this morning i had a breakfast meeting with the prof and fellow GSIs that I will be working with this semester. Before eating, one of the women pulled out some hand sanitizer to use. It was a only brief attention getter, /c I thought to myself about my hands being relatively clean, having not touched too much en route to the faculty club dining hall. And after my summer in India last summer, I honestly feel like most things in the US are just hella clean and sterile -- that I could eat off the ground in most places without worrying too much. But considering one of my best friends carried around a large pump dispenser of hand sanitizer in his backpack in college, I just thought, enh, Americans.
But then my attention was piqued slightly more when given the opportunity for GSI questions, she asked "should we be talking to the students about swine flu and not coming to class if they're sick?" Not exactly the first question I had in my mind.... She went on to kind of laugh about not wanting them to cough and class and joked she was going to make putting on hand sanitizer a part of her section requirements. The kicker is that this woman studies the relationship b/t animals and humans in India, specifically packs of dogs. What???
Then lastly, the course lectures are held in one of the Haas (b-school) buildings, and before hand I was doing some reading in the library. Cush to the power of cush. Haas is not like the rest of Berkeley, especially places like Barrows or Dwinelle (social sciences and humanities). It's very new and spotless. Went to the bathroom, and upon exiting, noticed a sign giving directions to "open the door with your paper towel and deposit it outside the bathroom." I had already tossed my paper towel, so opened the door with my hand (in fact didn't even SEE the sign until I was half way out) and saw, indeed, a wastebasket to the left of the door with paper towels in it.
This issue -- the US' obsession with cleanliness and sterility -- while mundane, is worthy of some (hopefully not too didactic) commentary. In particular, I think about the ways that clean and dirty are used to classify places and people, how it's a marker of class and color, and a means of creating between ourselves and the rest of the world. Firstly, as it has oft been noted, the culture in the US is one of hyperbolic fear and the need for security. Much has been written (though not had widespread exposure) about the ways that third world countries and in particular, people of color, become attached to the idea of being dirty. Sad stories about kids of color trying to "wash the black/brown off so they can be clean and white." More than dirty, they are infected and infecting. Hence the necessity for containment and detainment, for "our protection." Secondly, the fear and insecurity Americans feel is a privileged one. The types of things we are "afraid" of... germs, disease, dying, bombs... these are things that so many others in the world do not have the luxury to fear in the same capacity that we do. That is to say, sooo many people die of freaking dysentery... lack of clean water. People fear bombs not just from terrorists, but nations -- in particular, ours. Lastly, the fact that there is this division b/t clean and dirty, that there is such aversion to anything "dirty" not only limits people's lives and experiences, it is blinding to the true realities in the world. Examples of this are high class resorts in Latin America, with slums and ridiculous poverty right outside the gates. Being so sensitive to the relatively small threats of germs or whatever, is INsensitive to the plight and position of so many others, dirty others, in the world.
I sense the pensiveness of pedantry coming on, so it's time to move on... readings for the undergrads, woowie.
8.27.2009
7.20.2009
Chop from the Top! A Leadership Crisis, not a Financial Crisis.
I'm trying to remember what it was that motivated me, at five-something am, to get up, turn my computer on and write something to share. it was not this blossoming idea of taking a year off after i advance to candidacy. no, not that. much too personal.
i got distracted reading my previous post, and i specifically remember thinking, this new post will not be about age.
oh, i remember. it's about labor and executive salaries.
the other day i went to a protest at the UC regents meeting. forgive me if i don't know the exact details about their agenda. i do know however that they are/were coming up on big votes about furloughs and pay cuts for uc workers. their suggestion is a progressive cut, wherein anyone making over hmm... $200K (?) receives an 8% pay cut (or more?) and if you make less, then a smaller percentage. their logic is that it's better for everyone to keep their jobs and just make less money, to share the burden, rather than actually lay people off.
i had heard from my colleague and friend, elif, (who withstood the antics of loic wacquant with me this past semester) about the protest being co-organized by the major unions i guess related to the california system: upte, cue, uaw, and, others. my expectation, when i rolled in at 6:45 in the AM ( i know, shocking, right) was to see a lot of other grad students. au contraire. granted, it's summer. but the majority of people there were the bread and butter staff of the uc system.
