What you said does not contradict what I am saying—the universities want to hire adjuncts, and they are constantly expanding their adjunct instructors because they have found cheap labor to exploit. The supply problem I’m talking about is the oversupply of people willing to take a shitty teaching job in lieu of…

There has been so much terrible news recently and the amount of “they had it coming because they didn’t...” has been more than I can take. My brush with it in Houston (why didn’t the city evacuate? Why do you allow people to build near a harbor? Don’t you know that floodplains flood?) made me so fucking angry. We,…

There are so many aspects of our current political derangement that baffle me, but the ever crazier position of the NRA is near the top. The amount of money the NRA gives, at least in disclosed contributions, is just not that much money. Are senators and congresspeople really bought for $11,000. If it would…

Yeah, I agree that the problem is when you have people in what are full time jobs that provide no security or benefits. One of my favorite college classes was taught by an adjunct—he was a local Rabbi who taught one ancient history course on the side. I think the problem is in not making a distinction between the…

Yes, we still need as many or more teachers, but when you have people willing to take so little, it is a sign that there are too many people available to take those jobs.

I disagree, it is exactly the point. I believe in education and I think universities play a vital role in our society by seeking out and sharing new knowledge. The people setting salaries, however, are subject to the same rising costs and cheap labor pools that private employers have enjoyed over the last 10 years. …

I think it is good, the lower on the pay scale this guy is, the more likely he is career or an Obama holdover.

I have an academic background and left for industry. The adjunct problem is, to me, a problem of supply. We graduate too many phds, and too many are unwilling or unable to get a job outside of the academic market. It is hard to overstate how strongly students are encouraged to pursue a university job, particularly…

I would like to think that I vote every election, but I don’t. The factors that make me, a registered voter, decline to vote are all vanishingly small. I’m tired after yoga, so I don’t go to early Saturday voting 5 miles away. I have to work late, so I miss my polling place closure for that city council vote. I…

or hell, Saturday.

Wisconsin, before the takeover by conservative whack jobs, had a motor voter system, where you could register at the polls on voting day, a provision I took advantage of at least twice. The new voter rules are clearly intended to disenfranchise students, the poor, and other assorted democrats. It is deplorable.

I am a Wisconsinite. This is an unhelpful statement. I am frustrated by my state politics, disappointed in the racist response to immigration in my home state, but Wisconsin is made up of wonderful people who are currently in the grip of a collective madness. I don’t know what will fix it, but calling us trash will…

Wait, was he set up by the person he was cheating with? I read it as a paparazzo or some random person with a phone spotted them making out and capitalized on the opportunity.

I’ve wondered about that, do you think they use a voice recognition program instead of a person? The captions are so often nonsensical.

I’m opposed to all dresses where it looks like you have to hold your shoulder as far back as you can just to keep your breasts from popping out, even when it is part of the dress design it just looks like bad tailoring to me.

Rita Moreno has that effortless red carpet cool that only can only achieve after forty years in the business. Jane Fonda’s got it too.

The administration is definitely going to be increasingly taken over by morally compromised hacks. There is no legitimate path to glory, no real chance of doing good, only the certainty of personal humiliation while being forced to make terrible ethical compromises.

As legitimately upset as Schaub and Norm Eisen and other ethics officers are over the decline of the republic, part of me thinks some part of them must be enjoying that for once, we all agree that this shit matters, and they are not boring stick in the muds that have eliminated three martini lunches.

Do you know what inspired the epic eye roll in that gif?

I’ve been in the same boat—my pup cracked two teeth. I felt terrible until her dental appointment to possibly have 6 root canals (the teeth that cracked had 3 roots per teeth). She turned out to be ok, just the tips had chipped off so the dentist could just smooth them off, that still cost about $1200.