It could entice me away if it was more consistently good or at least more consistent than "actual" cow. Too much of the beef I've bought recently has been tough, tasteless, or both. And these aren't the cheap cuts! I think the restaurants are siphoning off all the good beef, and the grocery stores (at least the ones in my area) are getting the beef from the "athletic" cattle.
Alternative: buy a parcel of land outside of town and raise my own steers, and feed them marshmallows and beer so they're maybe at least tender.
I will say I can get grass-fed ground beef and that does seem to consistently be better than the average Kroger steak.
I think of the comedian - Jackie Mason, maybe? Who said he didn't go camping because historically, his people were made to wander in the desert for 40 years.
I feel kinda the same way about voluntarily subjecting myself to excessive hunger: my cavewoman ancestors weren't gored by a mastodon for this!
I know I'm in a crappy, angry-at-the-world mood, but: it seems like the future of dietary health is going to amount to "walk around hungry a lot of the time."
(The fasting thing. Which is relevant to my interests as I have a weak family history of type II. I am right now restricting carbohydrates to try to lose weight and it is making me frustrated, sad, and angry. Can't tell if psychosomatic or if it's actually mucking with my serotonin)
Which is why I expect not to make it past the first riots. I have friends, but they're mostly a lot more fragile physically than I am, and I am not sure how good of shots they are.
Beans, too. I can't grow much in my garden with success but I have had good luck with beans. Bonus: the dry kind store well and are high in protein and B-vitamins.
1. If you can learn the secret handshake for the compound, you're safe.
2. If it really is going to be a HoA type government, I stand by my earlier assertion that "nearly 50 years is a good run" and "y'all are welcome to loot my stuff when I'm dead."
Yeah. I have (easily) two to three weeks' worth of canned/dry goods on the shelf, not just because of the (unlikely) risk of an ice storm here (and many of those goods are things, like canned beets, that might not taste GREAT eaten cold, but would be safe to) but also as a hedge against those weeks when I'm so busy that a trip out the grocery seems like an undue burden.
I vaguely remember the "big blizzard of 1978" in Northeast Ohio. I don't remember being scared, but then I guess my parents managed things pretty well. (I do remember "camping out" in sleeping bags in front of the fireplace - the power was out so the furnace blower didn't work)
I dunno. Sometimes I wonder if the prepper shows are basically for people who imagine themselves Mad Max - a fantasy not that different from the "princess bride" shows or the "perfect house" shows, if somewhat darker and more dystopian.
I still maintain if most of the comforts of life went away and were going away forever, I'd be willing to go "Meh, nearly 50 years is a good run" and offer myself up as a human shield. I'd rather have a quick death than spend 20 years eating beans in a concrete bunker and debating whether I needed to shoot that guy seeking a little of my stored food.
Allegedly, there is a site somewhere in North Texas (rural N. Texas, not the Metroplex) where one of these "elite bunker" things is being built.
Y'know what? Come a real Armageddon, in the sense of "There will never be tp, chocolate, indoor climate control, or internet ever again," I'd be happy to be one of the early casualties. Y'all are welcome to loot my stuff after I'm gone but I'm not sure how useful 10,000 books or yards of quilting fabric will be in a Mad Max future.
I would take below minimum wage to teach (given I had a pension), but I wouldn't take below minimum wage for all the people-wrangling/managing other people's emotions that my job seems to entail at the moment.
There's a very old and very common joke among professors:
"I teach for free. They are paying me to grade."
I amend that to:
"I teach AND grade for free. They are paying me to deal with other people on a daily basis."
90% of my students are fine and lovely people who manage well on their own. Of the remaining 10%, half have big problems but they tend to be ones I can help ameliorate with a little work on my part. It's that remaining half you have to worry about....
And that last sentence is my big worry. I own a house here (probably could not afford to elsewhere), I've kind of made a life for myself here, and the thought of having to pull up stakes - if I could even FIND another job, at nearly 50 - and move somewhere else makes me despair.
I don't know. I suppose I could learn to deal blackjack and work at the Indian casino. (I'm probably too fat and old to be a cocktail waitress at this point).
I can't tell if it's a LOT different, or if the difference is between the "public Ivy" (University of Michigan) I attended, and a school very aimed at helping "first generation" college students cope (where I teach now).
