Mojo Bison's Range

Fare The Well, 2011 (worth an entire read and play)

2011-12-31T13:13:00.000-06:00

2011 is slipping away, and I bid it farewell. The last twelve months and eleven days have been about partings in my family: first Dad, and then Mom. My brother and I are the adults in the room. Ours it is now to preserve the bits and pieces of multiple lifetimes for our own families. The winnowing will proceed for months. It is a long road.

But we do not travel it alone. Our families are close, and my own grew this year by a son. And that seems a good place to start.

I do not mourn overly. I have never been one for maudlin displays --and as a point of theology (which I will not expound upon here and now) I think it is counterproductive. My Uncle Albert buried his wife of fifty years and within a year was remarried to his soon-to-be-bride-of-twenty-five-more-years. Life moves on. Bad things happened to lots of people this year. The world has not made significant progress: springs have taken a fall, and change is what you find on the street. What occupies our attention fades and is replaced.

But move on. Unless the whole world moves backwards, you cannot advance by standing still.

I'm going out to buy fireworks now, and there will be loud noise and revelry tonight. Most of you know that this is actually my favorite holiday of the year, tied with July 4th.

And now, some lovely marching music to lead us into the New Year.

FYI: Joe and I were at this performance, as were Father and Mother.

Proßit Neu Jahr 2012!

In Hoc Anno Domini - WSJ.com (REPOST)

2011-12-23T19:26:00.001-06:00

In Hoc Anno Domini - WSJ.com: "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."

Written in 1949. Still good today.

A Tale of Two Students (and the perverse incentive to cheat)

2011-11-03T14:46:00.001-05:00

Consider two students, both of whom are enrolled in a college class.

Both students fall woefully behind in their course work, to the point where their ability to pass is in Serious Jeopardy. And the day is the date of Last Drop and they both need to turn in a major paper, which they've had no time to complete.

Student A makes the painful decision to W the class rather than take the GPA hit. The next semester, Student A must retake the course but does so completely out-of-pocket. For Student A's financial aid is cut because Student A is no longer considered a full-time student.

Student B, believing the professor to be a short-sighted incompetent boob, copies a paper off the Internet and turns it in. But alas for Student B! The plagiarism is caught, and is so blatant and egregious (after multiple litanies to the class about the very thing) that the instructor has no choice but to record a course grade of F and deny the student access to the course for the rest of the semester. The next semester, Student B will retake the course as well, but will be given financial aid to do so. For Student B maintains a full-time load and is considered a full-time student.

What's wrong with this picture? Student A is penalized for doing right, and Student B is being incentivized to cheat. Most student grants specify completion hours, and a grade of F indicates a completed course, regardless of circumstance. Some colleges (my own included do have a grade of FX, indicating a student who quit attending after the date of withdrawal and who will be denied financial aid in the future (obviously the student was trying to game the system...) But they are not the majority. And colleges have no incentive beyond their reputations to challenge the system, as government funding is based on completion rates.

If you incentivize a behavior, expect more of it. My students don't even bother to try to deny cheating any more, they just try to give justifications and then beg to be allowed to stay in class: I can't afford to drop the course. Sadly, I think I hurt them more by saving their GPA with a Withdrawn than by giving the used-to-be-shameful grade of F.

Technorati Tags: academia, education and pedagogy, unintended consequences

Darth Mojo Teaches The Great Depression

2011-10-11T12:45:00.001-05:00

So there I was today, lecturing over the causes of the Great Depression, when one of my more perceptive students had a Light Bulb Moment and began making comparisons to the economic crisis of 2007 and beyond. "Good, good..." I intoned. Class discussion became lively and animated at this point. Students began to make connections and I even was asked for an explanation of my approach; for what it's worth I am now publicly self-identified as an Austrian.

But it was after class that things got interesting. The same student who shared the epiphany with me asked me about why we don't hear about more comparisons to the 1930s and the causes of the Depression from historians. Then I got asked where to find more material along the lines I was presenting.

Instantly I responded, "Not from a Jedi..."

Technorati Tags: business, economy, Great Depression, history, Star Wars

Ten Years (minus one hour) Ago

2011-09-11T07:21:00.001-05:00

It was another day riding herd at my school (the one public school I actually enjoyed, even though i was teaching Geography and not History). A fight had broken out in the cafeteria that morning and the usual vibes of the chest-thumpers were still reverbing in the halls. My phone vibrated and it was a text from my brother: a plane has crashed into one of the World Trade Center Towers. My very first thought was that it was a rehash of the 1945 B-25 Incident at the Empire State Building. It was a strange and sad curiosity, but probably nothing more.

Then the word came about the second plane, and my next thought was of Osama bin Laden. Even back then, I had been worried that this random nut job would try to pull a stunt like this in retaliation for the failed Clinton cruise-missile strikes of 1999, which in turn was retaliation for the embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Well, he did it. And the rest of the day was spent dealing with the aftermath.

Parents ran to school to get their kids. Then kids began calling their parents to come and get them --it was a grand excuse for a holiday for many of them. Counselors emailed us with orders not to watch the news in class because it would upset the kids --and then to turn it back on so that the kids wouldn't be upset by not knowing what was going on. One kid was laughing about how many people got killed and if more planes would hit. I pointedly reminded him that he wouldn't be laughing if his own mother were in one of those buildings. And in the back of my head, i knew I'd have to spend the next several weeks talking about Afghanistan. And Islam. And yes, tolerance. Liberals' heads may explode about how our local state board of education has Rightened the curriculum, but they conveniently forget how Leftmatized it had been since the early 1990s, and it got worse in the immediate aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks. Tolerance, diversity and acceptance became the orders of the day after the initial burst of patriotism. The idea of fighting evil was discouraged. I did not blame any Muslim student for these attacks, for I knew better. But administrators everywhere gave instruction after instruction about sensitivity --as if a student might suddenly go jihadi and attack his classmates. Isn't that just as damaging, ultimately, as the assumption that all Muslims are terrorists? But questions that violate groupthink were not allowed.

I tried not to think of the families. It was simply too much. After Pearl Harbor, news of the ultimate death toll was censored for weeks, lest the full extent of the Japanese attack demoralize the war effort. We do not live in such an age now. The dead are used as agitprops by all and sundry. May they have peace instead.

Ten years later we are not done experiencing the reverberations of 9/11, nor will we be done in another ten, or even fifty. But for a brief moment, be silent. Be respectful. And remember that evil exists and it is for we the living to stand our ground and to see that it does not win.

And go love your loved ones.

Technorati Tags: history

The Spending Is Nuts

2011-08-01T20:45:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of the nice folks at Power Line, this video has just won their contest for best explaining the debt. Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: economy, history, humor, unintended consequences

How Being A Big Burly BRUTE Almost Landed Me In The Emergency Room

2011-07-27T22:30:00.001-05:00

So there I was at the gym today, doing Mucho Macho Mojo. For the uninitiated, this is my workout routine in the summer --heavy lifting three days a week, lighter lifting two days a week, and 45 minutes minimum of moderate-to-strenous cardio on each of those days (plus bike rides at home when the weather permits). It has been doing a decent job of enhancing my health and making me just brutally Hulk-like, but it does have its hazards. Over-confidence is one of them.

I was doing chest and upper back today. My first routine involved a Hammer wide-grip bench press machine. I work out alone, so plate-based free-form machines like those made by Hammer are ideal. I loaded four 45lb plates on each side, and then a 25lb plate on each side, and did my first set of eight. Wow! I am strong!!! Let's go for the gusto! I replaced the 25lb plates with 45lb plates, for a total of five 45lb plates on each side. Total combined weight: 450 lbs. And I did a set of six. HE-MAN! HE-MAN! I got so excited that I took a picture of the rack to prove it to Mrs. Mojo (who is skeptical that I do all these Manly Feats).

And then I did a third set. I did with gusto! I did it with speed! I did it with an abandonment of common sense and let the machine bounce at the end of rep #2, whereupon the outermost plate on the left-hand side slid off the machine and bounced on the gym floor inches from my foot. A plate that size really ought to have crushed most of my metatarsals from that height, but I was lucky. Only then did I turn to the nearest gym attendant and asked, "Well, a day late and a dollar short, but do we have any pins for these machines?" He shook his head no.

I think I may have to find another movement...

Technorati Tags: humor, The world is full of morons

Why Do Students Regard Reading as Torture? - Neil Tokar - Mises Daily

2011-07-26T09:15:00.001-05:00

Why Do Students Regard Reading as Torture? - Neil Tokar - Mises Daily: this is today's required reading, although most younger teachers would use "whole language" instead of "whole word." Pain is watching middle-school students reading aloud and completely screwing up words and never even realizing it.

This is pure money:

...[L]earning to read independently was supposed to be the first goal of primary education; hence, reading seemed to be the most natural place to start. When I was in grade one, I had a red phonics textbook and had lessons that taught sounds, for example, the "ch" sound accompanied by examples such as "child" or "church."

But the whole-word method taught students to guess at words, not to actually read them. This paralyzed the rest of their primary and secondary educations. Primary and secondary schools failed to build vocabulary and content-knowledge levels. Then, when high schools sent these graduates off to university, the recent graduates were unable to engage in critical thinking

Technorati Tags: education and pedagogy, The world is full of morons, unintended consequences

Famous Historian David McCullough Makes Me Feel Better About Myself As A Teacher

2011-06-18T20:34:00.001-05:00

The Weekend Interview With David McCullough: Don't Know Much About History - WSJ.com: this is worth an entire read, but there are some parts that I need everyone to read, now.

One problem is personnel. "People who come out of college with a degree in education and not a degree in a subject are severely handicapped in their capacity to teach effectively," Mr. McCullough argues. "Because they're often assigned to teach subjects about which they know little or nothing." The great teachers love what they're teaching, he says, and "you can't love something you don't know anymore than you can love someone you don't know."

Another problem is method. "History is often taught in categories—women's history, African American history, environmental history—so that many of the students have no sense of chronology. They have no idea what followed what."

What's more, many textbooks have become "so politically correct as to be comic. Very minor characters that are currently fashionable are given considerable space, whereas people of major consequence farther back"—such as, say, Thomas Edison—"are given very little space or none at all."

Mr. McCullough's eyebrows leap at his final point: "And they're so badly written. They're boring! Historians are never required to write for people other than historians." Yet he also adds quickly, "Most of them are doing excellent work. I draw on their excellent work. I admire some of them more than anybody I know. But, by and large, they haven't learned to write very well.

Are you listening, Mr. Big-Shot Professor Who Wrote My Textbook That No Student Really Likes?

Are you listening, Snotty Colleagues of Mine Who Insist On Doing Things "The Right Way?"

