Episode 32 -- The Investigation

The Obese American stared across the table at the mayor he had once opposed. This time, though, Mayor Goombah seemed humble and sincere -- almost quiet. With great reserve, the "Happiest Mayor on the Planet" explained to the superhero the great political predicament that he was now in. The huge man across from him seemed confused.

"So, you think someone is slamming you intentionally? Do you have any proof?"
"Proof?" The mayor was indignant. "I would have called the Supreme Court if I wanted to prove it. I need you to help me investigate."
"Alright, but I'm doing this my own way. I'm not answering to you or to the city of Lost Wages, and I'll make public whatever I discover."
"Fine. Just speed up the process."
Mayor Goombah waved his hand dismissively, being ever-conscious of the fact that reporters from the Reused Journal were observing the conversation closely. With that, the Obese American stood, unfurled his cape, and darted off with the swiftness of the sword of justice.

Answers began to reveal themselves almost immediately. A search of local blogs revealed a pattern in the language of the posters, leading our hero to conclude that many of the rumors about Mayor Goombah were being circulated by the same individuals posting under various assumed names. After putting pressure on the webmasters of the blogs by threatening to jump on them with great ferocity, the Obese American learned that the newest anti-Goombah blog was being funded by the same entity that also sponsored a political coup several years back.

"Where is this going to lead?" His brow furrowed as he pondered the mystery. The American paced back and forth down the Strip, muttering to himself as though he already had the answer. The more he walked, the more people noticed him, and the more they noticed him, the more they followed him. Soon, over one hundred people were roaming the streets. Oddly, each of them mumbled to himself as he did. All at once and in concert with one another, they stopped moving. A single thought came to the collective, blocking out all other considerations. Just as that thought was coming down out of the ether and into their brains....

BANG! A shot rang out. Then another. The people screamed at once, then scattered in all directions as though they had all been hit. Suddenly the Obese American found himself without allies in the street. On the north side stood twenty members of a street gang, armed with guns and knives. To the south stood twenty members of a different gang, similarly armed. With a great yell, the two small armies brandished their weapons and charged forward -- our hero trapped between them. At a time like this, he could only think one thing: boy, was he hungry!

NEXT: Honeymooners in Wages

Episode 31 -- Achtung

Marta Teufel was the kind of woman who ate puppies for breakfast. In school, she was voted "Most Likely to Commit Patricide." She once had a husband whom she poisoned just to watch him die. These days, Marta works for a man known to her only as the Skinny Nazi, but she has dreams of controlling humanity one day. Marta works with skinhead gangs in the city of Lost Wages.

Kindwhile, the American dream has been summoned to the White House for a secret conference with President Bush:

"This is why I asked you to come here: the FBI director has been reading a lot of blogs dealing with domestic terror. We need someone to track down any would be attackers and bring them to justice. Are you up to it?"
"I suppose I might be able to do something, but I'm curious. Why didn't you call HERO Inc.?"
"Most of them are in space right now."
"Shouldn't I convene the Legion of Fat Heroes?"
"They're handling a famine in Africa."
"Then I'm your man!"
"My advisor, Bob, believes you can stop these terrorists. Are you sure you can help?"

Our hero looked over at the man known only as "Bob." His hair was dark and slicked back. Both his chin and his nose were significantly longer than average, but there was a twinkle in his eye -- as though he represented the spirit of a calmer time.

"Sir, I don't believe American can ever be defeated!" The hero looked unshaken as he uttered these words. Bob replied with a warning: "Be careful, oh lardacious one! Your arrogance may result in defeat. Why, when a friend and I were on the road to Tehran...."

Bob began a tale of great heroism, but even while he spoke, the Skinny Nazi was plotting against our hero. "Call our people in Nevada. Ze Obese American almost discovered our plans last week. Ve vill deshtrakt der Grosschen Amerikaner and deshtroy his character. Once he is out of ze vay, ve will eliminate Congress. Do this now!"
His lackeys shouted, "Jawohl!" as they went on to do his bidding.

Soon, Bobby "TOA" Yokel returns home via Meteor Airlines' finest jet. Away from Washington, his thoughts drift into other areas: "I should sue the airline. Surely I'm not over the weight limit!" And yet, this matters very little in the overall scheme of things, for the Skinny Nazi has contacted Marta Teufel. In the basement of a meth lab in Lost Wages, Teufel rubs the X-shaped scar on her forehead and smiles. She has a suitable plan.

"Mayor Goombah is too self-centered to be of any use to us. His career needs to be destroyed. We'll spread lies about him during the election period, rig the election, and put Nazis in charge. Heh-heh-heh! The Furor will be pleased. Finally, the whole state will bow to my will and worship me!"

Three days later, Mayor Ashcan Goombah learned of the developing plot. His assistant, Polly Sigh, brought him the bad news shortly after his weekly radio address to the Lost Wagen masses. He was not amused.