I look at the stuff done for students here (exam week stress relievers, a big, big welcome-week, lots of awards ceremonies) and try hard not to feel bitter that it felt like no one cared whether I sank or swam when I was at university. (Well, I cared, and my parents cared, but beyond that....no. I even had a hard time finding someone to advise me into classes).
I think things HAVE changed and there is a more "consumerist" mentality. I know colleges that have built all kinds of fancy "country club" amenities for their students to attract them (not my campus), and no one talks about how new dorms that have suites nicer than any apartment I ever lived in, or fancy workout facilities for the student body, or "free" cable and internet on campus add to the cost of college: students and parents expect it but it does cost something and the cost gets passed along.
I had a cube fridge and an immersion heater and for part of the time I was there, a tiny b&w tv that would pick up the Detroit over-the-air stations if I turned it just right....
(And yes, I walked uphill both ways in the snow to get to class.)
We don't have that kind of grants support - we write 'em ourselves and largely administer 'em ourselves.
Which is why I'm not going to apply for a large external grant unless I am told my continued employment hinges on it.
(The research I do is very small-ball and cheap: it's mostly my time, and you can't write grants for supplemental pay to make up for giving up your afternoons and weekends.)
the thing is, if "they" expect excellence in teaching, research, and committeework, "they" cannot also concomitantly expect us to keep up with all the legal paperwork AND willingly work for about $60K a year before taxes.
I do think there have been some new mandates in recent years. I am now, for example,a 'required reporter' - if a student comes to me and reveals they are in an abusive relationship, I have no choice but to report it to the police even if the student begs me not to. If I do not I am violating the law. (I am permitted to stop someone about to reveal something that I am required to report it).
I also have had to go through: needle-stick avoidance training, ergonomic awareness training, Active-shooter training (luckily, not the really traumatizing one with a simulation that the chair of my department had to do), sexual-harrassment-awareness training on a yearly basis....
No one thing is so very big but put them all together and it's being slowly pecked to death by ducks. I still love teaching but I twitch every time there's an e-mail from HR telling us about new training or new paperwork.
Giving exams/providing note takers/other accommodations for students with IEPs, and making sure those are "fair" and fit the letter of the law, for one thing. All the Title IX reporting. Managing scholarships. Managing grant funds at some universities (we don't have a Grants Administrator). Keeping tabs on financial aid stuff to make sure no one is double-dipping and to make sure people are making progress toward a degree - I am in on some of that, but I have no authority, only responsibility, there.
I think if I thought of it more I'd come up with more stuff. It does seem every year we are expected to be accountable to more things and if I had to do ALL of it myself I might as well just move a cot into my office 'cos I'd be living here 24/7.
In your first sentence you more or less described my uni, except we're more rural, and we're in a chronically economically depressed area. (And I HAVE seen students go on to "do better" than their parents' generation did here, regardless of what may be happening in the outside world.)
I don't know. These kinds of articles bring up a lot of feelings for me that cloud my thinking process:
1. I really enjoy teaching, especially the smaller-group, more collegial situation of labs. I THINK I am good at it, at least, I've never been criticized heavily and told I need to shape up.
2. I like having tenure. I like not having to go before Bob and Bob every year to justify my existence. We have post-tenure review now, which is woeful enough (you can't get fired without good cause but for someone like me who over-interprets everything,I read way more into the minor criticisms I received than I probably should. I actually had nightmares about it). I like not being able to be fired on the whim of some legislator who read an article saying "The future is Cells" and so thinks it's time to let all the organismal people go, or something.
3. Our relationship with our legislators is adversarial at best.
4. Budget cuts and the related insecurity has damaged morale and some of the collegiality in my department. I saw a colleague go after someone in a way I would not have predicted five years ago.
5. We're not gettin' rich. I made less money last year than I have made since about 2009 because of a summer pay cut and because of furlough days. I'm okay with that except when I get portrayed as a layabout by people not in academia.
6. Administrative bloat is a thing, but some of it is necessary because of added mandates we must meet, and most professors are unprepared to deal with the flood of added paperwork
7. The heavy pushing of student loans is probably not wise. We sometimes have a hard time finding enough work-study students, which baffles me, because the way I was raised, I would think "Pay as you go AND gain job experience? Best deal ever!" but it seems a lot of the students seem to be either hoping for a very well-paying job or some kind of future loan forgiveness.
