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My union (CUPE 3903) is poised for a strike and I’m feeling naked

This time next week, I might be on strike.

Here’s the local media’s take on the potential disruption:

York University faces possible strike (Toronto Star)
York plans to cancel classes in event of strike (Globe and Mail)
NORTH YORK: Strike looms at York U. (insidetoronto.com)

Follow the most recent Google-indexed updates

Optics are big when it comes to strikes and the fact that the union has asked for a 30% wage increase, especially in this time of “financial crisis”, will make winning the opinion war on this strike especially difficult. You’ll read from the comments on the above articles that people are already pointing out that CUPE 3903 employees are “already” the highest paid TAs in the country. While I hardly agree with the logic behind the argument (those students are nothing but GREEDY!), I’m afraid that most people will see it in that simple way.

There are other, in my opinion, important issues that are being brought to the bargaining table, but the wage issue will colour public perception. Part of the problem is that CUPE 3903 represents so many kinds of university teachers: TAs, GAs, RAs and sessional faculty. Each of these groups have different needs — sessional faculty, for example, have significant job security concerns that should be addressed (a problem with being a sessional is that you can work for X years for the university and be “let go” at the end of the current teaching assignment without warning, renumeration or an attempt to turn these long-term sessionals into tenure-track positions). There isn’t one issue that we, as union members, can get behind and offer the general public as an easy-counter position: all of our issues are mired in institutional practice and minutia. People aren’t going to take the time to be interested in it.

Generally speaking, I do not want to walk a picket line or strike. I would rather keep with my day-to-day staus quo. But my prediction if we do strike: it will be long and bitter. The general public will have a hard time understanding what we’re striking about. So, before we picket, I think it would be wise to would drop the 30% wage increase demand and elucidate one, significant issue that would be easy for the general public to understand and (potentially) support. But I’m no union tactician.

Thursday, November 6th is the big date…

Is loving the local enough?

Recently, the local has emerged on the scene and seemingly into the collective consciousness of urban Canadians (or Torontonians, at least). Evidence the perspective behind such ideas as “the 100-mile diet” what is nearby is better for ourselves and, in turn, when the local improves, so does the world.

I personally have advocated for a kind of environmental education that focuses on meaningful first-hand experiences with the more-than-human. The underlying logic of this, in short, is that in coming to know what is around you, you’ll be more likely to become interested, invested or aware. This kind of attitude is summed-up by Stephen J. Gould in 1993’s Three Little Piggies when he writes:

Yet I also appreciate that we cannot win this battle to save species and environments without forging an emotional bond between ourselves and nature as well—for we will not fight to save what we do not love (but only appreciate in some abstract sense). So let them all continue the films, the books, the television programs, the zoos, the little half acre of ecological preserve in any community, the primary school lessons, the museum demonstrations, even … the 6:00 A.M. bird walks. Let them continue and expand because we must have visceral contact in order to love. We really must make room for nature in our hearts. (p. 40)

I find it to be a compelling argument and want to agree with Gould. The notion of love makes me hesitate a bit, in part because nature has been romanticized to death and I want to move beyond that. I would rather say we say we need to make space for nature in our consciousness and daily lives. Key to my interest in place-based environmental education is an interest in the local. And this focus on the local in environmental education is not exclusive to me. Place-based education has traction in the minds of environmental education researchers and educators.

Underlying the local is a logic of concentric circles of betterment: if we take care of what is near to us, the goodness will radiate out. In a sense, the CBC’s one-million acts of green subscribes to this same kind of logical underpinning. And this notion of localism is compelling. But is it any good?

I do see danger in the local: what happens when one perceives that the integrity of the one’s own local is threatened? In some cases it leads to NIMBY-ism ((NIMBY is short for “Not In My Backyard” )) where, uncritically, “my” local is seen as having primary importance over all other locals. So, a hierarchy exists in these these concentric circles—value emanates from somewhere, and the nexus of value is constructed to be as as geographically proximate to the self as possible.

Val Plumwood echoes similar concerns in Shadow Places and the Politics of Dwelling. Her argument in a nut-shell: if we exist in a culture that creates a false consciousness of the local (which she calls place) then the local, her her words, is a “fake.” Fake because “privileged places are more lovable than other places, so privileged people get more opportunity to love their places . . . because the degrading forms of production go on in other places.” ((Source)) Plumwood goes on to argue that there needs to be an ethic of place rather than simply a sense of place.

