Category Archives: Online Places

American Right Wing Terror

By Ray Watkins | Published: June 1, 2009
All of us at Planned Parenthood of Kansas & Mid-Missouri are horrified, angry and deeply saddened at the murder of Dr. George Tiller this morning. Our hearts and our prayers go out to Dr. Tiller's wife, his children and other family members, to his brave and dedicated staff and to the thousands of women who have benefited from Dr. Tiller's compassionate and dedicated care. Planned Parenthood Mourns Dr. George Tiller, Statement by Peter B. Brownlie. President/CEO
The right wing has endorsed violence against Dr. Tiller and others like him for two decades or more. It's not simply fringe elements either. Fox News has for years hyped the idea of "Tiller the Baby Killer." It works too: Tiller had...
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An MLA Agenda: Too Little Too Late

By Ray Watkins | Published: May 15, 2009
In many places, laudable efforts to professionalize institutional policies and practices for faculty members off the tenure track have established an intermediate tier consisting of full-time contingent faculty members who hold renewable multiyear contracts. While these faculty members have more job security than part-time or short-term instructors, they are still far more vulnerable to cutbacks than colleagues on the tenure track, typically have heavier teaching loads than their tenure-track counterparts, and usually play limited roles in student advising and curriculum planning. Compared with the opportunities for professional development and institutional advancement of tenure-track faculty members, theirs are scant; their lot is to live with the frustration and resentment inherent in second-class academic citizenship. MLA Newsletter, Summer 2009, "An Agenda for...
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Happiness and Socialism

By Ray Watkins | Published: May 11, 2009
According to a new report released by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, a Paris-based group of 30 countries with democratic governments that provides economic and social statistics and data, happiness levels are highest in northern European countries... Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands rated at the top of the list, ranking first, second and third, respectively. Outside Europe, New Zealand and Canada landed at Nos. 8 and 6, respectively. The United States did not crack the top 10. Switzerland placed seventh and Belgium placed tenth. Lauren Sherman, Yahoo Travel
This is one of those pieces that I almost didn't read because I thought I already knew the answer. I read it anyway and in fact I did already know the answer....
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What Ignorance Looks Like, Part I: Pretty Prejudice

By Ray Watkins | Published: April 24, 2009
Ignorance and bigotry are all mixed up with our usually unspoken ideas about class, and race, and gender. In the United States, when we think about ignorance and bigotry we all too often unfairly call up the image of a poor white Southern man. We are like a general who can't win any battles because he's still trying to fight the last war. That's why this Ms. California video is so compelling; this is the new, modern face of prejudice: feminine and pretty, self-effacing and even apologetic. Bigotry, at least the public sort, is no longer aggressive, masculine and arrogant. (No doubt the old bigotry survives...
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Ours and Mine

By Ray Watkins | Published: April 10, 2009
I use roads that I don't own. I have immediate access to 99% of the roads and highways of the world (with a few exceptions) because they are a public commons. We are all granted this street access via our payment of local taxes. For almost any purpose I can think of, the roads of the world serve me as if I owned them. Even better than if I owned them since I am not in charge of maintaining them. The bulk of public infrastructure offers the same "better than owning" benefits. The web is also a social common good. The web is not the same as public roads, which are "owned" by the public, but in terms of public access...
Also posted in Autobiographical, Economics, War | Comments closed

Wishful Thinking

By Ray Watkins | Published: March 30, 2009
The Millennium Villages project offers a bold, innovative model for helping rural African communities lift themselves out of extreme poverty. The Millennium Villages are proving that by fighting poverty at the village level through community-led development, rural Africa can achieve the Millennium Development Goals—global targets for reducing extreme poverty and hunger by half and improving education, health, gender equality and environmental sustainability—by 2015, and escape the extreme poverty that traps hundreds of millions of people throughout the continent. With the help of new advances in science and technology, project personnel work with villages to create and facilitate sustainable, community-led action plans that are tailored to the villages' specific needs and designed to achieve the the Millennium Development Goals. About the...
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