Month: November 2011

How to Write Emails in a Professional or Academic Context

~ Clarissa ~ 18 Comments

I just received the following two emails from students and I’m sitting here, fuming.

Email 1.

I’m read the material need for the final paper but I do not understand it. I am confused and is unsure how to start my Final paper.

Email 2.

Do to my computer internet not workin at home, I was not able to send it to you at the moment you requested. Sorry for the inconvience but i made sure i sent it as soon as i back.

That’s all the emails contained. I did not edit them in any way. There is no signature or any information that would allow me to identify these students. I have no idea which of my courses they are taking. There was no subject line, either.

Mind you, these students know how to write a correct sentence. We’ve done enough written assignments in both of my courses for me to know that I don’t have students who always write as badly as this. It’s just in the email format that they regale me with something like this. Why, people, why? And this is the technology generation we have been hearing about?

I’m so fed up with getting this kind of email that I just devised a PowerPoint presentation for them on how to write emails in a professional context. I know that the PowerPoint sounds snooty and patronizing, and I hate doing that to students. But I can’t face a flurry of such emails at the end of the semester, and I know they are coming.

Here is the presentation if you are interested:

How to Write Emails

Is there anything I should change or add?

Dirty-Minded

~ Clarissa ~ 9 Comments

I kept wondering what makes so many of my students each year state in the final exam that Fidel Castro and Che Guevara were gay. Finally, the mystery has been solved. The following statement from the documentary we watch in class was what gave them that impression: “Between Ernesto and Fidel the attraction is mutual. Their relationship will last for 10 years.”

There is also a reference to Che Guevara having “the beauty of an archangel.” And, as we all know, all beautiful men have to be gay, right?

Homophobia on the Offensive in Russia

~ Clarissa ~ 6 Comments

Russia is preparing for the elections to its parliament (called Duma.) Everybody knows that the elections will be a sham. The government forces state employees to vote for the party that is currently in power by threatening to fire them. It forces business people to vote the “right” way by threatening them with sanctions in case they refuse. There is no doubt in anybody’s mind that the results of the elections have been predetermined. The Russian Prime-Minister Putin doesn’t even try to conceal that he is the puppet-master behind the current lame-duck President Medvedev.

So what do you do when you are planning to perpetrate such a massive electoral fraud against the people of your country? The answer is clear: distract them by something that will make them feel good and in control. It is no surprise that the authorities of St. Petersburg have introduced a bill that will impose fines on everybody who “engages in propaganda of homosexuality and pedophilia.” Of course, the idea that homosexuality can be “promoted” makes as much sense as a plan to promote tallness. I’ve tried asking many a homophobe how much “propaganda” of gayness would be enough to make them gay. The answer is always the same: “Of course, nothing would make me gay, but I’m just worried about others.” Equating homosexuality and pedophilia, like this bill does, is also egregiously offensive.

However, many people in the fiercely homophobic Russia that inherited its hatred of homosexuality from the Soviet Union are happy about this bill. The authorities humiliate them by using them to pretend that there is some form of democracy in Russia. In reality, though, people are powerless to choose who will be in charge of their country. The attacks on gays make these downtrodden and humiliated people feel proud of their heterosexuality because there isn’t much else to be proud of. The suggestion that homosexuality can be promoted makes the heterosexual majority feel that sexual orientation is a choice and congratulate itself for making the “right” and the “moral” choice on this issue.

The anti-gay bill in St. Petersburg is still under review. Other areas in Russia, however, have already implemented this kind of legislation (Arkhangelsk and Ryazan). The economy in these areas is in even worse shape than elsewhere in the country, which gives their inhabitants more reasons to be unhappy with the government. And whenever popular discontent in Russia grows, you can always expect to see a distracting maneuver aimed at getting people to concentrate on their hatred towards some marginalized group instead of questioning the ruling party.

How We Felt About the Soviet Union

~ Clarissa ~ 2 Comments

People often ask me how we felt about living in the Soviet Union. Here is an anecdote that perfectly illustrates out feelings.

When Tarkovsky’s 1973 film Andrei Rublev first came out, my father was discussing it with his mentor.

“I have no idea why this film is being persecuted by the authorities,” my father said. “It is about the Middle Ages, and there is nothing anti-Soviet about it.”

“You are mistaken, Misha,” the mentor replied. “This film is very subversive.”

“How so?”

“Well, to give just one example, do you remember this scene where horsemen are riding down a muddy road?”