This is where it comes back to environmental education, IMHO. How do we go about creating an ethic of place? I’ve been busy lately interviewing birders for my dissertation. What has become evident is that birders do a good job of noticing the here-and-now: being “in place,” as it were, to attend to the world around them. Yet, a trend appears in which some have a hard time with that which is beyond their immediate sphere of awareness. Take, for example, when I asked if they think about the migratory birds they attempt to see in Ontario as they’re overwintering (in Central America) or nesting (in the Boreal Forest). With exceptions, the majority do not. Yet, in the case of migratory bird conservation, it is these distant geographical places that need attention.

I’m just beginning to think and work with these ideas. I certainly don’t have a simple answer at the moment. But I do have directions that I’ll be going. The first has to do with our notions of space: we live with an euclidean worldview of space ((A location in 3-D space that can be pinpointed with an X, Y & Z coordinate)) that emphasizes that which is nearby. Perhaps environmental education needs to do a better job of playing with those notions of space. How would that be done?

The abstract I submitted to the 5th World Environmental Education Congress

Hosted in Montreal next spring, this congress is kind of like the Olympics of the environmental education world: held biennially, it draws together academics and practitioners from around the world. I just submitted an abstract for a paper that is largely based on my dissertation research. Here’s the 250 words-or-less abstract:

Bird-watching remains one of the few ways that people continue to have direct experiences with wild animals; animals which are increasingly recognized as indicators for the overall health of ecosystems worldwide. Birders, as a community of practice, offer an opportunity to investigate how adults engage with non-formal environmental learning about the more-than-human world. With little more than an interest in birds and the right kind of technology, a motivated person has the opportunity to participate in citizen-science projects, the likes of which have been recognized as a source of “good” scientific information about bird populations. Yet, birders are not a heterogeneous group and birding is not a heterogeneous act. Echoing Haraway’s notion of partial perspectives, local knowledge about birds is created within a mediating web of relations. This paper describes the preliminary findings of a qualitative research project, using a modified approach based on grounded theory, which investigates the multiple practices of birding. Looking behind official accounts of birdwatching, the project describes the multiple ways that birds, places, practices and knowledges are produced. Meaningful bird conservation and by extension, a sustainable relationship with the more-than-human will require the committed attention and action of a wide variety of human stakeholders. The results of this research offer an opportunity to examine the varied motivations and behaviours that citizens of our Western society engage with bird life.

We’ll see if it gets a nod…

A way to say thanks

I’m writing this in the car in between two interviews that I’m conducting this sunny Sunday morning. What I’ve been struck with as I’ve been busy with interviews this Spring and Fall is just how generous people have been with their time and personal space–I’m visiting people in their homes as a part of my work right now. What is difficult is that I’m not going to get a way to individually thank all my participants in my dissertation (that would break the rules of anonymous research). So while I do thank people effusivley at the end of an interview, I feel like I need to figure out some way of thanking these people again.

Academics that are also characters

I signed myself up for an Academia.edu account yesterday. It seems like an interesting hybrid of an academic homepage and social networking site. Has the potential for being a useful place to network if more people sign up for it (currently there are 5 people who have signed up from York–seriously under-represented).

Regardless, I came across the page that Richard Tabor Greene had set-up and–wow–what an interesting guy he appears to be. A man of 113 research interests (by comparison, I thought I was pushing the envelope with my seven), Greene has an interesting breadth of academic interests ranging from writing books, to designing fashions, to composing J-rapp songs (I just googled J-rapp and apparently the whole Internet is as much in the dark as I am about this musical style) to planning to launch a new kind of university. What Dr Greene “does” in his own words:

1. I write large books on results of the Science of Excellence Research Project
2. I design fashions, products, interfaces, events for clients and my own work for global distribution
3. I teach research seminars at Japan’s 8th ranked (by employers) private university and send students to the world’s top ten grad schools
4. I research 16 areas including fractal interfaces, social automata, mass workshop event designs, cognitive and social psych of designs and interfaces.
5. I prepare for launch in 6 years time of a new kind of university (or add-on to existing universities) that I call Knowledge Epitome–I have a book laying it all out.
6. I compose J-rapp songs and run bi-monthly workshops wherein students compose songs
7. I write two comedy and 1 detective fiction novels
8. I daily create videos on 1 of the 8000 chapters I have already written–a one hour, 17 minute, and 7 minute video version of each chapter is done each day.

