Move ASA?

The other day, somebody started a petition to move the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association. The petition asks that ASA reconsider not only where the meetings are held, but when. Knowing basically nothing about conference scheduling, but assuming that many of the most well-known sociologists (with the resources to attend ASA no matter where it is) would not want to visit Kansas in August, it seems like the request regarding the timing of ASA is more likely to be considered by those who decide these sorts of things. Next year’s meeting in Chicago is scheduled for August 22-25, which seems fairly late. If nothing else, the ASA should make the timing of the conference a part of its consideration of various locations (for example, if Chicago is more expensive in early August than late August, maybe we shouldn’t go to Chicago).

With presidents who serve on a one-year basis, it may be hard for any suggestions to gain much traction within ASA, but I hope that the petition gets the attention of Ruth Milkman, ASA President-elect.

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“Non-Fiction”

In the tradition of Bill O’Reilly, the social scientist, I bring you the Non-Fiction section of a locally-owned bookstore I recently visited. I’m sure that businesses need to stock what they think will sell, but that top row is pretty sad.

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Define “paywall”

To most people, a website that lets you click on a link and then tells you that you need to subscribe to a pay service in order to access the link on which you just clicked would be using a paywall. Most people are apparently wrong. Thanks for clearing that up, Slate!

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