20190430.0430

The month ends today, and so does my focus in this webspace on LinkedIN. I have already commented on my reflections of the experience, so I need not dwell thereupon now. What I will dwell upon, however, is how I plan to proceed for the next month, which begins tomorrow. Putting up a buffer will be of great importance for me, as next month promises to be busy; there are birthdays and holidays and conference trips that demand my attention, and I do want to be diligent in at least one of my pursuits. Having something posting here will help me, and knowing what I want to post will help me ensure that I am able to do so.
I have, of late, been thinking I might return to poetry. I do not think I am ready to begin again my hymns against the stupid god; I do not know that I have the anger ready to hand that that body of work demands of me. But I have been thinking on other things. This year was a good wildflower year, and the weather so far has been pretty good, so I have been much outside and much given to consideration of what is outside. There is enough outside in the Texas Hill Country to attract attention and consideration, so I will not be short of inspiration for such work as I might do. And it has been a while since I have put such skills to use in any sustained fashion, so it behooves me to practice my versification once again.
At the same time, I know that other things attract more attention, and more favorable, than my poetic efforts. Of the few posts in the last 100 I've made that have attracted triple-digit readership (and the fact that that is a figure I would note is itself an indicator...), only a couple have been posts of verse; the rest have been what I hope is the lucid prose of this blog's title. If I am working to attract notice to my efforts, then, it seems that my short essays will be of more use than my short verse. Just as I am unsure that I have the anger to sustain my hymnal, however, I am unsure that I have the presence of mind to post essays so far ahead--unless I return to summaries and commentaries. But those seem a bit flat for me at the moment; I do not feel that those are what I want to do, and this webspace is as much about what I want to do as about attracting formal attention. (And, anyway, I have another webspace where commentary plays a bit better than this one, if the number of views received is any indication.)
I am not certain, then, what I shall do. But I shall do, so I shall be certain soon. I hope you will read along.

20190429.0430

Looking at what LinkedIN has had to offer over the past month has been interesting, certainly. I know that I've tended to fall into the same habits with it that I have with other media I consume; much of what I've done has been looking at what it offers me to read, summarizing it, and offering my comments upon the same. How useful or edifying those comments have been, I do not know; I hope they have been helpful or interesting for people, but I know better than to expect much in that regard. After all, did what I have to say much matter, I'd be producing more original content than responses to the same, and I'd be more confident in it, such that I'd push it forward in more places than I do what I write here.
One thing that has been abundantly clear to me is that the audience LinkedIN believes it has is not looking for deep reading. It is not looking for developed ideas. It is, instead, looking for short bits that help business and corporate folks feel good about themselves and allow them to work towards the idea that employees in the current socioeconomic climate can be persuaded to offer the kind of loyalty that they need not reciprocate, to give of themselves abundantly until that final moment when they are let go as no longer of immediate use. I acknowledge that the view is cynical, but it is also grounded in my reading through what comes across my feed, both from my contacts who remain active on the platform and from the platform's own systems. If I am cynical, it is because I am paying attention. I believe the face-eater when it says it wants to eat faces, and I do what I can to protect my face from it.
That said, although I am not going to focus my attentions on LinkedIN as much going forward as I have in the past month, I am going to make sure that I pay attention to it. For one, it does offer me another venue for writing--and thereby for advertising my abilities and what I might offer through them. (Hey, I have to keep the lights on, too.) I do intend on doing more to put myself out into the business community where I live; I intend on going to such a function this Friday, as a matter of fact. It will be good to have some kind of entrée into conversations there, and the materials on LinkedIN offer such a thing; business trends can be discussed, even at "outside" events, and I am not so well grounded in sport or outdoor life as I would need to be to participate in the other conversations like to be going on at such events. Nor yet do I have ready access to the most recent television shows, which closes off another avenue.
As I note, the experience has been interesting. I will be moving on from it, but I am glad to have done it.

