving up. I wish academics in this country start learning how to fight for their rights and follow the example of their colleagues at Swansea.

Biblical Marriage: A Hilarious Video

While my students were writing their mini-quiz, I was surfing the Internet and discovered the following video. Only a super human effort of willpower helped me avoid roaring with laughter. Enjoy!

A Voters' Change of Heart?

As many of us have heard, two weeks ago the Republicans had a 10 point lead in voter preferences for the upcoming elections. The most recent Gallup Poll, however, shows both parties tied up at 46%. This, of course, can be a fluke. It could also be attributed to President's Obama's address that announced that combat operations in Iraq were officially over. If that is the real reason behind the President's surge in popularity (which I believe is very likely since it was his opposition to the war in Iraq that helped put him in the Oval Office), I hope this will prompt Obama's administration dig out those campaign promises we all liked so much and start going over them.

If the Democrats have any hope of not losing too badly at the polls in November, they have to start listening to their base and not to the screeching of the religious fanatics, crazy Tea Partiers, and Glenn Beck's group of racist jerks. I am convinced that the absolute majority of Americans want peace, jobs, education, healthcare, and security. Even if the militant fringe of the religious right tries to convince us that we want the opposite of all those things. As you can see from the poll linked above, the ultra-conservatives are a lot more enthusiastic than the Democratic supporters about showing up at the polls in the first place. This enthusiasm is due to their certainty that, if elected, their candidates will definitely deliver every piece of insanity they are promising right now. The Democrats find it a lot more difficult to disregard the Conservative howling and stick to fulfilling the mandate they got from their base. I truly hope there is enough time for the Dems to start thinking seriously about the upcoming elections.

Asperger's: Daily Experiences

My recent post on autism has brought over 1,500 people to this blog and became one of the most popular posts I have ever written. This makes me very happy because, for the most part, people get their information about autism from TV shows and articles that depict it as laughable and pathetic on the one hand and tragic on the other hand. In fact, it is neither. Autism is a way of being that has its advantages and its drawbacks. Different people experience it in a multitude of ways and relate to it differently.

The kind of insensitivity to autism that I made fun of in my post is caused by the lack of reliable, anti-sensationalist information about the experiences of people with different forms of autism. This is why I want to share with my readers how I experience my autism on a daily basis and what it means to me. Also, I am hoping that other autistics will read this and decide whether some of my techniques might work for them.

 As I mentioned earlier, I have "good days" and "bad days." On bad days, it becomes more difficult to manage my autism, while on good days I make use of a variety of strategies that make it difficult for most people who know me to guess that I am in any way different. In this post, I will describe the techniques I use on my good days, of which today was one. I remind you that my form of Asperger's is pretty severe, which means that not everybody who has it needs to go through a similar routine.

Before I leave the house to go to work, I need to imagine my route several times and in a very detailed way. Even though I take the same bus to work several times a week, I can't just leave the house without going over this entire trip in my mind. If I do, I might end up pretty much anywhere in town, which happened before. So I repeat in my head several times the things I have to do to get to work: "To the bus stop, get in the bus, get out on campus, then to Starbucks, then to the library, then to my office, then to my first class on the first floor." I also have to check on my wallet, keys, cell phone and Kindle very often, otherwise I will definitely lose them. So every 15-20 minutes I go over my "wallet-keys-cell phone-Kindle" routine.

This morning, I had to call a doctor's office to make an appointment. I'd been putting off this phone call for weeks because talking on the phone to strangers is still one of my biggest challenges. I need to know exactly what they will ask me and what I will respond because otherwise I might get flustered and forget answers even to the simplest questions. Once, a person I was talking to asked me my name and for a horrible 30 seconds or so I had no idea what to say. So I faked a fit of coughing that allowed me to figure out what the answer was. This is why I'd been suffering from an ear-ache for weeks instead of calling a doctor. I wish such things started being handled over the Internet.

When I arrive at work, I know it's highly likely I will meet colleagues. It takes me a while to recognize even the people that I know very well and especially to remember their names. So every morning I prepare a couple of phrases that I can say as soon as I see a familiar face. This gives me time to get my bearings, realize who the person is and what they are called. Usually, the sentences I prepare have something to do with weather. Today, it was "Finally, this horrible heat is over." I keep repeating this sentence in my mind all the time I walk to my office and say it every time I meet someone I know.

