Kitty Update

Not so good. Won't eat. Use the big syringe, mix a little baby food and chicken broth and:

Voila. We hope.

Two Smart Boys

Over on the left side of this blog are my 'star' links to blogs in which I take a particular interest, such interest billboarded because it speaks so well of me, I think. I hang the walls of my mind with work I wish I could do.

Recently in 'silver in san francisco' we have Young Silver tracing the evolution of cyberstudies. Recently in the Professor of Pop we have Youngish Goodwin interviewing (in three parts) Nicholas Garnham about the evolution of Media Studies.

(Go look, lazy linkers. I want you to look at the billboards.)

In the latter I find this:


Nicholas Garnham: I was critical of community media both because in my view it over-emphasised the power of the media to change social conditions and because it took a sentimental view of community which has been carried forward into identity politics more generally.

As a sentimental man who fights a deep and pernicious tendency to take a sentimental view of change -- not forgetting the equally pernicious tendency to overreact to the previous tendency and sink into cynicism and its concomitant passivity -- I think I agree with NG on this point. May I recommend both essays?

As for myself, I note that with the semester done, I feel much less voluble, less inclined to 'think' simply to the end that I may 'say'. Professing is a talk-talk game: keep talking in the hope of saying something useful to your students, useful now or later; keep talking because it is the job description; keep talking even if it's not the job description because you fear the silence; keep talking because it's the necessary fuel for your self love and if you don't keep stoking the boiler, mightn't you end up coasting to a halt?

(I can't go on. I go on. Heh heh heh.)

So I praise youngblood with their Something to Say, since in fact they do. Good on you, lads.

I Can Play a Twitter

I sit in bed as Eydie irons while we watch Jon Stewart. The cat, bladder pumped, is at the foot of the bed on a pad. Color it *Friday night.*

Twitter in Plain English

An Oliver Update

The steroids seem to be helping. He is walking a little bit -- to walk at all, some limp and some drag, is better than he was doing Saturday and Sunday -- and he seems to have much better control of his bladder. Of course, Eydie and I are "expressing" -- weird nomenclature; whose sensibilities needed salving? -- his bladder morning and night *and I am getting pretty good.*

This means in a day or two: a video!

All Cat People Are Crazy Now

This is good, but how about cats who look like Mussolini?

The Head with Two Brains

We are the Sultan

Like Scheherazade, Oliver must tell us a tale each night so that he be allowed to live another day. His tales are a bit of a dumb show, of course, for a meow can be many things but never an argument.

Tonight he dragged himself into his litter box and urinated and then -- to the wonder of all -- bumped his way up the stairs.

And then he lay down. He had done enough. For today.

Twain's War Prayer

Heard about it but never read it. Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly provided the link today.

Cat Bulletin

Not good. When we got home from the A's game Saturday night, Oliver could walk only with great difficulty. He'd move a few feet -- shuffle really, like an old man -- and then sit for a while. Sunday morning we called our vet hospital, which was short staffed and told us no appointments were available, but Eydie said it IS an emergency and you WILL see the kitty and they did.

So the last round begins: a steroids shot and pills twice a day. We see no particular benefit 24 hours later. The little guy struggles to move, though he is using his litter -- some of the time. I do not think life is very pleasant for him, even by cat standards, which I have never thought of as particularly exacting.

What are the parameters of cat contentment? Were those all-night snuggles essential or incidental, one of many sources of warmth in the night? It is sentimental to put off killing him, I conclude, but I think that supposing we can be rational about all things is itself profoundly irrational and more distorted and misdirected than our wild spasms of intution. (Reverse is true, too.)

So: a few more days and then the hole in the garden, the tears at the vet (where sometimes they are unsettled when a man cries) and then the good memories take hold, and we accept things as they are and let those things resonate.



Here. Look at this. These are things I've said before.

The Future of Journalism: A Profession for Saints and Masochists?

By which I mean if it doesn't pay, who will play? When I disengaged from academia the first time -- and that's a story that changes in the telling with the mood or season -- I got a job as an advertising copywriter. I left that job to copy edit for Atlanta Magazine *because Atlanta Magazine offered me more money*.

(To be fair, when I announced my exit the ad agency offered me 20 percent more than Atlanta to stick with them, but they had lowballed me too long; I distrusted.)

That was among the reasons I left the San Francisco Chronicle for here in 1991: about the same amount of money the first year, but the upside was considerable.

(Chron also offered me more money to stay: 25 bucks a week. Oh boy.)

My heart now poured out, I suppose I'm proud to say that a concern about remuneration was *not* the focus of a recent AJR article by Carl Sessions Stepp. He begins:

Two dozen journalists from a national magazine have gathered to discuss their future and how to prepare. They seem somewhat anxious and uneasy, but what most intrigues me is where they focus their main concern.

It isn't about whether journalism will survive, or even whether they will have jobs.

Their rawest worry seems to be this: With all the stresses and cutbacks, will they be able to continue doing the job right? "The hardest question," as one puts it, "is how to maintain accuracy with less time."

That is perhaps THE point -- although, of course, he goes on to talk about money money money through innovation innovation innovation -- and it certainly fits with my saints/masochists model if innovation flags and the money does not, like manna, descend.

Let us assume that saints always love the truth. And more often than not the truth hurts.

If They Are Your Really Good Friend, You Don't Resent How Well They Write

Big Pat Daugherty: remarkable; splendid.