Technorati Tags: academia, education and pedagogy, history, News I Can Use, The world is full of morons, unintended consequences

The Evils of AP

2011-04-27T15:26:00.001-05:00

A lesson in Advanced mis-Placement - Boston.com: this is worth an entire read, but it's not new to me. I saw this over a decade ago where I used to work. We were told by admins (and it's always "told" and never actually put into writing --can't leave a nasty paper trail) to identify students for placement into AP classes. This was a terrible deal for me, because it meant that I lost my best and brightest students to a program that was generally taught by someone with less actual field knowledge than me. But worse than that, students didn't want to go to the AP class because --and here's the fun part --they knew that AP isn't always good prep for college! Yes, there are good AP instructors out there, but not nearly as many as AP instructors think. Some students deliberately avoided AP because it would ruin their GPAs. Even more twisted, the ones who were in the AP sections getting A's were scoring 2's and 3's on the actual AP when they bothered to take it --because their own AP instructors discouraged them from taking the exam on the grounds that "minorities never get a fair shake on the APs."

So why even bother? First, it's a boondoggle for AP instructors, who get to have comparatively well-behaved students for most of their sections. They get a stipend for their trouble. And they can lord it over their colleagues that they get to teach AP. Second, it's a boondoggle for admins that get to pad their campus stats sheet (except for that pesky pass/fail number). And did I forget to mention that campuses get stipends based on AP enrollment? That's the part that's going on in the article. Admins get the credit for spiking AP enrollment and increasing campus funds (which are almost never spent on AP students, natch), while AP instructors get the heat for not doing a good job with students who have no business being there in the first place.

Full disclosure: I was, at one time, certified to teach AP U.S. History. I also work for a college system that heavily emphasizes and benefits from dual-credit classes which compete with AP courses for enrollment. But many of the same complaints apply there as well. Commonality: you tell the admins that their campuses will get money for doing a certain thing, and everything else goes out the door. I've seen it too many times.

Technorati Tags: education and pedagogy

IP Abolitionism; or, JSTOR Can Go Take A Flying Leap

2011-04-14T08:47:00.000-05:00

The Four Historical Phases of IP Abolitionism: read all of it, but here's the gold:

"As Roderick Long notes in his 1995 article The Libertarian Case Against Intellectual Property Rights (one of the first sallies of Phase 4), 'Though never justified, copyright laws have probably not done too much damage to society so far. But in the Computer Age, they are now becoming increasingly costly shackles on human progress.'

"The digital information/Internet age made the problem of IP more obvious and serious, which led to our current modern resurgence of libertarian IP abolitionism, a position which seems to have grown and become dominant in the last 10 years, as [is argued] in The Death Throes of Pro-IP Libertarianism.

"The case against IP is today especially clear to Austrian-, anarchist-, and left-libertarians, and has intensified and grown significantly in recent years, and shows no sign of abating. The libertarian IP proponents are on the ropes and dwindling in numbers, or so it seems to me."

I have a beef with the JSTOR database administrators. My institution is a dues-paying participating member. Our students' IT feeds pay for their access to the system. I may research and download articles, as may my students. But Heaven forbid that I actually make one step easier for my students to (within a password-secure environment) access materials to which they already have paid access. So no HTML-converted PDFs for my students; they have to go through the permalinks and re-enter their passwords (again and again), which is a royal pain to my distance-ed students.

Oh well. The Internet is Carl Becker's revenge. Peer-reviewed journals are in ICU already. JSTOR can go take a flying leap.

Technorati Tags: academia, education and pedagogy, The world is full of morons

Facing the Inevitable

2011-04-04T18:06:00.001-05:00

The Internet has changed, and myself along with it.

This blog will remain active but most of my updates will be via my Twitter feed and/or my Facebook feed (NB Facebook account is by invite; sorry, current students may not access my Facebook feed).

Longer updates will, by necessity, be posted here.

Technorati Tags: News I Can Use

Grind Grind Grind

2011-03-28T14:22:00.001-05:00

The post-Spring-Break grind is upon me. While it's not so onerous now that I've moved from a four-exam to a three-exam semester format, it's still a grind in the sense that a) yes, I still have exams and what-not to grade, and b) student begin to pester me for extra credit. Why couldn't you care enough about your grades from the get-go to render this a moot point? But students will be students, after all.

There also myriad committee meetings, professional development meetings, reports, more reports, the transition to a new Moodle-based LMS from the old Blackboard Vista one --and no, we didn't have the funds to commit to an automatic conversion program, so everything must be (re)built from scratch.

And I am on full-time Baby Watch in case Junior decides he wants to come out to play prematurely.

What was it that Lloyd Bridges used to say? "Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue..."

Technorati Tags: academia

What We Learned While Goin' Fishin' on Saturday

2011-03-20T11:30:00.001-05:00

If in doubt about the cranking battery, get it tested at the nearest parts store before heading out on the water.

A change of dry clothes back at the truck (and a towel) is always a good idea (learned the hard way).

Seaweed in abundance is the sworn enemy of any impeller-powered rig.

65 degree water is still too cold for comfortable swimming, let along going under the boat to clear a clogged intake.

The third time the boat refuses to start in a reasonable time, when it does get started it is time to head for the ramp.

Any day you catch fish and get back to the ramp under your own power is A Good Day, no matter what else happens.

I Think Of My Old Journalism Profs And Pause...

2011-03-15T09:11:00.001-05:00

For first time, you online news consumers outnumber those newspaper readers: we all knew this day would come. Trees everywhere, rejoice!

Technorati Tags: history, media

Redux: How, Once Again, I Was Ahead Of The Curve And Am The Greatest!

2011-03-10T15:27:00.001-06:00

UPDATE: I wrote this back in May 2008, and it bears revisiting now.

RealClearPolitics - Articles - A Step Back From Enviro Lunacy: "$3 a gallon gas didn't change anybody's mind about energy issues. $4 a gallon gas did. " That was today.

Now, compare this with comments I myself made elsewhere over two months ago: "We are still in the relatively inelastic range of the demand curve. You get gasoline up to $4.25/gallon in Houston, or $5/gallon in Los Angeles, and I’ll posit that you’ll see the beginnings of serious declines in consumption." I was off by about 25¢, but I still claim it as me own.

Technorati Tags: economy, oil

Concealed Carry on my campus?

2011-03-09T14:32:00.001-06:00

My state legislature is currently debating allowing concealed-carry permit holders to carry firearms on campus. Naturally the natives are now Restless. "And can you do SOMEthing about our legislature forcing this down our throats?" sniffed one solon at the last Faculty Senate meeting to the incoming board chairman. Every other conversation in the office inevitably brings the issue up. I suspect a coordinated effort on the part of some SuperSekrit Wacko Faculty-List: Journolist for the community college set.

My colleagues seem to believe that the second this happens, students are going to start bringing Glocks and Colts to class with them and twirling them like six-shooters. I'm trying to figure out if their fear is motivated out of an instinctual (viz., left-wing) fear of guns as a symbol of Authority; or a reflexive spasm against anything coming out of our Republican legislature.

Puh-lease. If you're worried about a student shooting you, CCL holders are probably at the bottom of your list of potential suspects. Most students cannot afford the training. And the ones who are angry enough to actually gun you down, probably aren't going to worry about if they're going to be ticketed for lacking a permit. They'll either ignore the law (funny how gun laws seldom actually stop crimes...) or wait for you to be off-campus. Virginia Tech: that poor crazy so-and-so didn't care about a permit. Professor Crazy What's-her-face at Alabama-Huntsville: didn't have a permit, still came to the department meeting with heat.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but we have guns on campus already, the students are just being very cool and even (!) responsible about them. They're not the ones I worry about. The day some hothead gets angry enough to shoot up a campus near me, I hope someone is capable of stopping him quickly and forcefully, and more often than not such stoppage is going to involve superior firepower. This is reality, however distasteful and ugly it may be.

(Note: I would not oppose requiring those CCL holders who actively carry to register with campus security, should they chose to actively carry while on-campus.)

Technorati Tags: academia, News I Can Use, guns, The world is full of morons, unintended consequences

What If the Biggest Solar Storm on Record Happened Today? --Nat'l Geographic

2011-03-07T15:57:00.001-06:00

What If the Biggest Solar Storm on Record Happened Today?: this kind of thing I have noted before (as have others) and occasionally this keeps me up at night. My mania for gardening isn't just about playing with power tools....

Technorati Tags: News I Can Use, end of the world

A Disturbing --If Funny-- Conversation I Had With A Bold Student (Not One Of Mine)

2011-02-24T13:27:00.001-06:00

...so here I am in my so-called "office": a designated table out in the lobby of the satellite campus where I hold my Thursday classes. (Hey, I like it here, I can greet students by name as they come in, and it's something of a local tradition.) And I'm going about my business when I hear Bold Student (BS) talking to an associate thusly: "Man, that exam I just took was so hard, I had to get my mom to help me take iit." And I had to just stop and call BS out.

"Hey, are you serious?! You had to get your mom to help you take an exam?"[NB presumably a take-home]."

"Yeah, she's a[n expert in the subject area.]" [Job title withheld to preserve privacy.]

"Okay, fair enough, but she wasn't in class with you, she might not be familiar with the subject area."

"But she's an expert!"

"Even so, what're you gonna do if you fail the exam anyway? Yell at your mom???"

"Uhhh..."

"And for the love of Pete, why are you talking about this out loud in the lobby of the college where at least one professor is hanging out and can overhear your entire conversation!?"

BS had no response for that one.

Of course this conversation was troubling on several levels. But arguably the most disturbing part was the mother's willingness to help her daughter cheat.; What does that say about the woman's professional ethics? (Hint: her field would, in fact, be distressed to know of such a thing.)

Technorati Tags: academia, cheating, ethics, humor, The world is full of morons

REPOST: "Ahh, I see Professor Mojo has given his first exam of the term..."

2011-02-23T17:53:00.001-06:00

[SPRING 2011 UPDATE: Scores in the "Since 1877" class have been good so far. The change in format has only managed to shrink the standard deviation by a modest amount, and has probably benefitted some low-end students a bit in the process. Even so; I will be dealing with the inevitable students who are in Deep Trouble Over Things Which Have Incurred The Wrath Of Professor Mojo. As istradition, here is this post marking the occasion:]

"Ahh, I see Professor Mojo has given his first exam of the term: hisstudents look like they've been gut-shot."

I try to keep class upbeat, lively, and not boring--oxymoronic aims for a history lecture, one might say (and yes, there are days when even I get bored by the things I have to cover). But I never intentionally mislead my students. From Day One, I warn them that if they don't study for the exams --and especially if they blow off the essay questions -- they will fail. But there are a significant number who simply do not listen. And so every term, I get Exam One grades (out of 100) like 55. 38. 18.

Welcome to the world of Community College Education.

For what it's worth, I also tell the students that this happens to everyone, and that I will take significant improvement into account when final grades are calculated. My mission is to improve

these students, I don't get paid extra for failing them --that's how I justify it. Even so, I also know from past experience that only half of those students who bomb Exam One (bomb: = = anything less than a D/60) will even bother to finish the course, they'll head for the door at break and keep on going to the registrar to withdraw. It makes me sad.

But I can only do so much. I'm not legally allowed to use a war elephant (with howdah) to chase down those counselors who push students into classes for which they are absolutely unprepared; nor can I use Invoked Devastation on the schools which produce these students. I can only encourage and work with those who stick it out, and at least get them on the Path of Right Learning ("Read! Think!" "Write!").