Today, I had two committee meetings with people I had never met before. When I was younger, nothing terrified me more than having to meet a group of strangers for the first time. Nowadays, however, I manage such situations perfectly well if I have had a chance to prepare for them. I do little practice routines in my head of what I will say when I come in and what I will do if there is an unpleasant pause in the conversation. Of course, there is a huge problem of remembering the names. The first thing I do when somebody tells me their name is forget it completely. I've tried different things that would help me retain people's names but nothing has worked so far. I get so concentrated on saying what I need to say when meeting someone that everything else just escapes me completely. While I am in such meetings I have to make sure that I don't get distracted too much from what is being discussed and avoid making weird faces at people and giggling at inappropriate moments. That's doable but it requires effort. It's also very hard knowing when it's my turn to speak. People often think I'm rude because I interrupt them. It would be great if everybody finished their utterance by saying "That's it" or "I'm done." I often do that myself in case anybody else in the group has a similar difficulty.

All of my meetings today went very well. If you were to ask anybody who met me today whether they thought I had autism, I'm sure nobody would have the slightest idea. Of course, all these things made me so tired that when I went home I fell asleep immediately. Still, it's a small price to pay for the great benefits that autism brings to my life.

Many people who know me closely are incredulous when I tell them I have Asperger's. As you can see from the description of my day, I made a choice to make my autism as unnoticeable to others as I possibly can. If, however, you don't feel like doing all these things to prevent others from noticing, then you definitely shouldn't. There is no "correct" or "incorrect" way of being autistic. My way works for me but if you choose to relate to it differently, that's great too.

Questions and non-hateful comments are welcome.

Craigslist and Liberal Values

When Dr. Phil started his anti-Craigslist campaign, I could understand it. He's an ultra-conservative, so what should you expect? When a middle-class married woman said she had a price-list of sexual services (all typed up on quality paper) and her husband had to pay her in cash for every service, Dr. Phil said that was healthy and acceptable. Of course, this woman was selling her body to her husband and, evidently, this makes it somehow not prostitution. Then, Dr. Phil began his attacks on Craigslist for publishing announcements for the same kind of thing the married lady in question was practicing with her husband.

In attacking Craigslist, Dr. Phil stated that "Craigslist gave rise to prostitution." I guess he meant that prostitution was on the rise because of Craigslist but both these statements are quite hilarious. Cook County Sheriff agrees with Dr. Phil's weird notion that Craigslist creates prostitution:

Craigslist is the single largest source of prostitution in the nation. ... Missing children, runaways, abused women and women trafficked in from foreign countries are routinely forced to have sex with strangers because they're being pimped on Craigslist.

People might be forgetting this but prostitution began a long time (and I mean a really long time)  before anybody heard of Craigslist, or even Internet. Craigslist cannot be "a source of prostitution." People are the only source of prostitution. Craigslist is a source of advertisement of sexual services, nothing more. Censoring Craigslist will not make prostitution disappear or even diminish. Can anybody imagine a prostitute saying to themselves: "Hmm, Craigslist is closed, well, then I won't prostitute myself any more and go find gainful employment"? Seriously? Is anybody really that dense?

Well, we all know what Dr. Phil is like and can't expect too much from him. It's sad, though, that the liberal circles have joined in this ridiculous fight against Craigslist, a fight that is being stoked by the dying print media whose dwindling resources are being further sapped by Craigslist. To give an example, Echidne, a famous feminist blogger published a post that celebrates the anti-Craigslist censorship. The post is titled "Craigslist stops pimping under protest." It is as disingenious as Dr. Phil's proclamations on the subject, since Craigslist is free for its users (which is precisely what makes the print media hate this site). We are all used to the religious right defending the freedom of religion only for their own religion and the freedom of speech exclusively for themselves. Are the liberals now going to follow in their footsteps? Will we support censorship for ideas we don't like?

So you're telling me you don't have autism?

So you're telling me you don't have autism? Seriously? Oh wow. Oh God. You are really neurotypical? Gosh, I'm so sorry. Are you sure, though? Because you look completely normal to me. I mean you are the last person I would have suspected of not being autistic.

I really admire you, you know. Not having autism must be so tough. My friend's son was diagnosed with not having autism and she was heartbroken. She cried for three days. What do you mean why? Of course, you seem completely normal but have you seen those neurotypical people they show on TV? (In a dramatic whisper.) They are all freaky and weird and they keep banging their heads against the wall. Well, you are right, of course, anybody would bang their head against the wall if their mother cried for 3 days because they are the way they are, but still . . . It's tragic for a parent to realize their child will never be happy, or have a career, or get married. Yes, it's true, you seem pretty happy, and your career is great, and you even have a husband.

By the way, does he know that you are . . . well, you know . . . not autistic? He does? Wow, I admire him so much. It must be so tough for him to live with a neurotypical person. You are always there, always demanding attention, always getting into his personal space, getting upset if he wants to be silent, or if he prefers to be alone. Every time he comes home you keep asking him where he's been, what he's done, who he talked to. And when he spends time engrossed in his hobby, you feel abandoned, neglected and lonely. Poor guy, he must really love you to put up with this.

