Mark Twain and Unions

The riverboat pilot's union that Mark Twain describes in "Life on the Mississippi" added value to society. For a long time the union tried to push on a rope--they just demanded higher wages and bargained themselves out of jobs.

Eventually the union pilots began to record their observations on the latest developments with the ever-changing rivers--where a sandbar had formed, where a new wreck lay, where a new channel was cut. They dropped these written observations in locked boxes where the steamboats moored. Union pilots, therefore, were the best informed on the river.

When an insurance company was contracted to underwrite a steamboat cargo, it insisted on a well informed union pilot. That's when the pilot's union found success by providing valuable information in the market.

People are free under the Constitution to assemble and form whatever associations they want. People are free to resist forming associations, as well. Unions should be free to organize. Business should be free to just say no, if they want. Unions will be successful if they can add value.

Fiends

HP tech support is chock full of lying fiends who can't do math.

2 days to get a Fed Ex box, 2 days to send the comp back to them, 2 days repair, 2 days back to me = 2+2+2+2 = 23 days estimated turnaround.

Excellence

Writers of the Future sent their edits on my bio and on my story, The Sundial.

The edits on The Sundial were excellent. They kept all of Bess' bad English, while getting rid of all of my bad English. I was mortified to see that some of my errors remained after so many reads and readers.

I had worried that since my bio was different than the other authors' bios I had seen, that the editors would "sameify" it. But they left everything in it. I was pleased. The bio I submitted is similar to the bio that accompanies this blog.

I cannot talk about me unless I talk about the web of folks who have been part of my life.

The Future

The Sundial, my story about an immortal Egyptian witch's difficulties in the American Civil War, will be published in Writers of the Future's volume 27. Mosby's Raiders, the confederate partisan cavalry unit, is prominently featured in the story.

Writers of the Future is the best selling science fiction and fantasy anthology series of all time, according to Locus Magazine. I feel as if I have been struck by lightning.

New Wave

Fell into the new wave tonight.

The Call: Walls Came Down

Squeeze: Black Coffee in Bed

Bram Tchaikovsky: Girl of My Dreams

Thomas Dolby: One of Our Submarines is Missing

Madness: One Step Beyond

Wall of Voodoo: Mexican Radio

The Tubes: Talk to Ya Later

Moon Martin: Bad Case of Lovin' You

New Strange Course

The guy from down the hall who makes decisions on how we spend much of the income from our $10 million endowment asked me if I wanted to teach a new course.

A local businessman who keeps an eye on the regional economy said that we are shifting from agriculture to health care. He wanted to know the impact of this shift.

The guy from down the hall wanted to create a course that would do a research project exploring how this shift would affect the region. The course would have 5-8 students and would produce a substantial study of the topic, which we would publish in a scholarly journal. This is not my usual macroeconomics course.

I thought for a moment and decided that I might enjoy it. I told him I would take the chance and began thinking about how I would prepare to teach the course next spring. He left.

He returned with my associate dean, who asked which of my normal classes I would like to give up in order to teach the new class. I said, "I usually teach three of the same course."

He said, "But which one?"

I paused. "Do you mean this semester?"

"Yes, starting tomorrow."

Boom.

Well . . . uh . . .

So I am teaching this odd course with zero preparation.

Except now we only have one student who wants to take it. So I do not know what they will do. They already have a part-time faculty member teaching one of my sections.

I cautiously await.

New Class Tool

I am using Facebook to pass information to students in my courses this semester. Since I do not want to see what they are posting to their friends, I am hiding their posts. One can easily learn things one would rather not learn.