8. I remain skeptical about the idea of online education taking over everything, even as I fear losing my job to a computer. I find students whose only "lab" experience is online simulations are by and large terrible in a "real" lab (don't know what glassware is, or how to use it, or know any basic safety protocols).
9. I would never, these days, counsel a promising student to go into college teaching. Even as much as I love teaching itself, even as much as I enjoy working with (some) research students. In the less than 20 years I've been in this gig, things have changed so much and mostly not for the best - there is much more paperwork we have to do, far more hand-holding is expected, you're expected to justify why every time a student earns an F in your class....
1. Buy a very large plot of land just on the edge of town (so I would have city services). Have a house built to my specs on the land (it would not be a mini-mansion, but I WOULD like to have a dedicated library/music room in it). Post the land "no trespassing." Hire a gardener or something so I don't raise the town's ire over "untrimmed hedges" or some nonsense.
2. Hire a personal cook, or at the very least someone to do the marketing for me.
3. Travel more, perhaps hire a private train car for that.
4. Hire a financial planner to invest enough of it that I would have a totally comfortable cushion upon retirement, even if my state's teacher-pension fund went belly-up.
(I wouldn't quit my job. I feel like I need some sense of purpose in the world and being a wealthy layabout would not give me that sense)
I honestly have most of the "things" I would want (more storage space in my house, and a dedicated library/music room with GOOD climate control (I own a 90-year-old piano) would be nice, though). What I'd really like would be more TIME to enjoy my hobbies and books and to play that piano...
The less-selfish things:
1. Endow a scholarship at my university. Not in my name; maybe in the name of someone I looked up to but who is now gone. Ask the campus library what they need and get it for them. Ask the local public library what they need and get that for them.
2. Donate enough to my congregation (anonymously, if at all possible, or if not that, with the stipulation that "we never speak of who did this") that we don't have to worry about our financial survival
3. Buy a large plot of semi-natural land, arrange for its management and upkeep, make it available to the field biology classes on my campus for field labs and research (it would have to be within a short drive of campus so idk - not a lot of undisturbed land available right now)
4. Find some worthy charities and give them money.
5. Invest money for my niece with the understanding that when she comes of age, she's to use it to "get started" in life, whether that's for higher ed, career ed, starting a business, whatever - just as long as it's not spent on partying or other "frivolous" pursuits.
6. See if my brother and sister in law have any major debts and take care of those. (I know my parents are good, and I'm not that close to most of my cousins....)
As someone with food allergies/sensitivities, that made my spidey senses go off. I hope somewhere on their menu they had a May Contain Soy for the folks who get sick from it.
Golly, it's been years since I saw meatloaf mix, but I remember that from my childhood in Ohio. (Also "city chicken," which was veal cooked on a stick. Apparently at one time veal was cheaper than chicken? Mind blown.)
And yes - I have an Italian meatloaf recipe that can double as balls. Sometimes I make loaf, sometimes I make balls.
Carrots or celery in things are a no-no for me these days: celery gives me hives and carrots give me God-awful GI tract symptoms. (Think the worst lactose intolerance you know, but with carrots).
yeah. I'm a fun dinner guest. I pick everything apart....
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Science and Technology Links 3/9: The Color of Magic Laser Bubbles”
It could entice me away if it was more consistently good or at least more consistent than "actual" cow. Too much of the beef I've bought recently has been tough, tasteless, or both. And these aren't the cheap cuts! I think the restaurants are siphoning off all the good beef, and the grocery stores (at least the ones in my area) are getting the beef from the "athletic" cattle.
Alternative: buy a parcel of land outside of town and raise my own steers, and feed them marshmallows and beer so they're maybe at least tender.
I will say I can get grass-fed ground beef and that does seem to consistently be better than the average Kroger steak.
"
I dunno; in my tradition, Jesus seemed to enjoy a lot of meals with his friends.
well, maybe not that last one so much....
"
I think of the comedian - Jackie Mason, maybe? Who said he didn't go camping because historically, his people were made to wander in the desert for 40 years.