20190428.0430

One more article that LinkedIN recommended for me was Randi Zuckerbert's 20 April 2019 "Celebrating 420 Is Not Equal for All." The short piece notes socioeconomic impacts of recent legalizations of marijuana in the United States before pivoting to the racial and ethnic biases that appear to underlie the benefits which currently accrue from the legalizations. Zuckerberg reminds readers that there are still people suffering from draconian laws that have been overturned, even as people markedly unlike them benefit from the changes to those laws.
Zuckerberg is, of course, entirely correct in noting the racial disparities in benefits from and incarcerations due to marijuana use, possession, and sales. They are and remain present, as do disparities in popular perception; too often, white folks who indulge in marijuana are regarded positively or benignly, while persons of color who do so are regarded as already-hardened criminals. And it is shameful that those elected to positions of power who currently have the authority to pardon or commute, and who do exercise those powers in cases where justice has been miscarried--and enforcing bad laws is such a miscarriage--do not do more to release those incarcerated who are guilty of things no longer illegal.
I have noted (here and here, for example) that I am in favor of legalization of marijuana. The economic benefits to the states that have done so are clear, and I am not aware of any increase in crime that offsets those gains to any substantial degree. I am certain that if there were, it would be trumpeted to the heavens by those whose interests are in forcing others into ways of life that arise from some source they do not even know, but have internalized uncritically such that they cannot conceive of alternatives except as being "unnatural." But I hear no such fanfares being played, and even my ears are not so bad as to miss such brassy braying as that; I can only conclude that the apocalyptic ends that many have said legalization would bring about are not occurring.
But for many, as Zuckerberg rightly points out, bad ends have already come about and are ongoing. She is right to remind us that things remain skewed, that many still suffer where others now take delight, and that the burden of that suffering is lopsided in strange ways that reflect poorly upon the nation where it is borne. There is still work to do--and every day demands some efforts upon it.

20190427.0430

While it is the case that I was accepted into one of the LinkedIN groups I had sought to enter, it is also the case that it took some days to be accepted into that group. (I am writing a fair bit ahead of posting at this point, which I take to be a good thing. It does sometimes mean I miss the chance for some timely comments, but I have also found that materials written in haste almost always come off less well than might be hoped.) As of this writing, I am still waiting for approval in the other groups I have requested to join, and I confess to some slight annoyance at the delay.

I know that social media groups that are not directly linked with companies are volunteer activities, and I know that there is only so much that can be expected from a volunteer--particularly when non-volunteer activities demand attention. The bills have to be paid before hobbies can be indulged, or such should be the case. (I have seen it go otherwise far too many times...) And I know that the situation I am in as I write this is not one that demands my participation in particular groups; it would be helpful, perhaps, but more if I have to alter my situation than if I am to maintain it. Too, given yesterday's comments, it may well be that not being in the groups is more a benefit than being in them would be. I do not know yet, of course, but I have to entertain the possibility.

At the same time, the prevailing narrative is that business has to move quickly, that the business world has to move quickly. It is also part of the prevailing narrative that all public activity is branding, and it is a commonplace on LinkedIN that people's profiles--including those of group moderators--make much of their current professional positions. That is, they are representing their companies and brands at all times, as I am on that platform for mine. (And I know I still have some work to do in that regard.) For delays to occur in what seems should be a quick scan-and-click job sends a less-than-favorable impression, even with such mitigating factors in place as are noted above. And it is not necessarily that I am a Millennial that I have such an attitude about things; I learned customer service from Boomers who found themselves and find themselves catering to the Greatest Generation and the tag-end of the Lost Generation. If I expect my performance and those of my peers to be a certain way, it is because that performance was and still is demanded of me.

But I am perhaps overly harsh in such things. I do not know that I do better when I am doing work for which I am not paid, and I doubt that the managers of such groups as I have petitioned to enter are compensated for the time they spend on the groups; I ought not to be stricter with others than I am with myself. And I have to think that a great many in business leadership roles might take such a lesson to heart; certainly, a reminder of it from time to time is a helpful thing.