The really sad part is that many of them will "shop around" for an "easier" prof next semester, and then end up failing again when they don't bother to study. This is college: I'm not doing any favors by reinforcing the bad habits they picked up in high school. And yes, I can throw stones at high schools, I used to teach high school, and I do know what it's like.

Technorati Tags: academia, education and pedagogy, News I Can Use

Wherein We Review The Concept of "Dawdlework"

2011-02-18T14:17:00.001-06:00

Moons and moons ago I believe I coined the term "dawdlework" to describe doing things that, while necessary, are insufficiently high on a current priorities list to justify the level of energy expenditure devoted to them. This is generally more constructive than mere procrastination, and allows for a positive defense when accused by family and loved ones of "not getting anything done."

I am confronted every spring with this, and this one is no exception. In preparation for the coming of Sturdy Baby, the Mrs. and I have been doing various projects around the house. We still have too much junk. But my priority revolves around thinning the amount of Stuff that we have, and putting away the Stuff that we do have in some semblance of order and aesthetic appeal. But Mrs. is focusing on the nursery. At this point our opinions diverge. I feel (quite strongly) that we need to focus on other areas first, since we have already done so much in the nursery already. Mrs., firmly in Nesting Mode, disagrees. She offers as a positive defense, "But we need to have the nursery ready well before the baby gets here!" And while she has a point, I can't help feeling that this may be a bit of a dodge to avoid doing things like sorting boxes for storage, thinning for another garage sale, and such.

Mind you, I have utterly no hope of winning this argument, logically or otherwise. I've been married long enough to appreciate this.

However, my crafty ("male!") mind has taken a different tack lately. The weather is growing warmer. There are many projects that need doing outside, especially in the vegetable beds. I can reasonably claim that if work is not done now, we will be in March and March is going to be busy, plus March is into growing season and many things need to be done prior to this time. Thus, I go skipping merrily outside to do Manly Things.

This, friends, is dawdlework.

One of the key secrets to a happy marriage is agreeing to only tackle one project at a time, and to have a defined time-limit to said project (four hours on Saturday morning seems to work well for everyone here). Another is agreeing beforehand to reward cooperation with incentives like footrubs. But it also doesn't hurt to make sure that "dawdlework" also includes something that will pleasantly surprise the other party. I'm working on that one...

Technorati Tags: humor, relationships

Very Sad II

2011-02-16T18:07:00.000-06:00

I have learned that another acquaintance of mine is going to be a Guest of the State of Texas. This person is a poker associate --and a bit of an ass, but I always gave him much more credit for brains than he showed.

He was a lawyer. He took a case for a client. While doing research on that case, he came across a different case still pending to which his client was a party. Without telling his client, he contacted the party in the second case and reached a settlement whereby the other party paid a generous settlement.

That was the part that eventually got him disbarred. What got him thrown into prison was the part about pocketing the settlement money. The state does not look kindly upon that sort of thing, especially coming from an officer of a court.

Ten to twenty. Tough luck, but arrogant hubris like that deserves a thunderbolt. And a flopped top set is still the favorite over an open-ended straight-flush draw, especially if one of the hole cards is of the appropriate suit.

Technorati Tags: The world is full of morons

So It Would Have Been Cheaper Just To Give Everyone Cash?

2011-02-09T16:02:00.001-06:00

Did the Stimulus Stimulate? — Mises Economics Blog: (quoting NBER Working Paper No. w16759)

A cross state analysis suggests that one additional job was created by each $170,000 in stimulus spending. Time series analysis at the state level suggests a smaller response with a per job cost of about $400,000. These results imply Keynesian multipliers between 0.5 and 1.0, somewhat lower than those assumed by the administration... Grants to states for education do not appear to have created any additional jobs. Support programs for low income households and infrastructure spending are found to be highly expansionary. Estimates excluding education spending suggest fiscal policy multipliers of about 2.0 with per job cost of under $100,000.

In other words, it would have been cheaper just to give everyone cash up-front, say $40,000/person/year, and let them spend it and thus produce a non-mythical Keynesian multiplier. DOH!!! (But as the Instapundit would say, "less opportunity for corruption.")

Technorati Tags: economy

The Star-Spangled Banner --All The Words

2011-02-07T13:55:00.001-06:00

UPDATE: okay, we can cut the lady some slack; here she is in Game 7 of the NBA Finals getting it right.

Just in case you've forgotten....

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?

And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,

Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,

What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,

As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,

In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:

'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore

That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,

A home and a country should leave us no more!

Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved home and the war's desolation!

Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

READ: Michael Totten » The Iranian Revolution Echoes in Egypt

2011-02-03T07:41:00.001-06:00

Michael Totten » The Iranian Revolution Echoes in Egypt: this is now Required Reading. The parts about Iranian middle-class modernization in the Sixties and Seventies are 100% what my Farsi-speaking poker buddies (who fled Iran after the Islamic Revolution) have been telling me.

Technorati Tags: history, Iran, Egypt

"And Why Is This MY Problem?"

2011-02-02T15:59:00.001-06:00

I got up to campus this afternoon and was greeted by my Esteemed Chair: "You have a student looking for you." After the shock wore off (no one EVER comes to visit me during regularly scheduled office hours!), I was briefed/warned about what to expect.

The student had been enrolled in my Christmas mini-term class. The student had never darkened the transom of my classroom, not one time. Consequently, I had dropped the student with a grade of "W." This was over Christmas. Now, almost two months later, the student has shown up with a giant sob story, about my having to change the W to an actual letter grade. It seems that the student's immigration status is now in question, and if I don't intervene promptly, s/he will be deported back to the Motherland to face All Sorts of Very Bad Things.

Of course, the prime reason the student didn't come to class (according to him/her) was that a full-time job prevented them for doing so.

Naturally, I have already composed my response to the student, thus: "And why is this MY problem? You could have shown your face several times in class and 'earned' an F, which (perversely enough) would not have negatively affected your visa status. You could have contacted me at any point prior to now and made your case, but evidently you were busy working --oh and never let's mind that as someone who holds a student visa, you have no business (legal or otherwise) working full-time. No no, you wait well after any and all deadlines have passed and try to lay some kind of guilt trip on ME, as though this were all MY fault?!?!? Get your [act] together and take it on the road, I'm not going to help you."

Brutally honest and cold? Yes. But it's not at all fair to the many international students who do work very hard to do everything properly, for me to help this ....person try to scam the system.

Technorati Tags: academia, immigration, The world is full of morons

Very Sad

2011-02-01T13:57:00.001-06:00

Today I learned that a former colleague of mine will be doing a minimum two years as a Guest of the State of Texas. He let the monkey climb on his back and wouldn't make him get down. At heart he is not a bad guy, but he made a very stupid choice: he got involved with crack. And crack is a Very Bad Thing. It will make you stupid, in ways that alcohol or tobacco or marijuana won't do. The man is sixty-five years old, looking probably at two-to-five, with no retirement savings for when he gets out (he got a lump-sum and it literally went up in smoke) and no employment prospects (convicted felon: no college will touch him).

I will pray for him, and maybe try to help out his wife a little. But I am very sad.

So You Want To Be A History Professor?

2011-01-24T15:30:00.000-06:00

(Courtesy of Cliopatria) This is entirely too true, and praise be that I do not follow these paradigms. (WARNING: some language NSFW)

Technorati Tags: academia, history, humor, News I Can Use, The world is full of morons

Urban Dictionary: Shatner commas

2011-01-14T14:09:00.001-06:00

Urban Dictionary: Shatner commas:

December 20, 2010 Urban Word of the Day

Oddly placed commas that don't seem to serve any actual purpose in punctuation, but make it look like you should take odd pauses, as William Shatner does when delivering lines.

This what Shatner commas look like:

When, we get to, the restaurant, we should, order some, tasty, beverages.

Technorati Tags: humor

Why Even "Extreme" Smack-Talk In Politics Is Okay, Despite Squeamish Objections

2011-01-11T14:29:00.001-06:00

The Volokh Conspiracy » The First Amendment and Speech That Allegedly Threatens Public Officials: read all of it; partial summary as follows:

The Supreme Court has made clear that threats — including threats against the life of the President — can only be punished if they are “true threats."

U.S. v. Watts (1969), held that the Constitution protects even the statement "If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J.," said at antiwar rally.

If the concern is not that the President will feel threatened, but that some readers might be moved by such statements to attack the President, the speech remains protected.

Technorati Tags: anti-war protests, history, Tea Party protests, U.S. Constitution

On The Other Hand

2011-01-07T07:30:00.001-06:00

Ph.D. Octopus: if this is what today's grad students in history are like, I should be glad I'm not among them. Insufferable dilettantes!

But how much harm can they really do? Nine-hundred-something history PhD's produced in the U.S. last year are competing (even now, at the AHA meeting) for fewer than five six hundred faculty spots. Hope all that debt was worth it, boys and girls!

Technorati Tags: academia

Big City Reforms: What Works And What Doesn't

2011-01-06T17:18:00.001-06:00

Restoring the Social Order by Heather Mac Donald, City Journal 6 January 2011. This part is money:

Liberal urban policy was based on several core assumptions. Number One: multigenerational poverty was the result of structural forces—above all, of rapacious capitalism and racism. It could never be the result of bad decision-making or a deficit of personal responsibility. Number Two: though men were still, alas, required for conceiving a child, they were purely optional for raising one. (Corollary: the role of illegitimacy in creating and perpetuating poverty could never be acknowledged.) Number Three: low-wage work was demeaning and pointless. It was better to receive a monthly welfare check than to labor at an entry-level job. Number Four: crime was an understandable and inevitable reaction to economic injustice and discrimination. (Corollary: the police could not lower crime; only government social programs and wealth-redistribution schemes could.) Together, these four conceits composed the most dangerous idea of all: that the bourgeois values of order, self-discipline, and respect for the law were decorative afterthoughts to prosperity, rather than its very precondition.

In a nutshell, the utter failure of the Great Society Mentality is in its (presumably) unintended consequences. I say "presumaby" because there is some conservative postulation that the entire Cloward-Piven strategy was to break the system in order to build support for an even more radical version.

Technorati Tags: history, unintended consequences

Fare Thee Well, 2010

2010-12-31T08:51:00.001-06:00

A "traditional" yet alternative arrangement of a traditional New Year's piece: Auld Lang Syne

2010: I cannot complain overly much about this year. I think we finally turned a financial corner here, and we grew tons of tomatoes. Both of us have jobs doing what we love to do. Our health remains decent (though like most people, we could stand to drop a little bit of backside...)

We had the usual complaints, of course: not enough fishing, not enough hunting, not enough time to get chores done, not enough sewing. And the ending of this year was certainly bittersweet. We will miss Dad terribly on New Year's Day, when we sit down to watch the Neujahrskonzert from Vienna. He loved the Redetsky March. On the other hand, we will bring in 2011 knowing that another Mojo will be with us, a little boy whom will surely drive us nuts but such is the cost of being parents.

