a thaumaturgical compendium

“Always be able to kill your students.” – Masaaki Hatsumi (via boing)

The Washington Post has a story on today’s march of tens of thousands of people in Manhattan demanding an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq. The NYPD was out in full force, but it was a sunny day, and people were generally in a good mood. I only caught the tail end of the march (and didn’t get down to the rally), but it was fun to see protesters carrying their signs and wearing political slogans on their sleeves (literally) through their day.

It was easy to see this as an expression of the majority of Americans (which it is), but walking ahead of us at one point were two uniformed fire fighters who participated in the chants by answering “what do we want?” with an enthusiastic “War!” and pleaded with police officers to “stop their lies.”

Interesting article in the Chronicle (subscription needed, at this point), indicates that the higher salaries of the top universities often come with much higher costs of living. For example:

The index of more than 300 places sets the national average at 100. Fittingly, Normal, Ill., the home of Illinois State University, is right at the cost-of-living average. Full professors there earn an average salary of $76,700. That may not sound so great. But consider this: The average salary for a full professor at New York University, a whopping $144,000, works out to just $70,000 once the high cost of living in Manhattan is figured in.

Of course, NYU didn’t hire me (bastards!) so, I am doing the stupidest thing ever, and reverse commuting: this year to bucolic Buffalo, where the average home is less than $100K (in NYC, the average apartment went for $1.3 million this year), and soon to equally suburban Connecticut. I’m dumb.

I am pretty happy with what I get paid, especially since it is—formally, at least—part time work. Yes, I could be making much more as another sort of professional, but I suspect that academics who want to be making more money do, through consulting and other forms of moonlighting. In other words, although the salary of a full professor continues to rise more slowly than inflation, I think that we are better off than we think we are, and far better off than we will be in ten years.

Comforting thought of the week.

This Saturday, April 29, beginning at noon, there will be a March for Peace, Justice and Democracy in New York City. More information is available at april29.org. Please do not show up at David and Vanessa’s wedding in Lyndhurst (april29.com) accidentally, especially if you have not RSVPed.

For the Buffalonian contingent, the Western New York Peace Center is organizing a bus trip for $50 roundtrip.

I have a dental appointment Saturday, but hopefully I will be in good enough shape to make it down.

Mind Hacks points us toward a debate in the UK over whether electronic media leads to attention deficits. The Baroness I’m critical of the way ADHD seems to be diagnosed in many cases as: “not paying attention to things I think you should, and expending physical energy in ways I do not approve of.”

I guess part of this is that I share the principal characteristics of ADHD—inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity—and like other people who share these traits. (A quick test verifies this.) Now, I would escape diagnosis because I can intently concentrate on things, and do manage to stay still through things that require stillness and concentration, but only things that I think require this. I was the one doing other stuff (that the teacher did not approve of) to keep myself busy in seventh grade, and have similar coping mechanisms now. I bring paperwork to complete during faculty meetings, for example, because I am able to remain fully aware of the discussion while doing other things but if I set my mind on only the discussion, I would explode after a few minutes, because it can be so b-o-r-i-n-g. I’m sure some of my colleagues would like to have me on ritalin, but since I’m a grown up working in a profession with a great deal of personal freedom on these sorts of things, I can get away with it (along with host of other “eccentricities”).

The trick is that I suspect a lot of these kids are capable of sitting stone still (but for their thumbs) and staring at a video game for 24 hours straight. In other words, they have the capacity to pay attention, but they aren’t paying attention in class. Doesn’t that mean that our schools have an Interesting Stuff / Physicality Deficit (ISPD)? The Baroness Greenfield seems to think the electronic media are encouraging ADHD. I suspect, instead, that children are growing up with new sets of expectations in terms of interactivity and hyper-tasking, and that our institutions have failed to keep up with this.

Following on my earlier West Coast / East Coast post, I was interested to see Mercer’s Quality-of-Living Report for global cities. Setting New York as 100.0 (Center of the Universe, remember?), it ranks a few US cities as better, including Honolulu (103.3), San Francisco (103.2), Boston (101.9), DC (100.4), Chicago (100.4), and Portland (100.3). Vancouver (107.7) ranked third worldwide, after Zurich and Geneva. Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Calgary all ranked above the highest-ranked US cities.

OK, ratings suck. But I would happily live in any of the cities listed in the top 51, there.