And since we are talking about loneliness, you must feel lonely a lot. I mean if the phone doesn't ring even once during a weekend, you, non-autistics, always get so miserable, don't you? You are incapable of staying completely alone for a week and loving it, like we, the autistics, can. You always have to be with people, talking to them, getting attention. And it matters so much to you what people think. Even now I can see you are getting upset because of what I'm saying. You should learn to be more like us, you know. There must be some behavioral techniques that will help you care less about other people's opinions. Have you tried medication? What do you mean there is no medication for neurotypicality? That's a crying shame! This is such a serious disease. I heard on television that it's a national epidemic. More and more people are getting diagnosed as non-autistics. It's a public health crisis, for Pete's sake, and you tell me they still haven't developed any drugs to help you deal with it? Are you at least getting any disability payments? Of course, you are disabled, don't be silly. Imagine all the things that the autistics do so easily and you can't ever hope to learn. We can absorb and process huge chunks of information, sort them in our brains, see logical connections between all facts that are presented to us. We pride ourselves on our strong reasoning skills, on our capacity to concentrate on what we do in a way a poor neurotypical cannot even imagine. I don't even have to prepare my classes because I see all the information I need in my mind. And I can see it in 3-D and in color. This is something that your poor, abnormal brain can't do.

Oh now, here you go, getting all upset. You neurotypicals are so emotional. You have to realize that you live in an autistic world. You belong to a minority, so you need to learn to fit in. Nobody likes a person who is always getting emotionally attached so easily. I'm sure you even remember the name of that guy who cheated on you all those years ago and dumped you for your best friend. If you were normal, like me, you would have gotten over that in a couple of days, at most, and wouldn't even recognize his face when you saw him on the street.

Actually, now I think about it, I should have suspected long ago that you have this neurotypical sickness. You have this annoying habit of always remembering everybody's name, birthday, phone number, silly things like that. Of course, you don't have any engrossing interest or hobby, you don't accumulate huge chunks of information on the subject that inerests you, so you must have a lot of free space in your brain. Don't get all huffy on me. Unlike you, the neurotypicals, the normal autistic people are always brutally honest. We don't care about silly social conventions enough to lie and pretend. I'm sorry for you because you don't know what it feels like to be free from all these rules, expectations, and conventions.

Well, I'm really glad you shared it with me. Don't worry, I'm not going to tell anybody. What do you mean you don't care if people know? Of course, you do. Not everybody is as tolerant and understanding as I am.

This post is based on my conversations with people I told I am autistic and their reactions. I wrote it in an imitation of Dorothy Parker, a writer I admire a lot, so please take it with a sense of humor.

Who Will the Students Vote for in November?

This is a question posed by a recent NYTimes article. Working with students as a teacher, adviser, and mentor is what I do, so I think I have a pretty good perspective on this issue. The last Presidential election awakened a huge enthusiasm and an impressive degree of political activism among college students. They all organized, discussed, and celebrated when Obama was elected. Since then, this young generation of voters has seen rising levels of unemployment, diminishing prospects even for semi-decent employment, pauperization of their hard-working parents, more troops allocated to un unwinnable war of uncertain motivation in Afghanistan, endless cuts in education, rising tuition, loss of student scholarships, and mounting debt.

As a result, many students are not planning to vote at all this November. In my Intermediate Spanish II course, we covered politics as a topic. Students were generally very indifferent and disillusioned whenever anything political was discussed. The consensus among them was that politicians lie and cheat and cannot be trusted. The word "government" provoked a collective wince. There is no wonder than in this environment my Bible Belt students, who have already been brainwashed to a high degree by the religious Right, have turned to the Tea Party insanity.

Political activism is something for which young people have a natural affinity. being young menas being idealistic, full of energy and desiring to change the world. Still, both the Democrats and the Republicans have no interest in fresh ideas coming from the younger generations. Young people are expected to vote and shut up. And then be prepared to be shipped to Afghanistan to fight yet another losing battle. It is no wonder that this type of political involvement doesn't appeal to the young. The Tea Party, with its seeming defiance of authority and its loud rallies, attracts my students a lot more. Of course, support for the Tea Party equals support for the more radical fringe of the Republicn Party, which young people (and many older people as well) fail to understand.

Are teenagers getting stupider or what?

I want to believe in the younger generation. It's nice to think that today's kids will be smarter than we are. Sometimes, though, it's hard to maintain this illusion, especially in view of news like these:

HELENA, Mont. (AP) -- General rule of thumb: when looking to buy marijuana, don't text the sheriff. Authorities said a Helena teen hit a wrong number and inadvertently sent a message to Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton, saying "Hey Dawg, do you have a $20 I can buy right now? A detective pretending to be the dealer organized a meeting at a time when the boy knew he and another teen would be at a particular store.

