Day: January 26, 2012

Article Accepted, Happiness Ensues

~ Clarissa ~ 39 Comments

OK, folks, I know you will laugh but I just had an article accepted for publication in a very good journal. A very good journal. It’s my third accepted article in two months. I’m on a roll here.

When I got the acceptance email, I thought I wasn’t reading it right because I never thought this journal would accept me. I’d had a glass of wine just before, so I suspected that maybe I was imagining it. So I called N. and had him read the email. And he confirmed that it was an acceptance.

“I just realized,” I told him, “that you are married to a brilliant woman.”

“I’ve always known that,” he responded.

“Well, I haven’t,” I said.

It is very good to know that I’m not an intellectual failure.

I’m too emotional now to say anything intelligent but in my next post I will share what I did to turn myself from a slacker into a publishing machine. 🙂

I feel very very happy.

A Meme: Stranded

~ Clarissa ~ 8 Comments

I’m really into memes nowadays. Here is a cool one from Shakesville:

Were you to be stranded for an indefinite period of time, which one book, one album, and one film would you want to have with you?

My book is Benito Perez Galdos’s Fortunata and Jacinta. Oh, the joy of spending my entire life reading and rereading it! It’s also very long, which is an added bonus.

My album is Pavarotti’s Greatest Hits. It’s more or less all I ever listen to anyways.

And my film is actually a collection of films by Nikita Mikhalkov. Yes, he is a total jerk. But he is (or used to be) a fantastic movie director. And I want no more arguments about that! All I want is help with not buying the collection because I’m now sorely tempted.

Yes, I’m weird.

What would you choose?

Gender Equity

~ Clarissa ~ 59 Comments

So I just looked at the gender distribution of faculty members at my College of Arts and Sciences. We have had more women than men in Assistant Professor positions for several years now. However, there are almost three times fewer Full Professors who are women than those who are men. It seems like as many women as men get tenure and advance to Associate Professor. But the numbers for women getting Full Professorships drop off a cliff after that. It’s getting better, though, because 12 years ago there were 4 times as many male Full profs as female.

And, of course, the number of tenure-track faculty members has become smaller and the number of contingent instructors has grown. What is interesting, though, is that the number of female Assistant Profs has remained pretty much the same for several years. It’s male Assistant Professors who have become fewer and have been substituted by instructors.

Romney Calculators

~ Clarissa ~ 33 Comments

Have you seen these Romney Calculators that seem to be the latest fad on Liberal websites? My blogroll is filled to the brim with them, articles about them, and calculations based on them.

I so hope that this “Romney is rich which is why you shouldn’t vote for him” spiel will not become the axis of the Liberal Presidential elections campaign. There are very few things that Obama’s supporters can do to lose him the election. This, however, is one of them. Trying to milk class resentments of the Americans? Really? This strategy is going to be extremely counterproductive.

I’ve been living in this country since 2003 and I have not seen a widespread hatred of wealth. People hate the government, the IRS, the bureaucrats, the “elitist intellectuals”, etc. But they don’t hate the rich. Everybody hopes to strike it rich which turns people who make a lot of money into role models. If Romney were a jet-setting heir to a fortune who hasn’t worked a day in his life, then there is a slight chance one could successfully invoke class resentment toward him. But he isn’t.

Remember 2004? That was the moment when the entirety of the Liberal discourse on President Bush was reduced to the supremely ineffective “Bush lied!” mantra. Every time I heard it, I’d whisper, “What are they doing? This is a guaranteed way to lose the elections!” And that was exactly what happened. Of course, the Dems also had no candidate to run a against Bush, just like the Republicans don’t have a viable candidate right now. If the “Romney Calculator” type of strategy continues, though, Romney is likely to become such a candidate.

Take me, for example. I don’t like Romney and I’d never support him for President. Still, after I saw the Romney Calculator, I’m less opposed to him than before.

Of course, if people who have been living in this country for a longer time than I have tell me that there are massive class resentments against high earners that can be successfully exploited in the US, I’ll believe you. If I’m not seeing something, this doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

What do you, folks, think? Is the Romney Calculator a winning strategy?

Who Is a Real Abortion-Promoter?

~ Clarissa ~ 9 Comments

Yes!

“In a long-anticipated decision that will affect millions of women’s ability to pay for contraception, the Obama administration announced on Friday that it would not allow religiously affiliated employers such as universities and hospitals to deny full birth control coverage to the women they employ.”

Note how it’s the “abortion-promoting Liberals” who celebrate this decision. A decision that will help reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. And the supposedly anti-abortion Conservatives, where are they? Are they cheering as well?

I guess not.