20190426.0430

Earlier in the month, I noted that I was joining the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Rehabilitation Professionals group on LinkedIN. Recently, I was accepted into the group; when I was, I was surprised at what I saw.
What I had expected to see were announcements of conferences and jobs open, offerings of training opportunities and announcements of availability for work. I had thought I would see articles written by members discussing--under useful pseudonyms and with other appropriate anonymizations--incidents in clinics and concerns of clients in practice. They are the kinds of things I see, adjusted for discipline and professional focus, in other groups, both on that platform and elsewhere, so they made sense as appearing on the LinkedIN group. And, given the nature of the platform itself, I did expect to see some advertisements interspersed among the other offerings; I understand that the platform has to fund itself.
I did see those things, to be certain. Indeed, the first entry in the group that presented itself to me was a notice of a conference, for which abstracts were soon due. But most of what I saw were advertisements for holistic cures--and not from the platform, but from one member. I have to doubt the identity of said putative member; the activity reads more like a bot posting at high speed than an actual person, even one who is paid to promote a particular website and its offerings. And I have to wonder about the wisdom of making such posts around people who are ostensibly health care professionals; it seems that would be an audience likely to reject out of hand such commentaries, given that professional training in clinical fields usually instills a belief in the superiority of peer-reviewed study over individual assertion.
Then again, I have been disappointed by professionals in the performance of their professions many times, as I have disappointed others in the performance of my own professions. (Clearly, I have, else I'd not have had to change profession as I have.) It may well be that those in the group invite such advertisements, that they respond to them with things other than annoyance and over-passing. (I am not unmoved by advertisements. I am more moved by the fact that I do not have money to spare in addressing them.) It may well be that people whom others seek for their ability to see things are oblivious. And that is a distressing thought, though it is probably more true than is comfortable to consider.

20190425.0430

Another of the many pieces LinkedIn has recommended to me is DeVry University's re-release of John Hanc's "Building a Career, One Academic Step at a Time." (I suppose I should note here that I am, as of this writing, contingent faculty at DeVry.) The piece describes "stackable credentials" as an interlocking system of two-year, four-year, and graduate degrees and of various certifications and continuing education units. Hanc focuses on extolling articulation agreements--that is, agreements that allow straight-across transfers of course credits--between community colleges and senior colleges and universities. A couple of student examples bracket the article, and a number of educational administrators are quoted as being in support of the idea, as well, helping the article to make its case.
There are some solid, salient points in the piece. Community colleges can offer students who have previously been academically underserved or who have been away from formal education for some time to re/acclimate themselves to general academic environments. They are also usually substantially less expensive than senior colleges and universities (though this is often at the price of having fewer facilities and less access to research apparatus), making them more accessible to socioeconomically disadvantaged populations. And it is the case that baccalaureate and higher education is not the best fit for many people--and no shame should accrue to that, although it does in too many cases.
At the same time, there are some issues with the piece. Perhaps the most glaring is that it appears to call for an extension of credentialing-mania; part of the problem that attaches itself to higher education in the United States at present is that it is seen as providing necessary credentials instead of a broader education. (I am aware of how fraught the term is. The discussion goes on in many places, carried out by people far more eloquent than I; it can be found easily.) Incorporating more sites of education more explicitly into such systems is likely to have the same effect on them as it has on prevailing educational standards, prompting the same kinds of things currently decried. And it will also likely drive up what are currently more manageable costs, so that access to educational opportunities currently in place will become more restricted yet.
There are other issues, as well. For one, part of the value in staying with an institution across a longer term is the opportunity for continuity. Even for non-traditional students, there is value in seeing familiar faces week to week and session to session. The longer engagement allows for the development of relationships that can help students transition out of the classroom successfully. Fragmenting curricula through "stackable credentials" disrupts that, serving to isolate students-turned-workers further from one another, and individuals are not as able to align for common goals and good as are already-existing groups. And, for another, the move to fragment curricula reads as another avenue of attack on humanistic study. While "writing" instruction--narrowly tailored to workplace genres such as resumes and HR reports--will doubtlessly remain in place, the broader liberal arts will likely fall away even more than they already are.
I do not need to speak here to the threat such poses.