He writes of his "farewell tour" of Alaska, where he worked on the pipeline. Good writing takes you there and sits you down and makes you see.

Unless you’ve been here or one of the few places in the world like it, you can’t imagine the scale of wilderness. How close it is to you, how far it goes on once you’ve stepped into it, and what it does to you when you live nearby.

But, that was then and those times are as dead as 40-cent-a-gallon gas. Now, I arrive at Fairbanks International Airport wearing tan khakis, a close haircut, dragging a packed-to-the-tits doublewide Samsonite suitcase, a twice-too-big computer briefcase stuffed with cameras, prescriptions, tape recorders, iBook, polo shirts, and socks. Plus, one Sherpa nylon pet carrier holding Margaret Rose, my miniature Dachshund. If I had a pair of Bermuda shorts and a beach ball I would have need of nothing.

Uneasy Lies the Head That Wears the Chair

As Dr. Johnson more or less said, "The prospect of being hanged focuses the mind wonderfully."

Thus, I begin my time as chair of the Media Studies Department in and for the University of San Francisco. I look forward to it because it is an impetus to growth in the sense that the things I will be expected to do are not things that I am constitutionally inclined to do, that is, *lead*, no matter how you define the concept.

I loved being a reporter because a very important aspect of that job is to sit, to watch, to veil, to lurk, to self efface. And then I got to pounce by which I mean I got to write from a safe distance from those I wrote about.

But now, even if I do not lead -- already I'm shrinking back from that boast -- I must *herd*. Or, at minimum, figure out which way the herd is going and at the key moment scamper around in front! (Oh that's cynical, more crumbs in my beard from my days as a reporter.)

So, eyes bright and coat glossy, I look forward to expanding my oeuvre. One does, after all, want to do a good job, to be fair, to be efficient, to be honest. Thus, today I ordered a book on determining my "management style."

If it turns out I have one, I will let you know.

An Embryonic Teacher Writes: I Don't Quite Get Your Comments on Grading That Class You Liked So Much.

And he added that he is preparing to teach his very first class, a college lecture course with 75 enrolled.

I reply:

As for grading, doing 75 is easier than doing ten. With a big class, you establish your curve, you have at least two multiple-choice/short-answer tests to go with whatever writing assignments you set, you use a number system to go with whatever grade you stick on papers (a B essay is worth 85 points), you add up all those points at semester's end, and when the results are laid out before you, you impose your template. But a ten-person class is harder to grade in that: if you have taught for a long time; and if you have had more than your share of dull classes in recent years; and if your current class is a sudden and unexpected delight in that the mood of the class is involved, challenged and challenging *and approving of you*, you don’t want to discount the fact that every member of the class has contributed to that chemistry and may well deserve some extra credit.

All that said, in the class of which I speak, when I read their final big assignment (a 2,000-4,000 word profile) some were better than others; some really were strong A’s. And that meant I couldn’t give everyone in the class an A, though I wanted to. I did let a couple B’s float up to B+, but that was it.

At the end of the day, I want an A from Robertson to be strong currency.

Would You Like to Read an Email? You Can Be My Secret Friend.

Teresa:

Well, bunny cat is doing better. He's pissing on his own -- sometimes in his nice litter, sometimes on the pads he is supposed to sit on because he leaks. He still leaks a little, but the amount *may* be decreasing. He is very sad because he has slept with us for 16 years and now he is locked out of the bedroom. Odd thing -- maybe not so odd -- is that we are not sleeping very well, not well at all, though I would have sworn his presence was often a nuisance.

Meanwhile, I'm finishing up grading. Question: How much extra credit should a class get that you have enjoyed teaching more than any class in recent memory? I mean, if an individual grade is a B or B+, why not an A- for charm??

Later in the day: What I did was average up the grades, assign the extra credit and give everyone they mark they got. You get an A from me it means you got an A from me.

Phalanges Crossed

Oliver has regained some control of his bladder, which is good news. But immediately he started discharging small amounts of urine on those places he slept or rested while he was leaking.

The glass and/or bladder is half full, you might say.

Media Studies Held Its Senior Dinner Last Week

Big Funny: Today Speaks to Yesterday

Milking the Kitty's Bladder

Last night an amazing fountain of urine, wild and comic. This morning a steady dribble at best, accompanied by yowling. The chemotherapy does not seem to have achieved improvement, so the first Hail Mary falls to earth. Now we test for some obscure fungus and then we hit him with strong doses of steroids, which have some bad side effects, the vet warns so seriously.

But the side effect of his failure to improve is euthanasia I told the vet, whose expression was concerned but inscrutable if that's not an oxymoron.

And Robertson said: "Well, I Never."

Pabst sent me an email containing the following thoughts from Mike Bloxham at MediaPost.

Many of you will know Kluster.com, the site that functions rather like a collaborative social network based around brainstorming and concept ideation. Well, it has now launched Knewsroom, which not only allows its users to nominate stories of interest for inclusion in the next day's "publication," but also "invest" points in stories they particularly favor -- with the promise of a return if their invested story is included next day. Even more intriguing is the promise of a percentage of the ad revenue generated.

This is interesting in its own right. It somehow manages to mix news with the fun of game-play and investment -- wanna be a micro day-trader in news, anyone? Yet it's even more interesting to think about how this concept could play out in a TV environment. As with Google News above, substitute text for video, make it remote-friendly -- and it really would mess with all conventional notions of TV news and how it's distributed.