"What? A smear campaign against me?!"
"Yes, yeronnah."
"Call the casino mafia. Rub the bums out!"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor. They won't get involved."
"Then call Senator Reek. I donated a fortune to his reelection campaign."
"The senator has vanished mysteriously."
"The teamsters?"
"Busy with a strike."

Mayor Goombah sighed a heavy sigh as he wiped his brow. If his usual allies were avoiding him, that could only mean that they were leaving him twisting in the wind. Just as Bobby Yokel was stepping off his flight at McCareless Airport, the mayor uttered the last phrase he ever thought he would bring himself to say: "Well...Call the Obese American."

NEXT: Gang War

The Serialized Adventures of a Modern Hero

What has gone before...

The sky was dark but clear. As usual, the commute across the Nevada desert was an unenviable task, and attorney Bobby Yokel found that the distance from Elko to Pahrump was much farther than the distance from Pahrump to Elko. Even so, he made good use of his time. He was eating junk food and talking on his cellular phone as he navigated the journey.

For the moment, though, let us step backward in time a few years. Young Bobby grew up wanting only one thing: to work at his favorite restaurant -- McBurger's. He did very little in high school that was not required, but his teachers passed him from grade to grade anyway. In college, he cheated his way through several courses until he achieved his master's degree in business administration.
Bobby's focus had been on the money he might make with an MBA, but the job proved to be too difficult for him.

This took Mr. Yokel to law school, where he spent more taxpayer dollars on what was allegedly his education. He emerged from that episode of his life with a degree, and yet he was no better prepared after college than he had been during his days at McBurger's. Fate was about to make him a hero -- something that Bobby equated with a sandwich from Gubway.

For on that ominous night -- several miles from the town of Rachel -- Bobby's inattentive driving brought his Hummer into head-on contact with a semi driven by a student in the Bates-Grayson College CDL program. The student was unharmed, but Mr. Yokel's Hummer rolled several times before slamming into a large rock. Bobby met his maker, but the Maker sent him back to earth....

The BGC instructor, Johnny Johnson by name, was annoyed at the prospect that his secret defense contract was about to be uncovered. He scrambled to contact high-level government bureaucrats. Within minutes, Bobby's nearly lifeless body was being rushed to nearby Area 51 (which had been a stop on the Extraterrestrial Highway before the important research was shifted to nearby Yucck mountain).

Once inside the Groom Lake facility, doctors and scientists stared at his two-hundred-seventy-pound frame. There was little they could do for him at this point. "However," one of them said, "perhaps if we install in his body all of the alien technology whose functions we do not comprehend...perhaps that will save him."

Indeed, Bobby Yokel's life was spared that night, and the unknown gadgets implanted in him by the scientists at Area 51 put him in touch with mainstream America. Since that fateful evening, Bobby Yokel has been compelled to fight terror, crime, and socialism wherever they may be. He's a great patriot. He's larger than life. He is...THE OBESE AMERICAN.

Come Together

"Got to be a joker. He just do what he please."

In July, 1969, Dr. Timothy Leary was giving serious consideration to making a run for the US presidency. He had just given a popular series of lectures at UC Berkeley (and at other colleges) and was widely known for having told Americans to "Turn on. Tune in. Drop out."

Leary's first goal was to win the California gubernatorial election against Ronald Reagan. Leary was busted for drug possession, and his career in politics wound up being permanently derailed. However, Leary's campaign left some thought-provoking ideas behind:

"The basic function of government is to protect individuals against organized gangs and groups."

Leary wasn't entirely wrong about that, was he? At every level, people seek protection from groups -- in part because the individual needs to know that she has a voice. The individual has to matter. Any elected official worth his salt knows this and keeps it in his heart; politicians who forget this wind up bringing upon themselves the wrath of the people. This is a basic expectation of government: that it help individuals where they cannot help themselves.

"Another basic function of government is to entertain/educate."

At times, we in education laughingly refer to our service as "edutainment." Articles have been written for and against the connection between education and entertainment. Leary believed that the two ideas could go hand in hand. He further expressed that government should take on the edutainment role itself. Sometimes comedy is the best means of providing information. Sometimes, though, seriousness is called for. A good politician would be able to distinguish between those times.

Leary's campaign, however, was shortsighted at times and narrowly-focused. As a "drug guru," he pushed more strongly for legalization than for anything else. Had Leary become governor of California, his lack of leadership on other issues would surely have shown. But he was right about one thing for sure: there was room for everyone in the process. His tongue-in-cheek slogan, "Come together: join the party!" was somewhat inspirational. He didn't want to exclude his opposition; instead, he wanted everyone to be taken seriously.

We may not need all of Leary's shenanigans, but we certainly need his sense of inclusiveness today. Aren't faculty, staff, and administration equally deserving of participation? By virtue of the examples that we present to others, shouldn't we all be engaged in education? And maybe...just maybe...a little entertainment, too?