there were a handful of professors, and they were somewhat segregated (self and otherwise) from the "rabble," but otherwise, well, it's hard to say exactly what the rest of the demographics were, but there definitely appeared to be large-ish contingent of people who were closing to working class than upper class. (keeping in mind upper class would be the top 10% of earners, something like that.) (also keep in mind that the spectrum of income within that 10% is quite the tangent curve, so the top 1% baaaaasically own more than you and everyone you know combined.) (i mean, unless you're hella tight with the waltons or something.) i would say this based on appearance, types of emotional response to what the rally/press conference speakers said, and the types of things they shouted at the regents. things like, "how am i going to feed my kids?!" that sort of thing.
a huge part of the outrage is that the regents make a ton of cash. so president yudoff, who unfortunately bears a striking resemblance in appearance and demeanor to dick cheney, (really dude? you should not be slumped over in your chair smirking when people are telling you about the hardships in their life, and why the regents needs to be more creative about finding cash,) makes over $1M/year.
add insult to injury, and "public commentary" on these massive votes is limited to 30 minutes. total. 1 minute a person, or 3 people can pool their minutes for 2.5 minutes for one person. seriously? and oh yeah, there were actually a ton of people who wanted to be in the room where the meeting was, but there were only about 150 seats, despite always having more people than seats. aaaaand... the regents were waay, way up in front, cordoned off. you could barely see their faces they were so far away.
okay, here's where i get didactic, so go twiddle your thumbs if you don't like it.
the whole executive compensation argument is bullshit.
the argument for executive salaries is that you need to attract people who have a certain skill set and social networks. this completely ignores the fact that those with the right skill sets and social networks teeeend to be comprised nearly entirely of wealthy wasp dudes. of course you've got your token woman and/or minority. (see ceos of fortune 500 companies. that p value is probably through the roof.) however, it's a fairly blatant, in my eyes, attempt to maintain control and power in the hands of a select group of people and maintain the status quo (if not increase the inequity in the us, which has been happening in recent decades). moreover, it's completely narcissitic. really? you really think that no one else could do your job for less than what you make. really.
of course, maybe they wouldn't be able to do the job exactly like you, or exactly what your peers and/or shareholders want, but that's b/c they're just like you, and have a skewed understanding of values and priorities. that's a pretty moralistic judgment, but if you consider that there are many people in fact starving in the us (and not from anorexia), i'm not sure how you could argue otherwise. goddess forbid, if you think in the global context, it's just greedy and wrong.
in respect to the uc chancellors, i'm not saying that they don't have a lot of experience and/or are not good at what they do. however, as many of the speakers pointed out, they are getting paid corporate wages in a not-for-profit educational institution, the mission statement of which is to ultimately provide free, high quality education for all - especially minority and disadvantaged - californians. the regents say that their salaries comprise a very small percentage of the uc's overall budget. but irrespective, it's money that could be saved, and i think it's the symbolics that matter more than the accounting figure.
to be fair, i'm sure they have mortgages to pay on their condos in vail, not to mention, that new swath of land in (insert warm destination near ocean). and car payments. do you know how expensive those new (insert luxury car brand, and take it up to the higher end of the series line) are? and education. sheesh. try sending 1.8 kids to private school, pre-school thru college, and ensuring they have private (insert bougie past time) lessons. it's just hard to keep up!
they support the economy too you know. probably more than the asian and latino janitors who clean up in barrows at 8 pm.
(end snark) --> (you know what's funny, i put this in <> initially, and it won't post cuz it reads it as html. i mean, i was trying to make an html joke, cuz i'm dorky like that, snort snort.)
consider that you could make $200 K, and take the other $800 K and support 20 workers at $40K/year. (not even sure if that's a living wage in the bay area.) is your job and life so much more important than those 20 people? your skills and experiences that much more valuable that the trade off in wages should be that different?
i don't know. i mean, i am, as my dad says, a bleeding heart liberal (i prefer progressive). but i really fail to understand the ethics of these types of situations.
i got distracted reading my previous post, and i specifically remember thinking, this new post will not be about age.
oh, i remember. it's about labor and executive salaries.
the other day i went to a protest at the UC regents meeting. forgive me if i don't know the exact details about their agenda. i do know however that they are/were coming up on big votes about furloughs and pay cuts for uc workers. their suggestion is a progressive cut, wherein anyone making over hmm... $200K (?) receives an 8% pay cut (or more?) and if you make less, then a smaller percentage. their logic is that it's better for everyone to keep their jobs and just make less money, to share the burden, rather than actually lay people off.
