“Are Adjunct Professors the Fast-Food Workers of the Academic World?” Is this provocative, evocative, adversarial, or emblematic of an age of casino capitalism, corrupted Admin Class, and a see/ hear/speak no evil compliant groups of people who are in the 20 percent?
“I’m telling you, this place is the most racist place I’ve ever been to. September 10, it was Latinos and Blacks. And then September 11 came, and it’s Muslims. It’s a list. I top the list.” That’s Vera, student in the USA, in the film, If These Halls Could Talk.
Early nurse’s aide collected blood. The patient to the right of me moaned all night begged mercy. Still dark. The usually pleasant semi-noise of pre-dawn amplified to unpleasant by the wheeling of stretchers and machines; insistent patients buzzing the nurses’ station. I was not clear enough to know exactly where I was in terms of life’s journey as I waited for the sun, but it sure as hell wasn’t Egypt.
Plantman was surprised, but not shocked, to find The Mayor’s office decorated entirely with imitation plants. He brushed wax leaves with his trusty feather-duster. He tested the moisture-content of tinsel soil, clipped plastic Ivy with imaginary scissors.
The Mayor sat quietly at his enormous desk, playing with a wooden sculpture of a bull with the sword of an unseen matador jutting from its side.
At last the Mayor spoke.
“You’ve been a very naughty Plantman, Plantman.”
“I? How so?”
“I know all about you.”
“Everyone knows me. I’m Plantman.”
The Dissenting Judge, frail, old, overwhelmed, bored with data, welcomed the coming of Plantman.
“You are fortunate, Plantman. Your life is lived tending fruits of the earth. I am beset with human cares. . . “
“You look tired,” Plantman said.
At last Plantman was led to the vault of The Accused. The walls and door were three feet thick, but the vault was air-conditioned, lest The Accused succumb before The City could legally VOID him. The Official punched the key-code and the door yawned open, revealing a cot, a toilet, and a small table which held The Accused’s beloved African Violet, “Rose.”
Lunch break. Plantman attended an open session of The City Legislature, his attention tuned to The Senator, whose office he would tend after his break.
As Plantman waited in the lobby for a CGC Official to lead him to his next task, he was approached by a Lobbyist pitching Dereliction Deterrent Technologies (DDT), a subsidiary of Tree of Knowledge Incorporated (TKI).
The Lobbyist pitched the products of DDT to The Lawmakers, who would have to choose a method of execution concomitant with the values of The City.
The Lobbyist spoke in earnest, as if Plantman were a Lawmaker himself.
Plantman, working abundant foliage in the Office of the Prosecutor, suffered the Prosecutor’s draft oration, which the Prosecutor practiced, without the least self-consciousness or awareness of Plantman’s presence — or so it seemed — pacing back and forth before his closet mirror.
Plantman was welcomed to the building by a sharply dressed Official of the CGC.
“Welcome to The City Government Complex,” said The Official. “Important personages wish to avail themselves of your renowned horticultural techniques before you undertake the odious task of attending that miserable little…specimen of Accused.”
“You know secrets of The City?” asked Plantman.
“Secrets? What secrets?” answered the Official.