Apparently, the guy in question texted the sheriff even before he was stoned. I can only imagine what he'd be capable of after he makes his purchase.

Who Benefits from the Death of Academia?

Corporate structures and conservative political forces that support them are seething with hatred towards the last place in America where people don't have to slave 60 hours a week, 50 weeks a year without job security, guaranteed leave, etc.: the academia. They will not rest until they destroy us because while we exist, we will serve as a reminder to everybody else that some freedom from corporate slavery is possible. Everybody but the academics have accepted as normal and unavoidable things like at-will firing, no job security, all kinds of discrimination and abuse from their employers, no meaningful benefits, and the necessity to give up your opinions, your voice, your dignity, and your leisure just to eke out a very modest living.

Recently, there has been a flurry of articles in popular press arguing that the institution of tenure should be abolished. The authors of those articles made no secret of their desire to corporatize the university. Their main (or, actually, their only) argument for abolishing tenure was that since companies can fire people at will, so should colleges. Many academics dismissed these articles as meaningless rantings of some very stupid and anti-intellectual people. Well, stupid and anti-intellectual they might be, but apparently, many corporate-minded administrators across the country have gotten the message that time has come to rob academia of tenure. The University of Southern Mississippi is firing 14 tenured faculty members without any compunction or debate:

Twenty-nine faculty members, including 14 tenured full and associate professors, have been notified they will be terminated for the 2011-12 academic year. President Martha Saunders sent out a campus-wide e-mail Monday morning outlining the cuts that come "at a time of record enrollment and unparalleled successes within the university community."Her e-mail included a breakdown of all recommended budget reductions, including those absorbed by each college. The College of Arts and Letters took the most damage to the tune of $918,000 and 10 faculty members, while the College of Science and Technology incurred the least with $644,000 and three faculty members cut.

The message is clear: technology good, arts and letters bad and useless. Who needs thinking, independent individuals in Southern Mississippi? Obviously, no one. At least, not any more. This so-called "university" will now produce nothing but compliant and terrified little robots who will be ready to bend themselves backwards to do the bidding of their corporate masters and never dare even question why they have to live and work in such inhuman conditions.

What is especially sad, although not surprising in the least, is that people at the University of Southern Mississippi have launched no noticeable campaign to save themselves and their colleagues from being fired. I have searched everywhere I could on the Internet, but there seems to be no trace of any struggle by these academics against these unfair firing policies. Our Canadian and British colleagues don't take this type of abuse lying down. Academics at Swansea University and University of Toronto are fighting hard to keep their programs from being destroyed. In the US, however, people are so accustomed to having no rights in the workplace that you can do pretty much anything to them and they will thank you obsequiously and pathetically for not spitting in their faces even more than you already do.

My Letter to the Administrators of Swansea University: Please Join Our Struggle!

It will take you just a couple of minutes to send an e-mail to Prof. Davies and Mr. Ciborowski of Swansea University but the benefits of doing so might prove to be enormous.

To: Professor Richard Davies, Vice-Chancellor, Swansea University, vc@swan.ac.uk

Cc: Raymond Ciborowski, Registrar and Head of Administration, Swansea University, raymond.ciborowski@swan.ac.uk

Bcc: mlswansea@yahoo.co.uk


Dear Professor Davies and Mr. Ciborowski,

I am writing to express my deep concern over the proposed cuts to the Department of Modern Languages at Swansea University. Here in the United States we hold your university in high respect because of the outstanding quality of teaching and the impressive standards of research. This is why the the news that you are planning to halve the number of teaching faculty at the department has caused me and many of my collegues in the United States and Canada such great dismay.

The proposed cuts will deal a severe blow to the field of Modern Languages and Literature not only at your university but in the English-speaking world at large. If Swansea University stops being a serious contributor to the field in terms of research that comes out of it and the kind of students that graduate from it, it will leave a gaping hole where we are used to seeing a vibrant and productive department.

I understand extremely well that financial concerns are forcing many great universities to adopt painful policies of budget cuts. No academic institution has been immune from the consequences of the global economic crisis. However, it seems unfair and counterproductive to single out one department (in your case, such a crucial department as that of Modern Languages) and subject it to such extensive cuts. This is why I am joining my voice to those of my colleagues who are asking you to reconsider these cuts.  If there is any way to save Modern Languages at Swansea from such extensive lay-offs, I urge you to  consider it. Either through a policy of reducing administrative staff or by spreading these cuts more evenly across the university, the Department of Modern Languages at Swansea deserves that extra effort be made to save it.