> http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/22/opinion/22PERL.html
> New York Times/Op-Ed
> January 22, 2002
>
> Thinkers in Need of Publishers
> By RICK PERLSTEIN
>
> once a potential solace, is out: at the professional conferences
> these days new Ph.D.'s walk around with a kicked-in-the-teeth
> look. The non-Ph.D.'s, of course, are not even in the game.
I can relate to this, being one of those new Ph.Ds. You feel exactly like a character in a 3D shooter, like Max Payne discovering the neighbor of the number of the (capitalist) beast. But then you pick up the book, which is as Brecht said a weapon, and you learn to fight back. If the total system isn't going to give us jobs... then the system is going to feel the Payne-to-the-max.
Academic capitalism has done a really nasty job on the university publishers -- nowadays, you're required to do all your own proofreading, editing, typesetting, indexing *before you sign a contract*. Talk about self-exploitation -- and then they turn around and send you some godawful screed completely trashing your text by someone who obviously didn't read the thing. Makes me glad to be living in the age of the Web.
-- Dennis