Our country: hard to tell, the signs are mixed. But you don't need a PhD in history to understand this statement: if those in power do not recognize why things shook out the way they did, they are doomed to fail. That means you, Republicans! And you too, Democrats, if you're even bothering to listen...

Tonight I am being dragged down to the In-Laws for a while, but we will return to the house long before things get totally wild. I will likely stop and buy a big boomer from the fireworks stand and set it off around midnight. Tomorrow will be the traditional blackeyed peas and cabbage meal, along with the Neujahrskonzert on TV.

And here's once again to you, Dad!

Proßit Neujahr 2011!!!

(UPDATE: I found Barenboim conducting last year's Konzert and he's pretty awesome --though I do miss Maazel)

Technorati Tags: business, economy, Great Depression, News I Can Use, relationships

The "New Academic Freedom;" or, How I May Yet Hoist Some Folks By Their Own Petards

2010-12-30T12:17:00.001-06:00

NAS - The National Association of Scholars :: Articles and Archives Is Academic Freedom a License to Indoctrinate? Peter Wood: nevermind that I just lost whatever respect I had for the state of Pennsylvania, you should read this piece and consider the implcations. There's an upside to all this!

Either a) I can use this as inspiration to begin to completely trash the Marcuse/Zinn/Foner approach that so many of my colleagues use in the name of bringing Austro-Straussian wisdom to my students;

or

b) I should maintain a relative sense of balance in my class, which necessarily means including libertarian, paleo- and neo-conservative critiques of orthodox historiography and my colleagues can bloody well keep their yaps shut about it.

Win-win! Three cheers and a tiger for me!!!

Technorati Tags: academia, history, News I Can Use

REPOST: In Hoc Anno Domini - WSJ.com

2010-12-24T07:54:00.001-06:00

[NB this was one of Dad's favorites.]

In Hoc Anno Domini

So the light came into the world

When Saul of Tarsus set out on his journey to Damascus the whole of the known world lay in bondage. There was one state, and it was Rome. There was one master for it all, and he was Tiberius Caesar.

Everywhere there was civil order, for the arm of the Roman law was long. Everywhere there was stability, in government and in society, for the centurions saw that it was so.

But everywhere there was something else, too. There was oppression—for those who were not the friends of Tiberius Caesar. There was the tax gatherer to take the grain from the fields and the flax from the spindle to feed the legions or to fill the hungry treasury from which divine Caesar gave largess to the people. There was the impressor to find recruits for the circuses. There were executioners to quiet those whom the Emperor proscribed. What was a man for but to serve Caesar?

There was the persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the familiar visage. And most of all, there was everywhere a contempt for human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded world?

Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a man from Galilee saying, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's.

And the voice from Galilee, which would defy Caesar, offered a new Kingdom in which each man could walk upright and bow to none but his God. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. And he sent this gospel of the Kingdom of Man into the uttermost ends of the earth.

So the light came into the world and the men who lived in darkness were afraid, and they tried to lower a curtain so that man would still believe salvation lay with the leaders.

But it came to pass for a while in divers places that the truth did set man free, although the men of darkness were offended and they tried to put out the light. The voice said, Haste ye. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you, for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.

Along the road to Damascus the light shone brightly. But afterward Paul of Tarsus, too, was sore afraid. He feared that other Caesars, other prophets, might one day persuade men that man was nothing save a servant unto them, that men might yield up their birthright from God for pottage and walk no more in freedom.

Then might it come to pass that darkness would settle again over the lands and there would be a burning of books and men would think only of what they should eat and what they should wear, and would give heed only to new Caesars and to false prophets. Then might it come to pass that men would not look upward to see even a winter's star in the East, and once more, there would be no light at all in the darkness.

And so Paul, the apostle of the Son of Man, spoke to his brethren, the Galatians, the words he would have us remember afterward in each of the years of his Lord:

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

This editorial was written in 1949 by the late Vermont Royster and has been published annually since.

My Dad: Ave Atque Salve

2010-12-22T07:46:00.001-06:00

Today I bury my father. Okay, technically we entomb his body today, but if we're going to argue semantics today that might actually be appropriate given my father's love of such things, so I will indulge you...

A bit from his obituary:

Jerry was born in Beaumont’s Hotel Dieu to Jacob Carl White and Thenoba Gwendolyn Boyett White on May 8, 1931. He graduated from South Park High School, and was vice-president of the first full four-year class at Lamar College of Technology. He married the former Norma Ruth Plettman on September 8, 1963. He was President Emeritus of White Tire Supply, having worked there from the age of eleven. He served on the board of directors of the Texas Tire Dealers Association, the National Institute of Automotive Service Excellence, and the National Tire Dealers and Retreaders Association. He received numerous awards, including the very first Lifetime Achievement Award from the Texas Tire Dealers Association, and was just inducted into the Tire Industry Association’s Hall of Fame. He was an active member of the Beaumont Rotary Club, and a Sunday School teacher and elder at First Christian Church.Jerry loved learning. He always tinkering and asking questions, often to the confoundment of those he questioned. He had a passion for travel, and he and Norma were always looking forward to their next adventure.

I stand on the shoulders of a giant. In so many, many ways I am my father's son. I grieve that I cannot tell him to his face that the family name will carry on (yes, it's going to be a boy, we found out a day after he passed). I am at peace with it, though it will be hard to make Original Wee One understand where Granddad has gone.

Hail to you, Father. We will strike up the band close to noon.

Multiple Ironies!

2010-12-18T07:51:00.001-06:00

WikiLeaks: Cuba banned Sicko for depicting 'mythical' healthcare system. Most of us with more than half a brain cell realized that Sicko was a typical Michael Moore hatchet job from the get-go. I mean, honestly, when the best Cuban doctors are sent to Venezuela for oil, how good can it be at home? (No, really, how good can it be at home?)

But this is too rich! The Cuban government bans a film which is supposed to make itself look good, because it knows it's a farce and can't even risk showing it to its own people. How do we know this? Because of Wikileaks, the organization founded by that international playah-on-the-prowl, Julian Assange.

That would be the same Julian Assange whose recent bail was partly financed by... Michael Moore.

Technorati Tags: health care reform, Michael Moore, Cuba, The world is full of morons, unintended consequences, Venezuela, Wikileaks

O Come All Ye Faithful --by Twisted Sister

2010-12-17T08:19:00.000-06:00

--FYI Dee Snyder is a registered Republican and is on record as affirming That Cool Carpenter From Nazareth.

Technorati Tags: Christmas, humor

And On The Subject of School Reform...

2010-12-04T15:53:00.001-06:00

Technorati Tags: education and pedagogy, Harry Potter, humor

End of the Semester Funk

2010-12-04T12:56:00.001-06:00

This coming week marks the end of the semester. Strangely, this has left me in a funk. I think it's because of the increasing number of students whom I'm forced to fail because they try to cheat and then claim ignorance of the law. I think I'm going to push in the Faculty Senate that we do something further to crack down on this sort of thing. Meantime I'm bombarded with appeals to the better angel of my nature --and threats of appeals all the way to the college president.

Also, my father is in the hospital. Minor nasal surgery resulted in his throwing a blood clot which ended up in his heart. A mild heart attack ensued, but no tissue damage was evident in any scan. However, should the clot break free without being completely dissolved, lots of bad things are possible. So we are sweating that.

I think the real reason I'm in a funk is because I want to go do gardening work and I have no trailer to haul mighty loads of compost from the landfill. Here is a picture of my new toy, and damn it, I want to USE it!

I Imagine He Just Froze And The Rest Of The World Is Moving On

2010-11-29T07:58:00.001-06:00

Comedy Legend Leslie Nielsen Dies At 84: and with him a dear piece of my childhood. Airplane! is still one of the funniest movies ever made. And he was a WWII vet, serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

In pace requiescat.

Technorati Tags: humor

Losing The Argument Again, At Last

2010-11-24T08:04:00.001-06:00

This morning, Mrs. Mojo beamed as she showed me the dress that Nana bought the (no longer so) Wee One for the holidays. I sputtered, "Humbug! It's too early to deal with Christmas, go put that away!" And instantly I knew that was a mistake because I got The Look, but more to the point she responded, "Look at the calendar, it's thirty-one days to Christmas!"

Every year we have this spat, and every year I lose. To my mind Christmas should be a time of reflection, reverence and a bit of ribaldry. And stretching that out over umpteen days dilutes it. So I have made it a rule --"it is now a law of the Medes and the Persians and the Mojos" that we do not begin serious preparations for Christmas until three weeks out (discussions of logistics for major gifts and holiday dinners excepted).

Or so, at least, runs my official party line. However, Mrs. Mojo loves this season and takes it seriously. As the youth choir director at church, she begins preparations in mid-October(!). Being a prudent woman she does her shopping in early November. And as we approach Thanksgiving she begins tidying the house, not in preparation of company but in anticipation of putting up decorations. (NB one of the compromises that permits us to remain happily married is that I have zero role in holiday decorating other than erecting the tree itself [and the crêche, the years we have one].) And this rankles me, and so every year we have the argument about when the decorations actually go up and when we begin to play seasonal music (other than Christmas programs, which has already gone on for weeks).

And every year, right around this time, I lose the argument. LIke it's a ritual or something!

[Note: as Mrs. Mojo is growing increasingly expectante this time around, I have been promised that the actual amount of decoration this year will be limited. Mind you, I've heard that one before...]

Technorati Tags: humor, Christmas, relationships

Mind you, this is a bit late for my boat's fuel lines...

2010-11-22T16:37:00.001-06:00

Al Gore: I shouldn't have supported corn-based ethanol: I'm going to love reading history books fifty years from now when they call him for the utter fraud that he is.

Technorati Tags: Al Gore, climate change, history, oil, ethanol, puppy, puppy, revisionism

When I was in grad school, they told us NOT to torture undergrads

2010-11-15T08:43:00.001-06:00

The Cranky Professor: Our friend the brussel sprout . . .: wherein a well-meaning colleague feeds brussel sprouts to his students. Oh the horror!!!

(Pace Mrs. J, whose sprouts are the only ones I will willingly eat...)

Twenty Years Ago, People Made Fun Of Folks Like Me For This...

2010-11-13T13:14:00.000-06:00

From Harry to Harvard: Quidditch Takes Flight in the Muggle World -FoxNews.com: wherein we read of New England college students taking the Harry Potter intramural sport and turning into a RL pursuit. Yes, they must be on brooms, but capes are optional. Yes, there are quaffles and blodgers (semi-inflated volleyballs and dodgeballs, respectively). Yes, there is even a Golden Snitch (go read the article). And quite obviously 'yes,' the people in the stock photo are straight out of a Stuff White People Like casting call.

Twenty years ago, people made fun of guys like me who played D&D on the weekends, even though we did not dress up like wizards and warriors, let alone go running through the woods rolling dice (I'm looking at you now, Mrs. Professor Mojo!). Now your'e telling me that cool young collegiates are doing this because they think it's cool?!?!?