“Yes,” my father said. “So what?”

“This slurping mud that the horsemen trample with the hooves of their horses is precisely what we, the Soviet people, are.”

Sunday Link Encyclopedia and Self-Promotion

~ Clarissa ~ 10 Comments

A brilliant post from an experienced academic on retirement.

On salaries in academia. In the meanwhile, we can’t spare 5 bucks from our departmental money to buy a pizza to reward our minimal salary lab workers for their hard work.

Libertarian slogans that are false. Part I and Part II. The discussions that follow the posts are also fascinating.

How to avoid writing fatigue. I agree completely with this advice.

““Positive thinking” is dangerous because it is a form of thought-stopping, and leads us to deny reality.”

It seems like it pays off to be a former bloody colonizer.

An anti-Semitic vodka billboard in New York.

Vulva cupcakes. (Don’t follow the link if you are at work). My reaction is “bleh.” What’s yours? Contrary to this blogger’s opinion, I find this desert gross not because I find female genitals gross but because the idea of food shaped as any body part is disgusting to me. A cake in the form of a finger or an eye would be just as gross.

A fantastic post on why it’s a brilliant idea to date a feminist.

It’s nice to see that I’m not the only academic weirded out by Academia. edu.

On why you shouldn’t watch the latest installment in the stupid and ideologically manipulative Twilight series. Please, people, there is so much stuff to see and read in the world. Why invest money in supporting this kind of creepazoid organization?

“A lot of people complain that there is too much sexualization, that everything is about selling sex. I actually think there might be too little sexualization.” Finally, a voice of reason on sexualization! Yippee!

“The shift from “talk therapy” to drugs as the dominant mode of treatment coincides with the emergence over the past four decades of the theory that mental illness is caused primarily by chemical imbalances in the brain that can be corrected by specific drugs.” The real tragedy is that so many people bought into this vicious profit-driven lie about chemical imbalances in the brain and are falling over themselves in their rush to help pharmaceutical companies to make more money.

A fascinating article on life in Iran.

On cuteness and zaniness.

A really insightful post about the need to stop focusing on longevity as the only factor in disease prevention and treatment. I really like the way this blogger thinks. She always has an original take on things, so I highly recommend.

I have no idea why this blogger dislikes bibliography-dumping. I, for one, wish it happened to me a lot more often.

“As a craft, American mainstream movies are all but dead, more the product of the merchandising department than filmmakers. American movies have replaced story and character and emotion with spectacle and noise.” I agree with this completely, except the “but.” They are dead, period. Of course, I’m not sure they were ever born, to be honest. I don’t think that film as a form of art ever existed in the US.

Why donating to the Salvation Army promotes bigotry.

You Know What Is Sad?

~ Clarissa ~ 3 Comments

A student sends in a brilliant introduction for the final essay. And instead of simply enjoying it and feeling good about how well I’ve taught my students to write, I immediately start Googling it to see if it’s been plagiarized.

It’s sad to have become so jaded. Remember, students, when you cheat, you make your teachers gradually lose faith in humanity. And that’s a great disservice you are doing to new generations of students.

Prosperity Changes People

~ Clarissa ~ 10 Comments

I used to have an older buddy in college who was even more permanently skint than I was. I remember how he went on a MacDonald’s diet (meaning he only ate at MacDonald’s for three months) to save money. Of course, he ended up in a hospital as a result.

Oh, I remember those times when we thought ordering a complex mocha drink and a piece of cake was the height of luxury.

Today, my buddy is a tenured prof with a very comfortable lifestyle.

He wrote to me today, saying: “I’m spending this year in France, so if you find yourself in Paris, do come by my place.”

Yes, if I happen to pass by Paris on my jaunts around the world, I’ll definitely pop by his house.

Eve Ensler’s Article on Rape

~ Clarissa ~ 16 Comments

Eve Ensler’s recent anti-rape manifesto puzzled me. I fully support Ensler’s sentiment that rape is a horrible crime that should never be tolerated. However, I find some of her assertions to be very troubling. Take this one, for example:

 I am over women getting raped at Occupy Wall Street and being quiet about it because they were protecting a movement which is fighting to end the pillaging and raping of the economy and the earth, as if the rape of their bodies was something separate.

First, we saw progressive journalists drop hints as to the possibility of sexual harassment occurring at #Occupy rallies. Why such suggestions had never been made about the Tea Party protests is a mystery to me. Is there any evidence that progressively minded people are more likely to rape than conservatives?

