Monday Morning

Listen to my blog entry here.

I spent Sunday morning filing out my tax forms. I actually don’t mind doing it. It’s just that it takes so much time. We use a computerized accounting program for personal finances, and that makes it exponentially easier to gather together the necessary data. I try to envision my entire chunk of a federal tax bill going toward, say, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Sleeping Bear National Park, Hiawatha National Forest–all national parks in Michigan that I’ve visited any times. I think taxpayers should be able to opt out of having their tax dollars go to fund certain things, say, the military. That way, there could be, literally, no blank check for war. When the Pentagon ran out of tax money alloted to it, well, the generals of the Joint Chiefs could hold raffles and bake sales.

Monday mornings usually find me playing a bit of catch up from the previous Friday. I never seem to get everything done on Fridays that I need to. I also do quite a bit of reading on Mondays, and make an effort to answer all of the unanswered email from the previous week. On Sunday, I received an email in response to the latest issue of the e-Advocate Newsletter complaining that the Adjunct Advocate needs to devote more editorial space to solutions aimed at wiping out the exploitation of part-time faculty. I replied to the email, and invited the author to contribute an essay. I asked her to write about how she decided to stop teaching as an adjunct. In her email, she said she would rather flip burgers than work as a part-timer. I look forward to her piece.

Writer Terri Hughes-Lazzall turned in her piece this morning. She is a writer new to the pages of Adjunct Advocate and she did a piece about adjunct bloggers. Writer Marjorie Lynn is set to begin her interview with the organizing committee at Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, Michigan. Marjorie, you may remember, just finished a profile of Susan Titus, president of the new part-time faculty union at Wayne State University. The members of Oregon’s statewide COCAL organizing committee are still working on their answers to my questions. Barry Edwards, a member of the committee, has told me that I can expect their responses soon.

Finally, you may have noticed that blog readers no longer need to login to leave comments. So if the spirit moves you, feel free to add your comments to my entries, as well as those of the “Part-Time Thoughts” blog. As a reminder, registration is no longer needed to view job particulars, either. And when you go to the magazine, you may view select articles from the current issue, as well as all of the content from the previous issue without registration.

The song accompanying this entry is “Stormy Monday Blues,” by B.B. King. Hope your Monday’s not as tough as B.B.’s.