Podcasting in the Time of Corona
We’re 40+ days into social isolation here in the grand northern territory of Bemidji. Life continues unabated. There have been a mere handful of COVID-19 infections, everyone is supposed to wear masks, and online classes are expected to continue, making those 40+ days of isolation into 7 or 8 months without normal social interaction, friends coming to your office door to chat about something mundane, or the musings of students in out-of-date classrooms. All hail coronavirus for its may gifts of disruption and death (76,000 and counting in the U.S.). It is, of course, hard to look at the world around us under almost any circumstance. We’re witnessing in unexpected, undesirable, and exceptionally disturbing ways the influence the political system can have on our ability to live, whether in the literal sense of working for life or in the more fanciful manner of extracurricular whatsit that makes life enjoyable. Not in the sense of restricting movement, mind, but in its ability to deprive us of the resources for survival during a legitimate medical emergency and to use the political system to forcibly remove access of those resources, giving so many the choice between bankruptcy or the risk of death for themselves, loved ones, or strangers. As an academic, I’ve always had a keen sense of the impact of the political process on our lives, especially now. We have always faced what we will likely see in the near future: state budget cuts and other funding decreases that will see many of our friends and colleagues on the streets, salaries slashed, programs destroyed, etc. That awareness is clear in the halls of academia, in brief face-to-face meetings with your next door neighbor, in meetings, and at social gatherings. The political is inescapable there — as it is for many people outside of those privileged halls. And it is now clearer than ever as we read the news about our profession that the future we face is not the one we had hoped for.