Ambitious. But is Greene for real? I mean listen to this stuff:

I have developed the most comprehensive, practical curriculum in creativity applied to invention, discovery, design, and business venturing in the world–92 courses, all tested on my Chinese and Japanese undergrads. I can transform passive East Asians into innovative Americans.

and stuff that goes beyond my understanding:

I have invented certain regularized fractal interfaces, one to replace all prose writing, another to replace web 2.0 browsers, another to replace current workgroup electronic cooperation topologies

Personal interests, you wonder? Dr. Greene has that outlined as well, ranging from “long distance cycling” to “inventing new forms of sex and eroticism.”

Dr. Greene, who can be contacted at richwows@gmail.com, has also listed his areas of expertise. My personal favourite:

KIMONO SportFormal FASHIONS–the fit and comfort of modern sports fabrics combined with Japan’s rare traditional weaves–catch everyone’s attention anywhere without effort–I did these fashion designs for years just for my own wearing and amusement and one day an inebriated newly rich Chinese gentlemen, in our Osaka Ritz Carlton, begged to buy what I was wearing–so without planning to I ended up eventually selling a few designs, though that was never my intent and is not now yet my interest;

If I have an academic career half as interesting as Dr. Greene’s, then I’ll be a happy man.

Why Wireless Nomad is no loger our ISP

I’ve written twice before about the Toronto (and southern Ontario) ISP Wireless Nomad. Both of these postings were in 2006 when we first switched from Bell Sympatico to Wireless Nomad. In the two following years, we found that Wireless Nomad was totally fine as an internet service provider until the summer of this year, where we recieved such poor technical support and customer service that we had to switch ISPs.

We switched telcos from Rogers to Bell and in the process of doing this, lost internet connectivity. Because Wireless Nomad is a DSL provider, this wasn’t suprising. So, I tried calling the number that I had for technical support. No answer, so I left a message. Over the course of a week, I called daily and left messages. All with no response. I tried emailing. I emailed over the course of the same week. No response. Finally, I decided to visit the address I got in the 2006 documentation. When I went to the address located on King Street, I found that Wireless Nomad was no longer located there. I quickly jumped on the Internet and found out that their contact information has changed to be c/o the Linux Cafe.

At this point, after a week of no returned calls or contact on the part of Wireless Nomad, we decided that we needed to cancel our service. But how do you cancel the service of a co-op you can’t get in touch with? I emailed, left a phone message and mailed a letter to the Linux Cafe that stated that we wanted to cancel our service. We erased our credit card information from their on-line database. That has seemed to work. Interestingly, we still have their router and modem in our posession. I stated in my letter that I would be happy to return these items once they got in touch with me. I’m still waiting to hear from them.

Bell Canada & SP Data spread misinformation about the coming digital television switch

Bell Canada ((Actually, the number that called was 866-507-8350 which, when I called it back says that it is a “customer contact centre”  of a company called SP Data, calling me with information about “products and service offerings on behalf of Bell Canada.” It seems that they specialize in, among other things, what they term the “warm upsell” which is marketing bullshit for using a pre-existing sales relationship to try and sell you more stuff that you don’t require.)) just called me up (ostensibly to make sure I was getting the “best value for my money,” see the footnote below) to try and sell me satellite TV and DSL Internet service. I was surprised that the sales woman, after I told her that no, I didn’t have cable but had rabbit ears, cautioned me that “if I didn’t get cable or satellite TV that I would no longer be able to watch TV in the future.” Luckily, I knew that her line was a bunch of bollocks.

True, on August 31, 2011, broadcasters in Canada will be required to switch to transmitting a digital rather than analog signal. With an old standard-definition TV, you won’t be able to watch these digital signals without purchasing a converter. With newer HD TVs with digital tuners built in, you can already watch high-quality HD programming over the air (OTA) without having to get cable or satellite TV.

It’s a bit smarmy and somewhat of a scam to call people (current customers, really) and tell them that they need a solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist. It just happens that I’m a bit literate in this field otherwise, I could have be sucked into purchasing a service that, at the end of the day, I don’t need. I wonder if Bell Canada is aware that SP Data is misinforming clients in this way?

Industry Canada has a bunch of information if you want to know more.

Update (19-11-2010): I’m happy to publish comments about your concerns or experiences with these companies, but I won’t publish anonymous comments that *just* slag off SP Data staff.