20190424.0430

I read yet another piece LinkedIn recommended for me: Michelle Gibbings's 14 April 2019 "The Upside of Bad Days." The piece is a fairly shallow rehash of traditional advice: shit happens, and you can either complain or do something about it.
A couple of points come to mind to discuss in relation to the article. It is important, certainly, to move ahead with things when possible, despite the events of a day going bad (though what Gibbings calls "going bad" and what I might call it differ; missing a meeting or losing a document is an annoyance, while having a house flood or having to take a sick child to the hospital on her birthday because she has pneumonia is a bad day). Wallowing in the annoyance does not help, and it does, as Gibbings usefully notes (in one of the few instances of her doing so in the article), tend to drag others down. Even amid it, things need doing, and not getting them done will only serve to make things worse than they already are, to increase the annoyance or make for a really bad day, after all.
More important, to my mind, is a tendency of which Gibbings seems representative. I've sat through a number of motivational talks, and I've read a number of pieces by motivational speakers. Every one of them has seemed insipid to me--and, worse, convinced of its own profundity. I know that the presentations have to believe their own hype; it's simple marketing, and they are in the business of selling themselves and their "services," as I probably ought to be. And I know I am not likely among the intended primary audiences for such things (which bespeaks yet another area in which social media platforms' algorithms need refinement); I do not think such presentations are actually looking at people who have read as I have read and who have had the time to sit and think about that reading--and how it reflects and fails to reflect those parts of life that can be observed from a good spot for reading--as I have had. So it should not be a surprise that they do not much register with me, that they come across as more annoyance, if not outright insult, than inspiration.
Then again, I do find myself writing about such things. I am using them as springboards for my own productivity, insofar as I can call the effort spent putting words into this webspace productive. So perhaps I am not so immune to them as I might like to think myself...

20190423.0430

To continue on with articles LinkedIN recommends for me, I read Robert Glazer's 15 April 2019 piece "What I Learned about Potential from a Day Spent in Prison." The article reflects on Glazer having spent time volunteering at a maximum-security prison and drawing lessons from it, notably the relative normalcy of those incarcerated and the systemic failure to decrease and rehabilitate prison populations. Glazer pivots at the end of the piece to the thought that, if those in some of the most deliberately repressive circumstances can work for meaningful change in themselves, those not in such situations can do much more.
There are problems with the piece, of course. The misery-tourism aspect of the thing attracts attention and grates; it moves towards a white-savior mentality that was a bad idea when it arose and which should be long discarded from its longer history of use as means of abuse and abnegation. That it only moves towards and does not overtly adopt such a mentality is occasioned by the lack of notice paid to the tendency of prison populations to be overwhelmingly people of color; while some concerns of demography are noted, those that work so strongly on populations that become incarcerated are omitted from the piece entirely, which is something else that writers now had damned well ought to know better than to do.
That said, the article does do well to point some things out. For all that carceral research holds that prison populations have long been fluid, people in the United States tend to think of inmates and former inmates as a people apart, rather than as simply another part of the body politic to which any might belong. Glazer seems to work to reassert that the people in prison are people, having the same potential (which can be read as a gloss on "inherent dignity") as any others. Glazer does attract attention to the socioeconomic bias in the criminal justice system, pointing out that one of the major differences between his own demographic and those of the inmates is that he and those like him had access to more robust systems of legal support than those imprisoned; an inmate arrested at age eight is highlighted as a particularly prominent example of someone suffering due to a lack of such a support system. And Glazer also points out the systemic problems that exacerbate crime; harsh sentences do not serve their purported deterrent functions, but only to overcrowd prisons. (He does not address root causes of this, though, which is a weakness.)
At the end, while Glazer raises some good points, he does not seem to go far enough. If he is representative of the platform, it seems there is a damned lot more work to do. I can only shoulder so much of it, myself...

