.....I think you will like Seoul...yet a very different and insular culture, but you will be a Rock Star and that is always fun.

However, I remember you as maybe married?

I am curious how this works.

Best Wishes, Traveller

...in simple terms of fairness and the retention of good professors. This moral hazard falls those newly to the ranks...and I feel youz...

On the other hand, I always sensed that the only real happiness I might have found in my life would have been as a teacher (seriously), so I understand eeyn's position very well.

One real regret in my life was never teaching.

Traveller

I think that there's too much attribution of malice and planning to a lot of factors that made short-term sense but were long-term toxic. Sure, there's been a right-wing hate-on for the academy since the sixties at least and some of that went into policy making, but a lot of what's hit American universities has also happened in the bluest of blue states (and also Canada and the UK).

in Five Easy Steps

I plan to teach until I drop dead at the whiteboard in front of a class.  At least they'll remember one thing about that lecture.  But I do feel bad about those guys waiting for my position to open up,  so I make sure to eat some bacon every day.

is administrators' doing away with a tenure line once its occupant retires.

Even worse is that a couple of decades ago, we had a report that said when the Boomers retired there was going to be a massive demand for new professors and that, furthermore, the projected supply of PhDs was inadequate to meet that demand. So research universities throughout North America drastically increased the number of doctoral candidates in their programs. And the enormous vacancies opened up by the retiring boomers... never happened. The Boomers either hung on to their positions like grim death, or when they did retire, their colleges and universities saw that as an excellent opportunity to do away with the expense of a full-time professor. And there were more PhDs than people were expecting because there'd been a boomlet in PhD programs!

The result from this side of things is that most of my cohort is in some form of contingent employment.

What's worse is that my teachers' retirement account is for a southern state, so I'm as likely to see the money that I pay into it as I am to see my cat stand upright and start talking...

With hundreds of thousands protesting in Brazil, I'm curious what role music might be playing.

What follows is an excerpt from a piece on Brazil's protest songs, then a recent music clip with interesting political images (wish I could understand the Portugese) by MV Bill.

With the advent of democracy and the new freedom of expression in the late 1980s, protest songs played less of a role in Brazil for a while, but in the 1990s they once again became a powerful channel to voice social discontent.

One of the bands active in this period, was O Rappa, with the song A paz que eu não quero (The peace I don’t want, 1999) with the famous refrain ‘Peace without a voice / is no peace but fear’. Artists such as Marcelo D2, Gabriel O Pensador, Mano Brown and Racionais MCs all have their origins in the rap scene.

More recently, other names have gained prominence, such as MV Bill and Emicida. The fight against social inequality, urban and police violence and racial discrimination are the most common themes. Nowadays the lyrics are explicit and the messages are clear... Today’s protest songs are mainly directed at urban youth.

That was me, Z, not brut. 

brut may be taking you for a ride here, defending K-Pop. After your shenanigans I'm erring on the side of caution. 

...I'm waiting for a phone call so I looked her up on Youtube and played one of her videos...You can say she's strong, but I think she is just smokin` hot if you know what I mean.

Fun to look at to be sure.

Yes.

Best Wishes, Traveller