I feel kinda the same way about voluntarily subjecting myself to excessive hunger: my cavewoman ancestors weren't gored by a mastodon for this!
"
I know I'm in a crappy, angry-at-the-world mood, but: it seems like the future of dietary health is going to amount to "walk around hungry a lot of the time."
(The fasting thing. Which is relevant to my interests as I have a weak family history of type II. I am right now restricting carbohydrates to try to lose weight and it is making me frustrated, sad, and angry. Can't tell if psychosomatic or if it's actually mucking with my serotonin)
On “Morning Ed: War {2017.03.08.W}”
+1
"
Which is why I expect not to make it past the first riots. I have friends, but they're mostly a lot more fragile physically than I am, and I am not sure how good of shots they are.
"
Beans, too. I can't grow much in my garden with success but I have had good luck with beans. Bonus: the dry kind store well and are high in protein and B-vitamins.
"
two thoughts:
1. If you can learn the secret handshake for the compound, you're safe.
2. If it really is going to be a HoA type government, I stand by my earlier assertion that "nearly 50 years is a good run" and "y'all are welcome to loot my stuff when I'm dead."
"
I thought BDSM garb was de rigeur in a post-Apocalyptic future.
anyway, where I live, no one would want to be naked outdoors: too many fire ants.
"
I got that, too. Am frankly surprised I didn't come up as one of the Doomed Aristocrats, but maybe that wasn't an option in the outcomes.
(I pretty much expect that if we had something like the 1917 Revolution here, I'd be among the first up against the wall)
"
Yeah. I have (easily) two to three weeks' worth of canned/dry goods on the shelf, not just because of the (unlikely) risk of an ice storm here (and many of those goods are things, like canned beets, that might not taste GREAT eaten cold, but would be safe to) but also as a hedge against those weeks when I'm so busy that a trip out the grocery seems like an undue burden.
I vaguely remember the "big blizzard of 1978" in Northeast Ohio. I don't remember being scared, but then I guess my parents managed things pretty well. (I do remember "camping out" in sleeping bags in front of the fireplace - the power was out so the furnace blower didn't work)
I dunno. Sometimes I wonder if the prepper shows are basically for people who imagine themselves Mad Max - a fantasy not that different from the "princess bride" shows or the "perfect house" shows, if somewhat darker and more dystopian.
I still maintain if most of the comforts of life went away and were going away forever, I'd be willing to go "Meh, nearly 50 years is a good run" and offer myself up as a human shield. I'd rather have a quick death than spend 20 years eating beans in a concrete bunker and debating whether I needed to shoot that guy seeking a little of my stored food.
"
Allegedly, there is a site somewhere in North Texas (rural N. Texas, not the Metroplex) where one of these "elite bunker" things is being built.
Y'know what? Come a real Armageddon, in the sense of "There will never be tp, chocolate, indoor climate control, or internet ever again," I'd be happy to be one of the early casualties. Y'all are welcome to loot my stuff after I'm gone but I'm not sure how useful 10,000 books or yards of quilting fabric will be in a Mad Max future.
On “Morning Ed: Entertainment {2017.03.07.T}”
Two words: "BerenstEIN Bears"
Heh. (That one had me going for a while. The Genie-movie one, I was like, "Wait, wasn't that a movie with Shaq in it?" And in fact, I was right.)
On “I Know How College Got Expensive”
I would take below minimum wage to teach (given I had a pension), but I wouldn't take below minimum wage for all the people-wrangling/managing other people's emotions that my job seems to entail at the moment.
There's a very old and very common joke among professors:
"I teach for free. They are paying me to grade."
I amend that to:
"I teach AND grade for free. They are paying me to deal with other people on a daily basis."
90% of my students are fine and lovely people who manage well on their own. Of the remaining 10%, half have big problems but they tend to be ones I can help ameliorate with a little work on my part. It's that remaining half you have to worry about....
"
And that last sentence is my big worry. I own a house here (probably could not afford to elsewhere), I've kind of made a life for myself here, and the thought of having to pull up stakes - if I could even FIND another job, at nearly 50 - and move somewhere else makes me despair.