Anall Nathrach

Uthvas Bethuud

Dothiel Tienve.

Anall Nathrach

Uthvas Bethuud

Dothiel Tienve. >

ANALL NATHRACH

UTHVAS BETHUUD

DOTHIEL TINEVE!

Technorati Tags: Dungeons and Dragons, Harry Potter, history, humor, News I Can Use

A Fair Question Regarding Diversity

2010-11-13T10:31:00.000-06:00

Community College Spotlight | Ivy League admits few veterans: why is this, hmm?

The Devil’s Workshop Annual Most Highly Selective Survey of Undergraduate Veteran Enrollment

Princeton 0

Williams 0

Wellesley No reply

Brown No reply

Yale 2

Harvard 2

Amherst 3

Smith 3

Mount Holyoke 3

Dartmouth 12

Stanford 21

William & Mary 24

Bunker Hill Community College 367

I can think of a few reasons. Military vets tend not to think of themselves as Ivy material and so do not apply. The perception is out there that Ivies don't like vets. Ivy profs hate vets --they spoil the accepted narratives by providing primary source material that cannot be simply dismissed in-person as "war-mongering and biased" --except by a notable minority of tenured bloviates.

I am proud to teach a number of vets every year. It it a disservice to them to stereotype them in any way as to attitudes and abilities. And since I charge considerrably less for my services than my colleagues at the Ivies, I would suggest to vets that they look me up. I'm not that hard to find.

Technorati Tags: academia, education and pedagogy

There's An App For That???

2010-11-08T16:27:00.001-06:00

Mobile phone kits to diagnose STDs | Society | The Guardian: oh brave new world in which we live!

(I could make a comment about a particular ex-flame of mine who turned out to be Tetched In The Head, but I'll refrain.)

Technorati Tags: health care reform, There's an app for that!

A Sign Of The Times?

2010-10-28T20:13:00.001-05:00

We've just had Exam Two here in US History to 1877. And I'm seeing something that I have not seen hitherto.

My "traditional" essay prompt for this exam --which covers the time period from 1763 to 1814-- calls for students to "[d]escribe the differences between the Jeffersonian Republicans and the Federalists" and to "compare those differences to those that exist between today's Republicans and Democrats." At first blush this should not be a terribly challenging topic, but then again many of my students a) don't study, b) don't pay attention in class and c) don't bother keeping up with the news. Actually, most of them do a passable job with the first part of the question, but not the second --at least until this time around.

Now I am no fool. I realize that like most young Americans, my students overwhelmingly supported the election of B. Obama to the Presidency. And in past semesters, their essays have reflected the mindset of Democratic-leaning supporters, e.g., "today's Republicans are the party of the wealthy elite, just as the Federalists were," and "Jeffersonian Republicans were the party of the 'little guy' like today's Democrats."

Not. This. Time.

I was genuinely shocked to see students talking about "today's Democrats are all about the expanding of power like in health-care reform, while today's Republicans are like yesterday's Republicans in wanting limited government." I've always had one or two Tea Party types among my population, so I have seen this line used before. But the sheer number of essays written by my students --who have to get through an Eric Foner textbook as their main reader!-- that reflect *gasp* skeptical cynicism is enough to make me blink.

It gets better. I'm also seeing essays along the lines of "today's Republicans are strict constructionists, while today's Democrats are firm believers in implied powers" --and I never used to get more than one or two like that a semester! My students are suddenly taking a deeper interest in the Constitution. Why is this??? [NB we do read the entire thing line-by-line in class.]

Now some of you may be a bit "oh they're just mirroring you, Mojo, you big honking fascist!" [I am not a fascist.] Well, I haven't been particularly strident this semester, and I do make an effort to play up the logic and benefits of a loose constructionist position in the name of balance --in short, I haven't changed what I do. It's the students who are changing what they're saying.

And given the demographics that I reach, that's a huge warning sign to those in power at the moment. If you're losing MY students, in the long run you are toast.

Technorati Tags: academia, elections, history, Tea Party protests, U.S. Constitution, unintended consequences

Why You Should Be Careful If Voting Straight-Party Tickets

2010-10-27T16:05:00.001-05:00

UPDATE: BEFORE YOU VOTE, PUT THIS APP ON YOUR PHONE! The Voter Fraud Mobile app for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad: you may not have to use it, but you'll be glad if you do.

In North Carolina as well as in Nevada, voters trying to vote straight-party tickets on machines have reported problems with the ballots being "defaulted" to some previously-set parameter --in other words, the ballots were pre-set to vote for "the other guy."

I have already voted and I noticed no such irregularity on my ballot. But be aware that This Sort Of Thing can (and does) happen. Be diligent when casting your vote: make sure your final ballot is the one you selected. Remember that in many states (including mine), going down-ticket to vote in races where your party runs no candidate will invalidate your straight-party vote at the top of the ballot.

Of course, the simplest and best (if not shortest) solution is not to vote the straight-party option at the top of your ballot, but to vote separately in each individual race.

But whatever else you do, do go vote. Display Your Civitas!

Technorati Tags: elections, News I Can Use

Iraq did have chemical WMD, WikiLeaks documents reveal - NYPOST.com

2010-10-27T09:13:00.001-05:00

Iraq did have chemical WMD, WikiLeaks documents reveal - NYPOST.com: not the first time this sort of thing has been reported, but that's not why we should care. First, it should finally put a rest to "Bush lied, people died." (But I doubt it...) Second, it has long been speculated that Iraq did have much more in the way of WMD but managed to secrete them elsewhere in the run-up to the invasion. This is not proof of that, but it it does cast doubt on the counter-claim that there were no WMD in the first place.

Technorati Tags: anti-Bush, anti-war protests, Iraq War, revisionism

THIS MUST BE DEEP-FRIED!!!

2010-10-18T13:15:00.001-05:00

This would never get a second look at the State Fair of Texas unless it were first deep-fried:

The Faculty Lounge: Another Sign That the American Empire Is In Its "Decadent Decline" Phase:

I'm having a calorie coma-by-proxie....

Technorati Tags: News I Can Use, puppy

Say What?: Post-Rapture Pet Care

2010-10-07T07:43:00.001-05:00

Hire an Atheist to Watch Your Pet After the Rapture:

(not original to, but brought to my attention by The Volokh Conspiracy)

You’ve committed your life to Jesus. You know you’re saved. But when the Rapture comes what’s to become of your loving pets who are left behind? Eternal Earth-Bound Pets takes that burden off your mind.

We are a group of dedicated animal lovers, and atheists. Each Eternal Earth-Bound Pet representative is a confirmed atheist, and as such will still be here on Earth after you’ve received your reward. Our network of animal activists are committed to step in when you step up to Jesus.

We are currently active in 24 states. Our representatives have been screened to ensure that they are atheists, animal lovers, are moral / ethical with no criminal background, have the ability and desire to rescue your pet and the means to retrieve them and ensure their care for your pet’s natural life....

For $110.00 we will guarantee that should the Rapture occur within ten (10) years of receipt of payment, one pet per residence will be saved [I take it that’s not in the theological sense of “saved” –EV]....

Okay, to me this has SCAM written all over it, beyond any tongue-in-cheek interpretations. Presumably, this is a safe gamble for anyone involved on the Earth-Bound end. If no Thessalonian-style Rapture occurs, the money stays there --unless it's like an insurance policy where you can cash it in upon maturity, in which case it's at best a poor investment on your money and EEBP still gets to keep the interest, so again, a scam.

On the other hand, if the saved are all called up at once, who will be around that has standing to file suit for breach-of-contract should said services not be provided, either by malice or by force majeure ("And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth...")

Technorati Tags: humor, Eschaton

Education Professors vs. Education (from (Accuracy in Academia)

2010-10-04T12:56:00.001-05:00

Education Professors vs. Education: (read and follow links)

A recent study by Steve Farkas and Ann Duffett should strike fear into the parents of students across America.

This new study, entitled “Cracks in the Ivory Tower?: The Views of Education Professors Circa 2010,” takes an in-depth look at how today’s education professors view their role in society and in preparing the future teachers of our nation’s children. The results are distressing. Observe this nugget from the study’s key findings:

Asked to choose between two competing philosophies of the role of teacher educator, 68 percent believe preparing students “to be change agents who will reshape education by bringing new ideas and approaches to the public schools” is most important; just 26 percent advocate preparing students “to work effectively within the realities of today’s public schools.”

We've been trying "new" approaches since Dewey infamously led pedagogues astray in the early 20th century. We haven't ever recovered.

...

Meanwhile, the study points out that “Just 37 percent say it is ‘absolutely essential’ to focus on developing ‘teachers who maintain discipline and order in the classroom.’” This is despite the fact that discipline in the classroom and student management is, as Jay Mathews at the Washington Post calls it, “the hottest topic among young teachers.”

Tell it on the mountain!!!

A MIRACLE!!!

2010-10-04T12:49:00.001-05:00

Over the weekend we thought that Mrs. Professor Mojo had suffered a miscarriage. The last 48 hours have been hell.

But when we went into today for what was supposed to be a post-mortem ultrasound (to see if D and C was necessary), we were (to quote Chesterton) surprised by joy: the baby was still inside and waving at us!!!

Evidently, the Mrs. had some sort of blood clot that passed, but otherwise left the baby intact.

We intend to spend the rest of today laughing and rejoicing and generally being much-relieved and muchly-thankful.

Technorati Tags: News I Can Use

What Conservatism Means, a la Wm. F. Buckley

2010-09-29T16:26:00.001-05:00

The American Spectator : Knight Errant With a Clipboard:

"[It is] a position that has not grown old under the weight of a gigantic, parasitic bureaucracy, a position untempered by the doctoral dissertations of a generation of PhDs in social architecture, unattenuated by a thousand vulgar promises to a thousand different pressure groups, uncorroded by a cynical contempt for human freedom. And that, ladies and gentlemen, leaves us just about the hottest thing in town."

Technorati Tags: history

REPOST: "Ahh, I see Professor Mojo has given his first exam of the term..."

2010-09-28T19:16:00.001-05:00

[FALL 2010 UPDATE: First Exam Weekend has come and gone in these parts. Oog... This was not a Happy Fun Time for a lot of my students. Scores were down across the board. Of course, the ones who failed almost all failed to do the main essay. Sadder but wiser... At least I didn't bust anyone for plagiarism, I think I got that point across loud and clear. Yet now I will be dealing with the inevitable ones who didn't listen to instructions, and who are in Deep Trouble over Things Which Have Incurred The Wrath of Professor Mojo. As is tradition, here is this post marking the occasion:]

"Ahh, I see Professor Mojo has given his first exam of the term: his students look like they've been gut-shot."

I try to keep class upbeat, lively, and not boring --oxymoronic aims for a history lecture, one might say (and yes, there are days when even I get bored by the things I have to cover). But I never intentionally mislead my students. From Day One, I warn them that if they don't study for the exams --and especially if they blow off the essay questions -- they will fail. But there are a significant number who simply do not listen.