i had heard from my colleague and friend, elif, (who withstood the antics of loic wacquant with me this past semester) about the protest being co-organized by the major unions i guess related to the california system: upte, cue, uaw, and, others. my expectation, when i rolled in at 6:45 in the AM ( i know, shocking, right) was to see a lot of other grad students. au contraire. granted, it's summer. but the majority of people there were the bread and butter staff of the uc system.
there were a handful of professors, and they were somewhat segregated (self and otherwise) from the "rabble," but otherwise, well, it's hard to say exactly what the rest of the demographics were, but there definitely appeared to be large-ish contingent of people who were closing to working class than upper class. (keeping in mind upper class would be the top 10% of earners, something like that.) (also keep in mind that the spectrum of income within that 10% is quite the tangent curve, so the top 1% baaaaasically own more than you and everyone you know combined.) (i mean, unless you're hella tight with the waltons or something.) i would say this based on appearance, types of emotional response to what the rally/press conference speakers said, and the types of things they shouted at the regents. things like, "how am i going to feed my kids?!" that sort of thing.
a huge part of the outrage is that the regents make a ton of cash. so president yudoff, who unfortunately bears a striking resemblance in appearance and demeanor to dick cheney, (really dude? you should not be slumped over in your chair smirking when people are telling you about the hardships in their life, and why the regents needs to be more creative about finding cash,) makes over $1M/year.
add insult to injury, and "public commentary" on these massive votes is limited to 30 minutes. total. 1 minute a person, or 3 people can pool their minutes for 2.5 minutes for one person. seriously? and oh yeah, there were actually a ton of people who wanted to be in the room where the meeting was, but there were only about 150 seats, despite always having more people than seats. aaaaand... the regents were waay, way up in front, cordoned off. you could barely see their faces they were so far away.
okay, here's where i get didactic, so go twiddle your thumbs if you don't like it.
the whole executive compensation argument is bullshit.
the argument for executive salaries is that you need to attract people who have a certain skill set and social networks. this completely ignores the fact that those with the right skill sets and social networks teeeend to be comprised nearly entirely of wealthy wasp dudes. of course you've got your token woman and/or minority. (see ceos of fortune 500 companies. that p value is probably through the roof.) however, it's a fairly blatant, in my eyes, attempt to maintain control and power in the hands of a select group of people and maintain the status quo (if not increase the inequity in the us, which has been happening in recent decades). moreover, it's completely narcissitic. really? you really think that no one else could do your job for less than what you make. really.
of course, maybe they wouldn't be able to do the job exactly like you, or exactly what your peers and/or shareholders want, but that's b/c they're just like you, and have a skewed understanding of values and priorities. that's a pretty moralistic judgment, but if you consider that there are many people in fact starving in the us (and not from anorexia), i'm not sure how you could argue otherwise. goddess forbid, if you think in the global context, it's just greedy and wrong.
in respect to the uc chancellors, i'm not saying that they don't have a lot of experience and/or are not good at what they do. however, as many of the speakers pointed out, they are getting paid corporate wages in a not-for-profit educational institution, the mission statement of which is to ultimately provide free, high quality education for all - especially minority and disadvantaged - californians. the regents say that their salaries comprise a very small percentage of the uc's overall budget. but irrespective, it's money that could be saved, and i think it's the symbolics that matter more than the accounting figure.
to be fair, i'm sure they have mortgages to pay on their condos in vail, not to mention, that new swath of land in (insert warm destination near ocean). and car payments. do you know how expensive those new (insert luxury car brand, and take it up to the higher end of the series line) are? and education. sheesh. try sending 1.8 kids to private school, pre-school thru college, and ensuring they have private (insert bougie past time) lessons. it's just hard to keep up!
they support the economy too you know. probably more than the asian and latino janitors who clean up in barrows at 8 pm.
(end snark) --> (you know what's funny, i put this in <> initially, and it won't post cuz it reads it as html. i mean, i was trying to make an html joke, cuz i'm dorky like that, snort snort.)
consider that you could make $200 K, and take the other $800 K and support 20 workers at $40K/year. (not even sure if that's a living wage in the bay area.) is your job and life so much more important than those 20 people? your skills and experiences that much more valuable that the trade off in wages should be that different?
i don't know. i mean, i am, as my dad says, a bleeding heart liberal (i prefer progressive). but i really fail to understand the ethics of these types of situations.
5.25.2009
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