I don't know. I suppose I could learn to deal blackjack and work at the Indian casino. (I'm probably too fat and old to be a cocktail waitress at this point).
"
I can't tell if it's a LOT different, or if the difference is between the "public Ivy" (University of Michigan) I attended, and a school very aimed at helping "first generation" college students cope (where I teach now).
I look at the stuff done for students here (exam week stress relievers, a big, big welcome-week, lots of awards ceremonies) and try hard not to feel bitter that it felt like no one cared whether I sank or swam when I was at university. (Well, I cared, and my parents cared, but beyond that....no. I even had a hard time finding someone to advise me into classes).
I think things HAVE changed and there is a more "consumerist" mentality. I know colleges that have built all kinds of fancy "country club" amenities for their students to attract them (not my campus), and no one talks about how new dorms that have suites nicer than any apartment I ever lived in, or fancy workout facilities for the student body, or "free" cable and internet on campus add to the cost of college: students and parents expect it but it does cost something and the cost gets passed along.
I had a cube fridge and an immersion heater and for part of the time I was there, a tiny b&w tv that would pick up the Detroit over-the-air stations if I turned it just right....
(And yes, I walked uphill both ways in the snow to get to class.)
"
We don't have that kind of grants support - we write 'em ourselves and largely administer 'em ourselves.
Which is why I'm not going to apply for a large external grant unless I am told my continued employment hinges on it.
(The research I do is very small-ball and cheap: it's mostly my time, and you can't write grants for supplemental pay to make up for giving up your afternoons and weekends.)
"
the thing is, if "they" expect excellence in teaching, research, and committeework, "they" cannot also concomitantly expect us to keep up with all the legal paperwork AND willingly work for about $60K a year before taxes.
I do think there have been some new mandates in recent years. I am now, for example,a 'required reporter' - if a student comes to me and reveals they are in an abusive relationship, I have no choice but to report it to the police even if the student begs me not to. If I do not I am violating the law. (I am permitted to stop someone about to reveal something that I am required to report it).
I also have had to go through: needle-stick avoidance training, ergonomic awareness training, Active-shooter training (luckily, not the really traumatizing one with a simulation that the chair of my department had to do), sexual-harrassment-awareness training on a yearly basis....
No one thing is so very big but put them all together and it's being slowly pecked to death by ducks. I still love teaching but I twitch every time there's an e-mail from HR telling us about new training or new paperwork.
"
Giving exams/providing note takers/other accommodations for students with IEPs, and making sure those are "fair" and fit the letter of the law, for one thing. All the Title IX reporting. Managing scholarships. Managing grant funds at some universities (we don't have a Grants Administrator). Keeping tabs on financial aid stuff to make sure no one is double-dipping and to make sure people are making progress toward a degree - I am in on some of that, but I have no authority, only responsibility, there.
I think if I thought of it more I'd come up with more stuff. It does seem every year we are expected to be accountable to more things and if I had to do ALL of it myself I might as well just move a cot into my office 'cos I'd be living here 24/7.
"
In your first sentence you more or less described my uni, except we're more rural, and we're in a chronically economically depressed area. (And I HAVE seen students go on to "do better" than their parents' generation did here, regardless of what may be happening in the outside world.)
I don't know. These kinds of articles bring up a lot of feelings for me that cloud my thinking process:
1. I really enjoy teaching, especially the smaller-group, more collegial situation of labs. I THINK I am good at it, at least, I've never been criticized heavily and told I need to shape up.
2. I like having tenure. I like not having to go before Bob and Bob every year to justify my existence. We have post-tenure review now, which is woeful enough (you can't get fired without good cause but for someone like me who over-interprets everything,I read way more into the minor criticisms I received than I probably should. I actually had nightmares about it). I like not being able to be fired on the whim of some legislator who read an article saying "The future is Cells" and so thinks it's time to let all the organismal people go, or something.
3. Our relationship with our legislators is adversarial at best.
4. Budget cuts and the related insecurity has damaged morale and some of the collegiality in my department. I saw a colleague go after someone in a way I would not have predicted five years ago.
5. We're not gettin' rich. I made less money last year than I have made since about 2009 because of a summer pay cut and because of furlough days. I'm okay with that except when I get portrayed as a layabout by people not in academia.