And so every term, I get Exam One grades (out of 100) like 55. 38. 18. Welcome to the world of Community College Education.

For what it's worth, I also tell the students that this happens to everyone, and that I will take significant improvement into account when final grades are calculated. My mission is to improve these students, I don't get paid extra for failing them --that's how I justify it. Even so, I also know from past experience that only half of those students who bomb Exam One (bomb: = = anything less than a D/60) will even bother to finish the course, they'll head for the door at break and keep on going to the registrar to withdraw. It makes me sad.

But I can only do so much. I'm not legally allowed to use a war elephant (with howdah) to chase down those counselors who push students into classes for which they are absolutely unprepared; nor can I use Invoked Devastation on the schools which produce these students. I can only encourage and work with those who stick it out, and at least get them on the Path of Right Learning ("Study! Read! Think!").

The really sad part is that many of them will "shop around" for an "easier" prof next semester, and then end up failing again when they don't bother to study. This is college: I'm not doing any favors by reinforcing the bad habits they picked up in high school. And yes, I can throw stones at high schools, I used to teach high school, and I do know what it's like.

Technorati Tags: academia, education and pedagogy, News I Can Use

CARPE DIEM: U.S. Poverty Rate: 1959 to 2009 --plus discussion questions!

2010-09-21T13:53:00.001-05:00

CARPE DIEM: U.S. Poverty Rate: 1959 to 2009:

"So, the Great Society programs began around 1965, students. What effect did they have on the poverty rate?"

"Examine the periods when poverty rates were in decline. What correlation was there to the price of oil?"

"Compare this graph with the graphs on government spending (absolute, inflation-adjusted, and as % GNP/GDP. What correlations do you find?"

Technorati Tags: bailout, history, oil

And While You're At It, Harrisburg...

2010-09-17T10:52:00.001-05:00

Teachable Moments from Facebook :: Accuracy In Academia: but the Internet per se will still be operative. And so will the phone lines and cell phone access. As will public transportation, which can quickly and easily move people to pretty much anywhere else where Luddites aren't running the show, such as the local Starbucks.

Technorati Tags: media, The world is full of morons, unintended consequences

Happy Constitution Day! --and a warning

2010-09-17T10:38:00.001-05:00

Today marks the anniversary of the formal signing of the U.S. Constitution. As my classes do read the document line-by-line later in the semester (and since I don't have lecture today), we are not part of any formal observance. But I do bring it to everyone's attention, and remind them that to understand everything else that goes on, you need to know the framework on which everything hangs.

Go read it.

But a warning: you may not like everything you see. You may conclude that some parts are just plain stupid. You may think that the government has gone far beyond anything the Philly Fathers envisioned. And you may be right.

I keep a copy of Herbert Storing's What the Anti-Federalists Were For handy. You may want to sit down and read it sometime after you've read the Constitution and the Federalist Papers. Those Anti's weren't all paranoid loonies, and many of their most important objections could be literally inserted into today's write-ups of Tea Party quotes.

Technorati Tags: Tea Party protests, U.S. Constitution

I Never Could Get My Mustache As Dapper As His...

2010-09-14T13:33:00.000-05:00

Big Hollywood » Blog Archive » Veteran Character Actor Harold Gould Dead at 86: I loved him in The Sting.

Someone Alert My Mother

2010-09-06T21:08:00.001-05:00

Study Shows Coffee Drinkers Could Have Lower Blood Pressure: this would explain much.

Technorati Tags: News I Can Use

HEE HEE HEE!!!

2010-09-01T09:10:00.001-05:00

Chicago Boyz » Blog Archive » Occupied North Texas:

Technorati Tags: humor

American Thinker: Iraq: The War That Broke Us -- Not

2010-08-23T16:05:00.000-05:00

American Thinker: Iraq: The War That Broke Us -- Not:

Read all of it. You'll see this graph there as well. Burn it into your mind. When government spending increased, Very Bad Things Happened. Keynesian multiplier, my hairy backside!

Technorati Tags: anti-Bush, anti-war protests, George W. Bush, revisionism

If George Lucas Had Lived In The Twenties

2010-08-21T07:22:00.001-05:00

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

by way of
The Jawa Report: Star Wars Silent Film:

Technorati Tags: humor, Star Wars

Left, Right, But Especially The Left

2010-08-18T11:20:00.001-05:00

Marxism vs. the Majority - Ludwig von Mises - Mises Daily:

Class consciousness, says Marx, produces class ideologies. The class ideology provides the class with an interpretation of reality and at the same time teaches the members how to act in order to benefit their class... Of course, not every class comrade is an author and publishes what he has thought. But all writers belonging to the class conceive the same ideas and all other members of the class approve of them. There is no room left in Marxism for the assumption that the various members of the same class could seriously disagree in ideology. There exists for all members of the class only one ideology... If a man expresses opinions at variance with the ideology of a definite class, that is because he does not belong to the class concerned. There is no need to refute his ideas by discursive reasoning. It is enough to unmask his background and class affiliation. This settles the matter. But if a man whose proletarian background and membership in the workers' class cannot be contested diverges from the correct Marxian creed, he is a traitor. It is impossible to assume that he could be sincere in his rejection of Marxism. As a proletarian he must necessarily think like a proletarian. An inner voice tells him in an unmistakable way what the correct proletarian ideology is. He is dishonest in overriding this voice and publicly professing unorthodox opinions. He is a rogue, a Judas, a snake in the grass. In fighting such a betrayer all means are permissible.

And this explains academia in a nutshell. It's more than Kissinger's famous adage about the stakes being so vicious precisely because they are so small. In the minds of academics, to deviate is to be a class traitor. Ostracize! Ostracize!

Technorati Tags: academia

Or, It Could Just Be A Case Of "Taking Care Of Your Own"

2010-08-18T11:09:00.000-05:00

Student Loan Bubble :: Accuracy In Academia:

"In tarnishing for-profit schools with a broad brush, the implication is that the noose of federal regulation needs to be tightened on the entire for-profit sector.To Ferguson, this is part of an entirely predictable process. It begins when the Obama administration takes an interest in a particular industry: “If the administration gets its way and the regulatory regime continues to tighten, the for-profit education industry won’t cease to exist. More likely, it will regress into a form of state capitalism, as kind of a government utility: utterly dependent on government subsidy, hence utterly submissive to government authority, which can set prices and profit margins. The health care industry, with the passage of health care reform, is halfway there already.”

Interesting point. But to my mind, there's another factor or two at work here. For-profit colleges tend to be oriented to business or technical degrees. The clientele they attract tend to be more conservative than the norm. Certainly the faculty tend that way. Together they represent a huge potential challenge to the overwhelmingly non-conservative professoriate at bloated non-profit institutions. Stifle the competition while you can! Or better, co-opt them into being another arm of the octopus/leviathan. You can bet Harkin et al. wouldn't be so strident if for-profit faculty were all good members of the AAUP.

Technorati Tags: academia, for-profit colleges, Higher Education Bubble

And On My Very Own Birthday, Another Reminder Of "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi"

2010-08-17T08:44:00.001-05:00

Beloit College Mindset List for the matriculating Class of 2013.

***

Last week was a Hell Week. I will not be going into it. But today is my birthday!

Technorati Tags: history, humor, News I Can Use

Good News For Me, Not Necessarily For Thee

2010-08-05T08:36:00.001-05:00

By way of Instapundit » Blog Archive » HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE NOISES?, one of Prof. Reynold's readers remarks:

Just having “go to a good college” as a goal isn’t cutting it anymore. Except for the very wealthy, folks just don’t have the money and spending 100K+ for a four-year “experience” isn’t going to cut it...
A lot of students/parents are now looking at getting core classes done at the relatively inexpensive local college and then transferring to a school where one can do the remaining work towards a very specific goal.

Yay! Demand for my services will increase! (At least until the gummint is finally forced to either quit giving out money for higher ed, thus ending the air stream inflating up the bubble; or else advise that student loans will be deducted directly via payroll deduction from future paychecks, which will scare the holy hell out of every one and ending demand.)

Technorati Tags: academia, education and pedagogy, News I Can Use, unintended consequences

I've Never Had Much Use For Howard Zinn.

2010-08-02T09:29:00.001-05:00

I mean, even back in Big Midwestern Elite Liberal Arts Grad School, the lefty profs would warn us about the dangers of relying on Howard Zinn. It's simply not good history that he's writing, I was warned.

So go read this: The File on Howard Zinn :: Accuracy In Academia and follow the link to the FBI files and judge ye. As I have noted previously, the big meme in 22nd century historiography will be how corrupted American historians were in the 20th and early 21st centuries.

Technorati Tags: academia, Cold War, history, News I Can Use, revisionism, Soviet Union

The Broken Window Fallacy (via the Mises Institute)

2010-07-30T22:16:00.000-05:00

Absolutely AWESOME, courtesy of the Mises Institute.

Technorati Tags: bailout, business, economy, history, unintended consequences

Quiet Is Not The Same As Inactive

2010-07-17T09:54:00.001-05:00

I tell my students that the prime reason to get a college degree is to be able to land a job where you can work in A/C during the summer months. I was brought up not to be afraid of hard work --I just became averse to sweating on anything other than my own terms.

I am teaching what amounts to beyond-a-full load: six classes. That's a lot for a regular term, so you can imagine how draining it is for the summer, which is compressed into two five-week terms. June and early July saw me teaching non-stop from 8 to 3:30, with no prep period and very little lunch time (plus it was more draining than high school, since there was no time for group work, worksheets, grading, etc. to break the routine). I have it "easier" this part of summer, I don't have to start until 10:30. And don't forget, that does not include time at home on the laptop, doing prep and grading things.

But the money is good, and damn if I don't actually enjoy doing what I do. Little time for blogging, and for that I express my regrets.

Technorati Tags: academia

If Not The Nation, Then The Idea

2010-07-04T09:44:00.001-05:00

It's obvious, isn't it? No one "automatically" deserves special treatment. Everyone can live, be free and do what they need to do --and no one can take that away. The whole reason government exists is to make sure of that. And if it can't --or won't-- then it should be changed so that it will, or else eliminated. (Me, in class, just the other day)

It has long been fashionable to criticize --from the Left and from the Right--the nation known as the United States I mean, look at every bad thing under the sun --racism, sexism, statism, classism, corporatism --and inevitably we can say, "it's America's fault!" And I myself am not entirely convinced still that we're ever going to get it completely right.

But the very second we throw out the inspiration --in that instant that we forget those immortal words, we are no longer men. We are the servants of whomever takes command, be they lefties or righties. And our children, too, for ever and ever, and they will damn us for it.

No, the United States hasn't always been great. But the idea behind it is ultimately more powerful than anything else yet mortal man has created. Make very loud noise tonight with pyrotechnics. Give thanks and rejoice. Share the blessings of liberty with your family and friends. And let no one deny the power of these words, the translation into 21st-Century-Studentese I gave above:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Technorati Tags: history

When Next You Obsess About American Obesity, Consider This As One Explanation

2010-07-03T11:20:00.001-05:00

CARPE DIEM: As Share of Income, Americans Have the Cheapest Food in History and Cheapest Food on the Planet: and especially consider the point made about wholesale milk prices. Think of how much cheaper still milk would be if we eliminated dairy subsidies! Choke on that, "oh, big agribusiness is horrible for everyone" folks!

