The Structure Whisperer

This is the blog for the sociology classes of Prof. Richard Hudak (Endicott College, the University of Massachusetts Lowell and Merrimack College). When I started this blog, I had been enjoying a lot of the TV series “The Ghost Whisperer” in reruns. In imagining what it might be like to talk to the dead, I began to muse that sociologists, too, were weird to the average person, and “have a gift” of being able to see the hand of social structure in everyday life. The Sociological Imagination is what makes us “special” or at least distinctive. But this is not a gift we have inherited, like Melinda Gordon of the TV series. Rather it is one that has been bequeathed to us by teachers before. For the past few years I have shared with my students a variety of internet content related to sociology. This is a more systematic effort to do so, and to give students the opportunity to create their own posts as well. Welcome to “The Structure Whisperer.”

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Week 4 — The Return

This week we saw a continuation of last week’s theme of pushback against Trump. The amount of resistance to Trump’s whims, and its depth and breadth, I suspect surprised us all, including Trump. There was continued opposition to Trump’s nominees, and his process for advancing them. We also saw

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“The defeat of the air traffic controllers’ strike in 1981 is commonly offered as proof that public sector strikes always end badly. So what about the victorious 2018 teachers strikes? Or do women strikers not count?”—Barbara Ehrenreich 

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How a data analytics firm allegedly ‘weaponized’ Facebook to swing votes in 2016 | PBS NewsHour

How a data analytics firm allegedly ‘weaponized’ Facebook to swing votes in 2016 | PBS NewsHour

On Friday, Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica, a UK-headquartered data analytics firm, for allegedly using user data to devise election advertising strategy, particularly for undecided voters, in the run-up to the 2016 election. The U.S. arm of the firm reportedly received information on 50 million American voters from Facebook without disclosing its intentions to the social media giant.…

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Grad Students Would Be Hit By Massive Tax Hike Under House GOP Plan : NPR

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I am writing to show support for UMass Lowell adjunct faculty in their campaign to receive the same benefits that the rest of the UMass schools provide to their adjunct faculty. At UMass Lowell, the adjunct professors teach a majority of the freshmen and sophomore classes and should have access to the same types of benefits their other UMass adjunct colleagues receive.

Help adjunct faculty at UMass Lowell ‹ The Connector

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(via Cartoon: If social justice movements tried not to offend anyone)

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GLAAD has released its annual Where We Are On TV study examining LGBTQ representation on broadcast, cable and streaming television. Here’s an overview:

LGBTQ characters make up 4.8% of regular characters on broadcast TV

Broadcast platforms showed 43 regular and 28 recurring LGBTQ characters; cable platforms showed 92 regular and 50 recurring LGBTQ characters; streaming platforms (Netflix, Hulu and Amazon) showed 45 regular and 20 recurring LGBTQ characters

Racial diversity of LGBTQ characters has improved slightly over time, but it’s still not great; about 71% of LGBTQ characters are white

16 transgender characters will appear in shows across the three TV platforms (broadcast, cable and streaming); 4 are trans men 

1.7% of regular broadcast characters have a disability; that’s the highest number since GLAAD started tracking disability portrayals

Each platform showed one LGBTQ character with HIV; only one of these characters is considered a series regular

Gay men represent the majority of LGBTQ characters on broadcast and cable networks; lesbians are the highest represented LGBTQ group on streaming networks

Since the beginning of 2016, 25 lesbian, bisexual and queer women characters were killed off across networks, a record high 

There are more black series regular characters on broadcast platforms than ever before; 20% of regular primetime characters are black

I look forward to this report every year, but not because it’s going to be good news. (Anybody else really, really sick of Dead Lesbian Syndrome?) Still, these are interesting findings, and it’s good to know where we are. Thoughts?

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Here’s a primer on the professor–student relationship.

…I wonder if college students today truly understand the nature of their relationship to professors. Perhaps their experiences with other authority figures — high-school teachers, parents, and bosses — have led them to make assumptions that aren’t quite accurate. Or perhaps students are just not too thrilled with authority figures in general. That’s always been the case, to some extent. But it seems to me, after 31 years of college teaching, that the lines have grown blurrier, the misconceptions more profound. So I’d like to take a few moments to define the professor-student relationship.

(via Defining the Relationship - The Chronicle of Higher Education)

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Where Americans see sin that should be punished, Europeans often see a problem that needs a solution. Drug policy is the obvious and important example. Our forty-year prison-bulging moral panic contrasts with policies in the Netherlands, for example, which focused less on righteous punishment for offenders and more on reducing harm. 

 The same rational, non-moralistic approach applied to sex was the topic of a recent “Friday Flashback” post by Lisa Wade at Sociological Images (here), posted originally in 2010. Lisa mentioned Dutch government policies on prostitution – Amsterdam’s red-light districts for legal and regulated prostitution may be more famous even than the cannabis-selling coffee shops. But her example was from Scotland.

Julieta R. sent in this picture, shot by her friend at the Aberdeen Pub in Edinburgh, Scotland. Sex in the bathroom, it appears, had begun to inconvenience customers. But, instead of trying to eradicate the behavior, the Pub just said: “Ok, fine, but just keep it to cubicle no. 4.”

(via Montclair SocioBlog: Sins and Solutions)

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Mount St. Mary's fires two faculty members. One was tenured professor charged with lack of loyalty. The other advised student newspaper that recently exposed president's quotes about "drowning bunnies."

(via Mount St. Mary's president fires two faculty members, one with tenure)

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The Hungarian government implemented tough new immigration laws Tuesday as it seeks to stem the flow of refugees and other people crossing the country’s border with Serbia: the outer frontier of the European Union’s borderless Schengen zone.

(via Hungary Introduces Tough New Immigration Laws In Response To Refugee Crisis - BuzzFeed News)

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Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)

Nasty, brutish and short - meaning and origin.

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One of my UMass Lowell North Campus majors (read: science and engineering) introduced this in class. It’s my new favorite.

via xkcd: Purity)

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Empire produces cyber-gladiators The first thing I thought when I saw this IndieGoGO campaign was, "Oh, great, now we have gladiators." For indeed, everything about this smacks of spectacle, and the appropriation of cultural legacies to serve the collapsing core.

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College students wait to see just how required the course materials are, two industry surveys show.

The average amount that college students spend on course materials appears to be declining. But not necessarily because textbooks are cheaper. A growing number of students, surveys show, simply skip buying required course materials.

Just an FYI: my textbooks are not optional, but required.

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Bionic eye helps man see When I was a kid, this was the stuff of science fiction ("The Six Million Dollar Man…