the migrant intellectual and the mainstream news

This migrant intellectual says Brett Baier of Fox News will be reporting on the adjunct issue, apparently in response to this wake-up call for mainstream media. The master-slave rhetoric ("plantation," "field workers," and "cotton pickers" for example) will be offensive to some, and there may be some sweeping generalizations in his blog, unless things such as invariable last-minute appointments apply specifically to the one community college he mentions, but his comments about the low pay are a common reality for any adjunct who attempts to show genuine dedication to grading the papers and planning the lessons, and the health insurance concern is urgent and also why the majority of us were hopeful enough that Obama's plan will work that we voted to reelect the guy.

So far, there have been news stories about two colleges, Community College of Alleghany County and Youngstown State, adjusting their maximum number of courses downward in order to pay teachers for their classes without paying benefits, and we're just in wait-and-see mode with the whole bit--fiscal cliff, healthcare reform, and so on.

Stay tuned for full Obamacare in 2014?

Stay tuned to Fox News?

Haha.

My hunch is that the mainstream press will always prefer sensational nonfiction, academic corruption and suicide, to living, breathing literature, but in the sad world we live in, I sometimes forget to feel grateful for what I have and instead feel like Fight for Your Long Day is getting lost in the shuffle and deserves more continued recognition.

I guess it will always be easier to steal, blog, or kill oneself than it is to write a book.

Good. It never hurts to add a dash of egomania and self-pity to the holiday season. Now if my literature stays in the public imagination in any way, there'll be a little public disgruntlement readers can turn to for evidence of a decline in spirits in the later years.

The Fox News link above reminds me of how I was told by Frank Reeve at Wesleyan that Mark Twain ignited his career by moving up to NYC and engaging in fistfights. I'm way too overworked, tired, nonviolent, and soft for that kind of thing, so I guess it's just time to grade more papers and take my mind off the rest of it.

I've come to realize that I enjoy teaching contemporary literature and business writing, even if I'm not always feeling so loved back for my efforts. And another quality small press asked to see the second novel, so there's a little room for optimism in the literary realm as well.

Joseph A. Domino

I just stumbled upon this Joseph A. Domino piece, and was reminded that he was one of the early supporters of Fight for Your Long Day. Thanks, Joe. (I was searching for a recent reprint of his amazon review but couldn't find it.)

In a week where I've learned that another good friend lost a job, in this case, a so-called "good job," and that Governor Corbett has his steak knife out and is taking another look at Pennsylvania public-employee pensions, I'm still stumbling upon this kind of thing all over the web, and then I get caught up in how relatively good I have it and wonder when some more awful version of life will find me.

Okay, I'm going to crouch under the desk and hope they pass by.

And then in the middle of the night, when no one is looking, maybe I'll sneak back up here and watch Bill Black "Grand Bargain or Great Betrayal" videos at realnews.com. Black has it all--paranoia, tenure, facts, even a fair amount of his hair, and an office that is messy but not impossibly messy in that way in which even a Philip Roth character couldn't clear a clean well-lit place to seduce his paramour (the cleaning lady).

Good luck to everyone striving for a safer and more secure future.