The Necessities

When we speak of academic freedom and shared governance, I tend to hear the terms defined this way:

"Academic Freedom means I can do whatever I want, and Shared Governance means I can tell you what to do."

In a business-minded, self-centered society, this is indeed how the concepts play out. We rarely hear one another say things like, "I enjoy sharing the governance of my department with others," but we often hear how administrators are expected to share governance with us. When other instructors disagree with us, do we rush to protect their academic freedom? I hope so; we should.

At some colleges, there is no pretense of shared governance. In the strongest cases, a military-minded, authoritarian administration dictates policies without the input or agreement of the faculty. The faculty, meanwhile, exhibit the same tendencies toward one another, so that department chairs are lords of their departments, senior faculty are barons of their offices, and junior faculty live to serve.

Other colleges and universities claim to practice shared governance in one form or another. If shared governance is to work properly, though, it must be desired. A self-directed faculty has little desire to share governance with anyone else. A faculty who view their work as merely a job that pays the bills will be unable to glimpse the benefits of shared governance. An administration who adhere strongly to a business model of the college -- wherein the students are clients and the faculty are employees -- will likewise have great difficulty thinking that there might be any advantage to shared governance. Thus, a shared paradigm must precede shared governance.

Simply put: in order to have it, we must want it. In order to want it, we must know what it means to share. We must realize that if things get out of control, it is not our job to "fix" them. If others do contrary to what we would do, not only should we accept it, but it behooves us to embrace their freedom to do so. Sharing governance means that the community deliberately obtains input from one another prior to, and in the process of, making decisions. We do not seek such input because we are required by policy to do so; on the contrary, we do this because their input might likely be useful, and because we do not wish to marginalize anyone. If people stop caring, then they stop sharing, and shared governance ceases to exist.

Academic Freedom is likewise an ideal that must be closely guarded. Protecting the academic freedom of others means letting them speak when we think they should shut up. It means letting them teach when we think it will blow up in their faces. To have academic freedom means allowing others to do whatever decision we would like the liberty to make for ourselves.

Sharing our governance with one another and protecting one another's academic freedom are central concepts in the educational paradigm. These things distinguish us from corporations. They are what allow us to focus on education as our primary objective. But notice that we have turned the definitions around. Shared governance and academic freedom must not be things that we "take" for ourselves. If we hold such an attitude, then these things will escape us. We must always remember that shared governance and academic freedom are things that you must all give in order for any to have.

You Didn't Hear This From Me

"I heard it in the night Words the thoughtless speak (Like vultures swooping down below) On the Devil's Radio."

People in the engineering department are squabbling over office space.
The exchange professor from Bangla Desh is getting deported because he propositioned his students for sex.
Dr. Noah Boddy got a tattoo of President Killpatrick's face -- on his buttocks!

Some gossip is silly, but all of it is malevolent. It might seem well-intentioned to tell a few friends that Dr. No hates Dr. Yes, but then someone will say that Dr. Yes has a grudge against Dr. No -- and when word gets back to them, they both feel betrayed. Now they really do dislike one another, and it's your fault.

It is a nice thing to console a friend during a crisis, but it is not nice to stir up the whole department about it. Sometimes I wish that my own lips had come pre-buttoned from the lip factory!

I'm not sure about all of you, but I like everyone I work with -- even though we disagree sometimes. But if one of you sees one such disagreement and tells someone else, "Oh, Pascal really doesn't like Aloysius," then if that person or someone further down the gossip chain tells Aloysius, "Pascal is trying to get your tenure revoked," all that accomplishes is to place a fine friendship in a proverbial pickle.

These seeds of distrust are sown every day. No one wants to walk around campus feeling like everyone is whispering about their personal (and personnel) matters, but this is what we are doing to one another. This is the atmosphere of discontent that we are creating for one another,
and if we bite at and gnaw on one another, we need to beware or we will consume one another.

If we must talk about one another to others, let it be like this:
"I just heard that Richard is getting an award."
"Everyone says that Gretchen is a great friend."
"Bret really cares about student learning."
"Mike has done some really good things as a leader."
Aren't there at least a few stories that are truly worth telling? I believe there are. I think we have done some very good things in secret that could be told in public. Instead of telling stories that offend and harm, let's sell stories that construct and heal. What a fine place this would be if we all found nice things to say about one another.

A Typical Unbiased Faculty Survey

1. Why do you think administrators treat faculty unfairly?
2. Which of the college president's qualities or attributes most negatively impact his job performance?
3. Describe how overworked you are.
4. Describe how underpaid you are.
5. Which administrator is most directly responsible for all of the negativity on this campus?
6. Which administrators are not qualified to do their jobs?
7. Describe the impact of the top-down management style at this college.