[Yes, we can quibble about hormonal additives and genetic engineering of the American diet, very true. But the infrastructure is nonetheless in place: we could be super-groovy-healthy in a matter of years without significant food price increases --thanks to agribusiness]

Technorati Tags: business, history, puppy

This Is EXACTLY What I'm Trying To Warn Everyone About!

2010-06-30T07:55:00.001-05:00

FuturePundit: Climate Engineering With White Clouds: which talks about how relatively easy it would be to perform "emergency" climate alteration.

I've warned folks about this before, but I'll say it again: the hysteria needs to end, before someone is convinced that The End Is Nigh and takes drastic action that will cause The End.

Technorati Tags: climate change, unintended consequences

Cutting The Grass Being Smoked On Comedy Central

2010-06-30T07:50:00.001-05:00

Famously, Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert is challenging Americans to jobs that Americans won't do. How frightfully clever! And yet I'm not entirely happy with the response here, in Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert Challenges Americans to Do Jobs Illegals Won’t. Free market capitalism does provide a long-term solution to the lettuce-versus-jobs debate, but it is somewhat incomplete. I would offer a few observations of my own:

Construction jobs in the Southwest that pay upwards of $20/hour are dominated by Hispanic workers, a good many of whom are undocumented. This is not because Americans won't do those jobs. It's because construction unions priced Americans out of those jobs long ago. Union scale today would be closer to $25 an hour by my estimates.

But it's irrelevant now. You can't get a job in construction now without being highly fluent in Spanish, which most Americans are not --and the ones who are can't be bothered with taking a blue-collar job. As I've always said, the people who are least nervous about immigration are the ones whose jobs are not at risk.

I'm tired of "undocumented immigrant" --it implies a level of legality that simply is not there. But I also don't want the stink of being labeled a hater for using "illegal alien." I will now use "unauthorized worker" and have no qualms about it.

I mow my own damn lawn.

Technorati Tags: economy, immigration, unintended consequences

Hot 'Nuff For Ya?

2010-06-20T13:09:00.001-05:00

Okay, now this is the part I dislike about living where I live, region-wise: unless you have immediate access to a swimming pool, there is no realistic outdoor activity that you can do with small children between 10AM and 6PM around this time of year. It is simply Too Hot. We went to SETTFest 2010 yesterday and Wee One could not play on the playground because the equipment was too hot to safely touch. Even in the shade it was stifling. So we had to leave earlier than I wanted. I think next year we'll go early in the morning so that she can have playtime while we're out there.

I have a ton of mowing to do today. That will probably happen sometime after 6PM. I'm not risking heat stroke over tall grass. Why is there never a wandering yard crew when you need one?!

Meanwhile, grading exams is always a good A/C'd activity. First exam of summer term is behind us now. The gutshot students will probably tuck tail and run. I warn them and warn them about how summer courses are an unholy trap if you are trying to work 40-hour weeks and/or dealing with small children, but a combination of self-delusion and financial-aid greed always seems to keep them around until they realize that they have no hope of passing --oh and by the way, it's too late to get more than 25% of your money back from dropping. They're adults, though, and those who do not learn must feel...

Counterintuitive But Somehow Not Surprising

2010-06-04T14:08:00.001-05:00

Keynesianism Questioned by Harvard Researchers : "Contrary to the Keynesian theory that government spending can spark economic growth in times of recession, a new study demonstrates that pork, at least, may damage corporations within the states that receive these federal dollars."

Technorati Tags: bailout, economy, history, unintended consequences

Better To Remain Silent And Appear Foolish...

2010-06-02T10:32:00.001-05:00

...than to open it and remove all doubt.

Remember: most perps are stupid and/or egotistical, and cannot help opening their yaps under questioning, even after being told their rights. But police have been hampered by Supreme Court doctrine that self-incrimination was a sacred cow. Not quite so much now.

Berghuis v. Thomkins was handed down yesterday by the Supreme Court, in a serious revision of the Miranda Rights that we all know by heart. I was always of the opinion that Miranda went too far (thank you, Warren Court!) and this is a good move back towards center. Short version: you can still remain silent, you still never have to answer any questions unless you want to, but the cops can still ask you the questions unless you clearly tell them, "No, I want counsel present before answering any questions."

For more, see Power Line - Miranda pruned.

Technorati Tags: history

Where's My Boat?

2010-05-27T12:52:00.000-05:00

Several weeks ago I booked a cabin on a lake in Central Texas so that I could spend Memorial Day Weekend being thrown from the towable while my wife drove the boat. That is now in question. My boat is still in the shop. And this is chafing my Important Parts.

I appreciate that a boat can be like a hole in the water into which you throw money. I accepted that when I bought it ten years ago this summer. I certainly know that Very Bad Things Can Happen, including blown cases and cracked hulls (yes to the former, no to the latter). But when a routine maintenance job goes over two weeks, I get steamed.

I took my boat in for its yearly checkup over two weeks ago. I specifically told my guy, "I need the boat ready for Memorial Day Weekend. I need you to call me if Something Expensive is about to happen. "
"Yes, Teacher [that's what he calls me], I can do it!"

Called last week for an update:
"We just started on it, should be ready soon."

Called two days ago: "We're just about done overhauling the carbs and are going to put in the new theromostats."
"What???"

Okay, they were both needed. But a bit of heads-up would've been nice. And certainly overhauling the carbs could've waited until AFTER the holiday --I can deal with a poor gas-usage situation for a bit longer. Now I'm facing a long weekend at a lake cabin without a boat.

I Am Unhappy.

Technorati Tags: boating

I Recall My Legendary July 4th Fireworks Extravaganzas *

2010-05-25T07:32:00.001-05:00

A Brief History of Nakedness by Philip Carr-Gomm is reviewed by the Times of London.

(*and Post-Midnight Nude Bathing Excursions --true stories, they were once something of a sordidly grand [or grandly sordid] tradition I inaugurated back in the Nineties in my circle. Hazards included mosquitoes, bottle rockets and ranging cattle.)

Technorati Tags: humor, News I Can Use

Guess What's In This Box?

2010-05-20T11:06:00.001-05:00

Hint: what day is today?

Technorati Tags: humor

One Book to Explain Yourself: What Would It Be?

2010-05-15T11:20:00.001-05:00

Omnivoracious: One Book to Explain Yourself: What Would It Be?:

Animal Farm by George Orwell. I'm Benjamin.

Technorati Tags: history, News I Can Use

On The Corruption Of Academia

2010-05-13T09:01:00.000-05:00

As my granddaddy once told me, "You dance to whatever tune that makes the cash register bell ring." Too true, even in my world.

Not that I'm a huge fan of The Nation (I gave a subscription one year to a friend as a joke), but even a broken clock is right twice a day, and this piece - Big Tobacco and the Historians - really hits hard. We academics like to think of ourselves as being "above" and "superior" to That Sort Of Thing. Buelle Chitte. Research grants are the mother's milk of academics. I can remember one of my seminar being taken out for beer by a very senior member of faculty, who proudly stated that at least part of this was being paid for by his new grant. (Not that unusual, but he made me present the final paper of the semester after I'd had about half a pitcher. Tricky b*st@rd! I showed him, though, and he admitted it to me later...) You show me an academic without a grant, I'll show you an adjunct (or someone with more years under tenure than I've had hot dinners).

I bring this up only because of this comment from Jim Lindgren's piece on The Volokh Conspiracy regarding the nascent kerfluffle over Michael Bellesiles's new book (over which I posted yesterday myself):

After the Bellesiles affair was over, I asked a law professor who had in the past received funding from the NRA why the NRA was so savvy to stay out of it and let the academics handle it in the normal way. The answer I got is that the NRA wasn’t savvy so much as it is suspicious of academics, whom they neither understand nor trust. If the NRA pays for something, they want to control the message — and most academics won’t take money on that basis. [emphasis mine]

That's a bit of a howler! And it's sad that it has come to that. The Body Academic is has been injected by a dose of arsenic --or gold, in this case.

Or maybe it's just ideology. There is some suggestion that a few historians aren't entirely unhappy that Venona was only a brief glimpse into the Soviet archives. At the very least, there seems to be a certain amount of ostrichism, if not ostracism, regarding some of this, as "A Hidden History of Evil" by Claire Berlinksi in City Journal suggests:

Stroilov says that he and Bukovsky approached Jonathan Brent of Yale University Press, which is leading a publishing project on the history of the Cold War. He claims that initially Brent was enthusiastic and asked him to write a book, based on the documents, about the first Gulf War. Stroilov says that he wrote the first six chapters, sent them off, and never heard from Brent again, despite sending him e-mail after e-mail. “I can only speculate what so much frightened him in that book,” Stroilov wrote to me... Stroilov sees in these events “a kind of a taboo, the vague common understanding in the Establishment that it is better to let sleeping dogs lie, not to throw stones in a house of glass, and not to mention a rope in the house of a hanged man.” I suspect it is something even more disturbing: no one much cares.

There have always been rumors among the John Birchers, for instance, that the Commies paid off professors during the Cold War --and a few ex-Soviet types have even vaguely hinted at that themselves. Right-wing paranoia? Surely yes, we know academics never get... wait, nevermind. [UPDATE: Ron Radosh responds to Berlinski here]

And don't even get me started on Professor Michael Mann. I may not agree with the recent decision by the Virginia AG's office to begin a corruption investigation, but it never should even have come to that. But very few scientists are willing to disrupt the grant gravy train. It's not group-think with global warming advocates, it's rational self-interest! Quo vadis, Al Gore?

I think one of the key themes of the early 22nd century historiographers will be the examination of just how corrupt academics became in the mid-late twentieth century, extending well into the twenty-first. It will probably be at least that long before there's a sufficient revolutionary paradigm shift to the right that will allow for academic self-examination.

Technorati Tags: academia, climate change, Cold War, education and pedagogy, history, Michael Bellesiles, News I Can Use, revisionism, Soviet Union, Venona

Spit-Take of the Day

2010-05-12T08:59:00.001-05:00

History News Network reports that former Emory University scholar and former Bancroft Prize winner Michael Bellesiles is publishing a new book, this time on the year 1877. I use "former" for both descriptives because this clown --and that is a generous term-- was stripped of both his tenure (!) and his prize for his infamous book on colonial gun policy. It seems that someone may (or may not) have faked his research...

At any rate, that's not the spit-take part. That's here, from the publisher's blurb:

"Michael Bellesiles is perhaps most famous as the target of an infamous "swiftboating" campaign by the National Rifle Association, following the publication of his Bancroft Prize-winning book Arming America (Knopf, 2000)—"the best kind of non-fiction," according to the Chicago Tribune—which made daring claims about gun ownership in early America. In what became the history profession's most talked-about and notorious case of the past generation, Arming America was eventually discredited after an unprecedented and controversial review called into question its sources, charges which Bellesiles and his many prominent supporters have always rejected."

