What's in our name?

Identifier, first impression, signage, brand, arbitrary label...just remember, not what they call you but what you answer to

via "From Human Factors to User Experience: What’s In A Name?" By Keith S. Karn, PhD. March 6, 2014

In case you haven't noticed the change of URL (and why should you, what with running silent for so long), an explanation might be in order. The name is the same, so is the basic url, but the domain name redirect url is gone. That url matched the blog name. I bought domain name to be diplomatic knowing a metaphoric kick in the shins is all it would get me. When time came to renew I didn't because money is too tight to spend on empty diplomacy.

What difference will it make? Depends. None, I hope. Any reader, whether angry, upset, confused or just curious, are welcome to come over here and comment or ask questions.

Dear reader… hit the restart button

…[UPDATED 4/5/17] Somewhere along the way I lost my blogging voice. Why? I asked myself that more than once. One factor for sure: I loaned it out too often and for too long at the behest of others -- groups, organizations, campaigns, causes, individuals. My blogger's voice lost track of whose it was. This March I took a leap and committed to the #sol17 March blogging challenge hosted by the Two Writing Teachers blog and writing community where I wrote 31 days straight, a blog post a day and commented on 9 (or more) other posts every day. 

All blogging challenges include a commenting requirement, usually a minimum of three. The additional commenting load was from volunteer to welcome and support a group of new participants because I knew the extra commitment would stay me from dropping out. It worked and was also a lesson about blogging that I had forgotten: the conversation matters as much as content. Authentic exchanges, the sifting of opinion and information, as Jacques Barzun defined conversation, what makes the content matter. Along with regular posts, I want to bring that back to my blogging.

Am I ready? I think so. I know I can but will I?

some changes, briefly

If you haven't been by the blog lately, surf by and check out the changes, mostly updating and rearranging sidebar gadgets. I added Academic Labor to the sidebar. But there are other changes...

From the archives: Civility, Freedom of Speech & #AcademicFreedom, 2014

…Introducing what may or may not become a regular feature. Call it an experiment to jump start stalled blogging with Diigo's "blog this" feature and publish/distribute Precarity Network collections. This article is just as timely now as when it appeared in 2014 ~ perhaps even more so.

Excerpts and notes on Civility, Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom ~ by Philip A. Pecorino, Ph.D. Queensborough Community College, CUNY, October, 2014

tags: free-speech academic-freedom CUNY civility civil-liberties #PFR

Across the nation the calls for greater “civility” in public discourse have been increasing and along with them there are now the voices of concern over the consequences of such calls and the use of   such exhortations to chill free speech.  In the academy there is concern for academic freedom.

#LaborDay special from the @precariousfac archives: "Salt of the Earth" (1954) + links

Salt of the Earth (1954) is an American drama film written by MichaelWilson, directed by Herbert J. Biberman, and produced by Paul Jarrico. All had been blacklisted by the Hollywood establishment due to their alleged involvement in communist politics. (Image: Library of Congress. March 14, 1954 premier at the only theater in the the city that would show it)

The film is one of the first pictures to advance the feminist social and political point of view. Its plot centers on a long and difficult strike, based on the 1951 strike against the Empire Zinc Company in Grant County, New Mexico. In the film, the company is identified as "Delaware Zinc," and the setting is "Zinctown, New Mexico." The film shows how the miners, the company, and the police react during the strike. In neorealist style, the producers and director used actual miners and their families as actors in the film. The film was called subversive and blacklisted because the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers sponsored it and many blacklisted Hollywood professionals helped produce it.