20190422.0430

Yet another piece LinkedIn presented to me is Bernard Marr's 14 April 2019 "How Robots, IoT, and Artificial Intelligence Are Changing How Humans Have Sex." In the article, Marr points out several avenues of current development in the further integration of technology into sex--internet-enabled sex toys, sexbots, and virtual-reality pornography--before moving into consideration of legal issues surrounding such advancement and policy questions that begin to move towards broader social questions. Marr stops short of offering any judgments on the matter, simply noting trends and current developments before noting that things are changing; how they will continue to change and what responses will be appropriate are not yet clear.
I confess to a certain degree of titillation in the piece; although sex sells and various forms of sex work are continually substantial parts of human endeavor and economies, they do not appear to be often discussed on such platforms as LinkedIN. There remains a large degree of prudishness about business in the United States--and US norms still exercise outsized influence on broader discourses--that prevents even such cursory and sober discussions of related issues as Marr's from popping up often. And because there is such a taboo in place, violations of it--even those as innocuous as Marr's article--attract attention, particularly from those so salacious as I am.
Something towards which Marr gestures, and which does need some consideration, is that the increasing integration of technology into sex will further decouple sex from intimacy. The two are certainly not identical--intimacy extends beyond sex, and sex beyond intimacy, in myriad ways--though there is a strong association between them, as well as cultural preferences for their conjoining. Further disassociating them from one another--and, again, making sex more a mechanistic thing is like to do that, if not certain--will have effects on the very nature of family, which is largely defined by consanguinity and privileged sexual relationships. Realigning such things will not be done without struggle--which is not a reason not to do them, but it is folly to deny that such struggles will occur, and that many will be resistant to making changes. Many of us define ourselves in some or large part through familial terms, even those of us who are in the purportedly fragmentary family structures ascribed to and almost necessitate by the demands of work in the later twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Comments on the article suggest that quite a bit of work is needed. What should be discussion of the potential business and legal impacts such changes would make--which would be appropriate to the platform, despite the protestations of some that such content is unfitting--is instead too much judgment of others' sexual preferences. In this, as in much else, what an adult does in private, in his or her own home, with inanimate objects belonging to him or her, is nobody else's concern, and while expressing that such may not be to personal taste is one thing, trying to condemn it overall is quite another--and ultimately fruitless, as the fact that all laws are violated attests.

20190421.0430

Another article that LinkedIN recommended for me is Shradha Sharma's 14 April 2019 "In the Business World, Can Nice People Finish First?" In the article, Sharma frames the question of the title in terms of general observations of reported business attitudes before moving to address the question through two embedded video interviews and comments about them. The interviewees are used as case studies to assert that putative "nice people" can succeed in business; Sharma ends up asserting that a focus on what is good in a businessperson by that businessperson, rather than looking at what others do who succeed, results in not only business success, but also more authentic existence.
I do not know that my experience accords with what Sharma proposes. Too often, those who will take the time to aid others end up screwed over; yes, they may develop and enjoy a reputation for reliable honesty, but they also end up giving more of themselves than they end up taking in. And when they do say "no" in the interest of self-care, their reputations erode, leaving them without so much of a good name and not much of the money they had hoped to earn or otherwise acquire.
When the principle is to bring in money, that having money and increasing the amount of money had is good, that doing so faster is better, being nice does not suggest itself as a viable option. And two anecdotal attestations that another way is desirable do little to offset my own anecdote--or the ample attestation that those who act from greed succeed when the goal is bringing in more money.
This is not to say that I like to see it be that way. I have generally been one who gives, who helps, hence the lines of work I have been and am in now. And I appreciate the things I have and the people I have in my life because I have acted as I have. But that does not blind me to the fact that I spent a lot of money and lost out on bringing in more as I trained to do the work I had wanted to do to help others, and I am not blind to the fact that I will never make a lot of money doing the kind of non-profit work that I currently do. That I believe I have made the right decisions for the games I have been playing does not mean I am unaware that they are the wrong decisions for the games others play, nor yet that the other games attract far more prestige than those I do.
It is the case, to be sure, that I am not doing what I'm doing in the interest of fame. But that does not mean I'd be averse to being a bit better known--or a bit better remunerated. There are a number of things it would make easier, and I do not think the difficulties that might arise offset that greater ease.