Then, these suggestions about sexual harassment among the #Occupiers transformed into hints that women might fear being raped during the protests. Now, Ensler talks about rapes taking place during the protests as if they were an established fact.  Several questions arise, however. If, as Ensler says, women are keeping quiet about the rapes to protect the movement, then how did Ensler find out about these crimes? Did the raped victims share their stories with her? This makes no sense because if the goal of these rape victims is to protect the #OWS, letting Ensler write about it in such a charged format is probably the worst thing to do.

I also have no idea how Ensler arrived at her statistic of 1 billion of women on the planet having been raped. The OCCUPYRAPE term she introduces is very disturbing to me, too. Rape is a horrible crime and I see nothing positive in “occupying” something like this. And what is the “escalation” that Ensler is proposing? If this is a legitimate attempt at political activism, why not be a bit more specific about what the plan here is. This “let’s end rape by February of 2013” reminds me of the promises endlessly made by the Communist Party of the USSR to create a fully communist society by the year 2000.

It would be great if Ensler’s impassioned but hopelessly vague verbiage included references to the fact that the rates of violent crime (including rape) in this country have been on a steady decline in the past 40 years. The legalization of abortion in the US was a significant contributing factor to this phenomenon. Now that we know this, any anti-rape activism needs to include efforts to guarantee that all women have the right to control their procreation when and how they see fit.

This will do a lot more to end rape than passionate manifestos that make wild claims and operate on the basis of unsubstantiated statistics.

Why AdSense Sucks

~ Clarissa ~ 11 Comments

Reader oyiabrown asks:

Any chance you could expand on what are the grave limitations of AdSense by Google (mentioned above) – to a raw WordPress beginner, when you have a moment?

I’ve been waiting for somebody to ask me about this and now that this reader has, I’m happy to explain how Google AdSense works.

AdSense is a program that places ads on your blog and then gives you money whenever anybody clicks on them. It might work quite well for smaller blogs with very modest readerships. You might get your $30 every 6 months or so and have no major issues.

However, when a blog’s popularity grows and it starts making more money for the blogger, problems begin. AdSense uses every opportunity to shut down your account and keep the money you have accumulated in it. As soon as your AdSense account gets a few hundred dollars in it, be prepared for the AdSense to manufacture some pretext to close the account and keep the money.

What can those pretexts be? Well, anything that can be qualified as “suspicious clicking activity” (this is an official term used by AdSense). If the company decides that a certain reader has clicked too often or too much, this is grounds for termination. If you clicked on an ad on your own blog just once either from curiosity, to see how it works, or simply by mistake, your account will be terminated and you will never be able to start a new one even if you open a completely different blog 3 years later.

Also, if your blog is popular, it might start attracting trolls. A troll can maliciously get your account terminated by clicking on ads many times in rapid succession.

In many cases, accounts get terminated and AdSense keeps all the money in them for no discernible reason whatsoever. I’ve read dozens of complaints about it on the Blogger discussion forum, and the main problem is that there is no appealing such decisions. The account gets closed and there is nothing you can do.

P.S. I don’t use AdSense and the annoying ad that started appearing after the first post on the Home Page is something that I have neither requested nor have any control over. This is something that WordPress is doing to generate revenues for itself. I think it’s fair, albeit annoying to me, because the folks at WordPress provide really fantastic support to their bloggers.

Russians Are Hilarious

~ Clarissa ~ 2 Comments

So the Russian leader Putin went to a boxing match and got booed. The Russian government immediately announced that it never happened and he hadn’t gotten booed. Reports from the event were edited so that the booing wouldn’t be there. However, many people recorded the event and placed videos of it online.

Then, the Russian government placed an announcement that it had been a positive booing rather than a negative one. Instantly, hundreds of bloggers and journalists published articles analyzing the pitch of the boo and stating that it was decidedly negative in tone. They also drew everybody’s attention to the very distinctive yells of “Putin, go away!” from the audience.

After millions of people had familiarized themselves with the video of the booing incident and it became impossible to deny that the booing was very negative, the Russian government suggested that the person who was getting booed wasn’t Putin but rather one of the boxers.

Immediately, crowds of people started sending messages to the boxer explaining that everybody loved him and he was not the one being booed.

Let’s see what the Russian government’s next move is going to be.

Here is the video so that you can decide for yourself whether Putin was booed positively or negatively.