6. Administrative bloat is a thing, but some of it is necessary because of added mandates we must meet, and most professors are unprepared to deal with the flood of added paperwork
7. The heavy pushing of student loans is probably not wise. We sometimes have a hard time finding enough work-study students, which baffles me, because the way I was raised, I would think "Pay as you go AND gain job experience? Best deal ever!" but it seems a lot of the students seem to be either hoping for a very well-paying job or some kind of future loan forgiveness.
8. I remain skeptical about the idea of online education taking over everything, even as I fear losing my job to a computer. I find students whose only "lab" experience is online simulations are by and large terrible in a "real" lab (don't know what glassware is, or how to use it, or know any basic safety protocols).
9. I would never, these days, counsel a promising student to go into college teaching. Even as much as I love teaching itself, even as much as I enjoy working with (some) research students. In the less than 20 years I've been in this gig, things have changed so much and mostly not for the best - there is much more paperwork we have to do, far more hand-holding is expected, you're expected to justify why every time a student earns an F in your class....
On “Linky Friday: The Planet We Have”
But, IMHO, particularly evil because it threatened/frightened people who had absolutely nothing to do with the alleged beef between the two people.
I dunno. I try to be all "peace and love and Jesus" but there are also times that I go "We really need to re-open Devil's Island for some people."
On “Weekend!”
I presume this is a non-trivial amount of money.
The selfish things I'd do:
1. Buy a very large plot of land just on the edge of town (so I would have city services). Have a house built to my specs on the land (it would not be a mini-mansion, but I WOULD like to have a dedicated library/music room in it). Post the land "no trespassing." Hire a gardener or something so I don't raise the town's ire over "untrimmed hedges" or some nonsense.
2. Hire a personal cook, or at the very least someone to do the marketing for me.
3. Travel more, perhaps hire a private train car for that.
4. Hire a financial planner to invest enough of it that I would have a totally comfortable cushion upon retirement, even if my state's teacher-pension fund went belly-up.
(I wouldn't quit my job. I feel like I need some sense of purpose in the world and being a wealthy layabout would not give me that sense)
I honestly have most of the "things" I would want (more storage space in my house, and a dedicated library/music room with GOOD climate control (I own a 90-year-old piano) would be nice, though). What I'd really like would be more TIME to enjoy my hobbies and books and to play that piano...
The less-selfish things:
1. Endow a scholarship at my university. Not in my name; maybe in the name of someone I looked up to but who is now gone. Ask the campus library what they need and get it for them. Ask the local public library what they need and get that for them.
2. Donate enough to my congregation (anonymously, if at all possible, or if not that, with the stipulation that "we never speak of who did this") that we don't have to worry about our financial survival
3. Buy a large plot of semi-natural land, arrange for its management and upkeep, make it available to the field biology classes on my campus for field labs and research (it would have to be within a short drive of campus so idk - not a lot of undisturbed land available right now)
4. Find some worthy charities and give them money.
5. Invest money for my niece with the understanding that when she comes of age, she's to use it to "get started" in life, whether that's for higher ed, career ed, starting a business, whatever - just as long as it's not spent on partying or other "frivolous" pursuits.
6. See if my brother and sister in law have any major debts and take care of those. (I know my parents are good, and I'm not that close to most of my cousins....)
On “Morning Ed: Food {2017.03.02.Th}”
As someone with food allergies/sensitivities, that made my spidey senses go off. I hope somewhere on their menu they had a May Contain Soy for the folks who get sick from it.
"
You've seen the Sad Cupcake Dog, haven't you (link, just in case.)
Some of the Christie-in-candidate-Trump-pressers gave me a bit of that vibe.
"
Golly, it's been years since I saw meatloaf mix, but I remember that from my childhood in Ohio. (Also "city chicken," which was veal cooked on a stick. Apparently at one time veal was cheaper than chicken? Mind blown.)
And yes - I have an Italian meatloaf recipe that can double as balls. Sometimes I make loaf, sometimes I make balls.
Carrots or celery in things are a no-no for me these days: celery gives me hives and carrots give me God-awful GI tract symptoms. (Think the worst lactose intolerance you know, but with carrots).
yeah. I'm a fun dinner guest. I pick everything apart....
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.