News flash: the man lost his tenure! Now for the bien pensant world of academia to turn on one of its own, there has to be something so seriously wrong that it cannot be ignored without calling academia's own credentials into existence. (Note that this was before climate change and the controversy over Professor Mann, so maybe that's no longer 100% true.)

Technorati Tags: academia, history, Michael Bellesiles, revisionism

And Now For Something Completely Frabjuous

2010-05-04T07:40:00.001-05:00

Sir Christopher Lee reads Jabberwocky - Times Online. Give me my vorpal blade...

Technorati Tags: humor

Why Does the NYT Use Idiots To Review Books?

2010-05-02T09:14:00.001-05:00

Book Review - Winston’s War - Churchill, 1940-1945 - By Max Hastings - NYTimes.com: wherein we read, "For all Churchill’s exalted words about the “English-speaking peoples” fighting for freedom together, the fact is that Anglo-American forces played a subsidiary role in the European war."

The point about Soviet vs. Anglo-American casualties is a just one; there's good reason why Stalin dubbed this "The Great Patriotic War" and why Soviet textbooks de-emphasized the role of the other Allies. But the above statement goes entirely beyond reason. Is he seriously (by implication) arguing that Stalin would have beaten Hitler without Anglo-American aid? That Lend-Lease meant nothing? That Allied air superiority --to which the Soviets contributed nothing until they managed to occupy the Yugoslavian refineries where jet fuel was being produced (and that long after air dominance had been lost) -- was of no help in hampering German production? That Hitler's divisions tied down in France and Italy would have made no difference to fighting in the East?

Technorati Tags: humor, revisionism, The world is full of morons

Wish I Had Seen This Before Friday

2010-05-02T09:01:00.001-05:00

On Friday, I co-sponsored a campus screening of Not Evil Just Wrong. It was well-attended. There were a few objections about the motives of the film-makers, and I thought those were good points.

But this would have been an absolutely devastating response: Roger L. Simon » Has Al Gore given up on global warming?: "Al Gore’s purchase of a near nine million dollar Montecito mansion with an almost comical carbon footprint (nine bathrooms!) probably means that he has given up on the global warming movement and decided to become a Hollywood producer (not that he ever made much of a distinction between two)."

Technorati Tags: climate change, The world is full of morons

The New Three Mile Island; or, Thank You BP!

2010-05-01T14:15:00.001-05:00

[UPDATE: and right on cue, there goes the Governor of California]

With great sadness I watch the news about the huge oil spill in the Gulf. I'm old enough to remember the Bay of Campeche's Ixtoc I disaster in 1979 that had oil all over our beach for two summers. This could be worse.

Thank you, BP!

I'm also old enough to remember Three Mile Island. I remember the absolute hysteria, the sense of panic, the overarching and irrational fear that pervaded the media. And I full-well remember the aftermath: no new nuclear plants. And just how has that worked out for us? A power-generating system that today remains dependent on coal (which our current leader wants to phase out) and natural gas (which also comes from under the sea). And in the minds of the American public, the prospect of more drilling for offshore oil is about to be perma-welded to stricken shore birds and ruined wetlands. And there will be no more drilling, and no more new oil fields brought into production.

Thank you, BP!

(Does anyone seriously believe the Chinese, in international waters off Florida, are going to stop drilling?)

Technorati Tags: history, oil, unintended consequences

The Volokh Conspiracy » Victims of Communism Day

2010-05-01T14:05:00.001-05:00

The Volokh Conspiracy » Victims of Communism Day: lest we ever forget. Some of us are old enough to remember the Cold War. Whenever I see some someone wearing a Che shirt (particularly around my campus), I ask them if they are aware of how many innocent Cuban civilians he murdered. But the eradication of history is what Orwell warned us all about, and we have seen it come.

Technorati Tags: history

America’s Barbaric History

2010-04-28T15:14:00.001-05:00

America’s Barbaric History :: Accuracy In Academia: this is apropos to what I said two posts below this one, that slavery simply cannot be tagged forever as America's permanent shame.

Technorati Tags: history, revisionism

Why Atomic Weapons Are Such A Conundrum

2010-04-25T08:37:00.001-05:00

Y-12 gears up to dismantle B53 bomb parts | Frank Munger's Atomic City Underground | knoxnews.com. A fun read. Wow, that's a big ol' bomb! Just look at that photo. You'd need a honking-big plane or missile to deploy that puppy.

Nine megatons. My students have no clue about what an atomic weapon can do (thank God). I tell them that the Oklahoma City bomb was the equivalent of 5-10 sticks of dynamite, each weight about a pound. Now, a ton of dynamite/TNT would be 2000 sticks. A kiloton is a thousand tons, so that would be equal to ("I was told there'd be no math....?") 2,000,000 sticks. Hiroshima was 15-20 kilotons, so that's 30-40 million sticks. A megaton is a thousand kilotons, so a nine megaton hydrogen bomb like the B-53 would be 9 x 1000 x 2,000,000. That's 18 billion sticks of dynamite. How many acres would that cover to a depth of one foot?

So much power, my students wonder. Why did they ever develop it? "Because would you want to be caught without one if Hitler had one?" And there's the rub: the inevitable peacenik leap logic follows from one of my students that "then we should all agree to ban the bomb!" "What would you do if someone broke the ban?" "Uhhhhh..." And then at the end, I make the point of arguing thusly: if the Cold War and its ensuing consequences were so horrible, think how much more horrible it could have been if neither the United States NOR the Soviet Union had feared annihilation. Particularly someone like Stalin...

The Big One: too scary to use, but equally scary not to have.

Technorati Tags: history, unintended consequences

Wish This Were More Widely Known

2010-04-25T08:20:00.001-05:00

How to End the Slavery Blame-Game by Henry Louis Gates. I could be flippant and say that the White House beer loosened him up, but again, that would be flippant. His points are good here. Sadly, the slave trade continues to exist, it just goes by other names and is ignored.

Technorati Tags: academia, history, revisionism

On Dropping A Class

2010-04-21T16:27:00.001-05:00

It's the time of the semester when what I call the "drop-dead" date approaches: after this point, any student on the roster must receive a letter grade at the end of term, no withdrawals allowed ("W" on the transcript). And every semester I get the same stories: "I can't drop the class, and I can't fail."

Sorry, padawan. You are incorrect on both counts.

I'll deal with the second part first. I don't deliberately try to rope in students with promises of miraculous passing grades at the end. If a student is struggling, I try to send very clear signals that All Is Not Well. I notify the counselors and suggest tutoring. I gently try to hint that if they don't improve after two exams, it's unlikely they will magically begin acing things in the second half of the term. And I am always, ALWAYS honest when a student asks me for my opinion on progress or lack thereof. Yet every term I get the ones who suddenly realize they may have to repeat and mirabile dictu it's MY problem as well as theirs. Huh??? You had AMPLE warning that this was coming! What makes you any more special than the thousands of other students in the system, that you "cannot" fail a course?! Oh wait, you can't afford to fail the course because it would hurt your average. And this is my problem how, exactly? Most everyone else is in the exact same spot, and they're getting the work done. Not to be overly cruel, but a mistake on your part (not studying, not taking class seriously, blowing off assignments) in no way constitutes an emergency on my part. If it's that hopeless, and you can't afford to take an F, drop the course.

"I can't drop the course, it will affect my financial aid!" Ahhhhhh!!!! Now we get to the heart of the matter! It is a twisted and bizarre circumstance, but many students believe that it is more important to get aid money than to actually pass their courses. No, really! There is a tiny grain of truth in here: some students' aid packages are tied to how many courses they complete, regardless of grade. For international students, their visas depend on competing hours, and dropping a class guarantees that the hours won't happen.

Let's clear some of this up right now. Many students ignore the long-term effects of bad grades. Look, an F is the same as a W: you will end up repeating the course for credit and spending more money. The W doesn't affect your GPA, and since you are planning on transferring the credit at some point, and since the institution to which you will be going will be looking at your GPA first and the number of W's you've earned second, you need to focus on what's going to hurt you the least. And let's not forget that if your aid is dependent on grades, you're in deep doo-doo anyway and, again, should do the thing that hurts you least.

But that's the catch, innit: many students are actually in it only for the m-o-n-e-y. We see it every term: students getting big checks and then dropping all but one or two of their courses, spending the rest on phones and what-all-else. And the sick sad thing is that they don't realize that most of the aid money isn't really "aid" --it's a LOAN! Meaning, you will have to repay it! And that means having a decent job sooner rather than later, which means getting to a four-year school ASAP to finish your degree, which means NOT screwing up your GPA with an F if you don't have to!!!

And again, your situation has no effect on my response. We have thousands --tens of thousands!- of students in our system, and it is in no way fair, justified or acceptable for me to treat you any differently simply because of your situation. This Is Real Life. There are consequences to decisions. Your whining cheapens the efforts of the vast majority of students who work hard, sometimes fail, but always try their damndest WITHOUT asking for anything beyond the chance to show what they know. I have students who don't get aid, who are paying for school entirely on their own dime, and they have been known to struggle just much as anyone having to borrow money. I should insult them by giving passing grades to you? I think not.

If it really is hopeless, you can do something about it. But don't whine to me about "can't." Bottom line: you can fail, and you can drop before it's too late.

Technorati Tags: academia, education and pedagogy, The world is full of morons, unintended consequences

Building the Perfect Carbonara: The Recipe |

2010-04-16T10:31:00.000-05:00

Building the Perfect Carbonara: The Recipe | Houston Restaurants | 29-95.com: yes, you should make this and yes, you should go back and read the first three parts of the series. I've known the author for over 35 years.

And then T.S. Eliot came to mind...

2010-03-31T21:32:00.001-05:00

I grow old, I grow old

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled

--T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland

I have a rule when I'm doing my heavy iron-pumping: when one of three designated body parts loudly proclaims "Screw you, Mojo, we're done for the day," then I must immediately halt my workout session and go home. It's called Being Older And Wiser And Knowing One's Limits. I had a really good lift with the legs on Monday, but yesterday my lower back (the holiest of the three) twinged ever so slightly and so I gave myself the day off. Today I was back in the gym, merrily going from set to set acting all He-Manly, when my right elbow began to scream at me. This was a problem; I have recurring tendonitis in that part and if I don't immediately stop and go ice it down at that juncture, I will be done for at least two weeks. So I quit for the day and went home --and ended up working in the garden in my workout jeans and getting them throughly soaked at the cuffs. And as I rolled them up I looked like a total dork and the words of the poet came flooding back to me.

Man, time is starting to catch up to me.

Technorati Tags: humor, News I Can Use

The Lie of the Liberal Arts Education

2010-03-27T13:38:00.000-05:00

The Lie of the Liberal Arts Education: I have a sneaking suspicion that, someday, this will happen with me as well.

So I want to tell any of my former mentors who are (secretly) tracking me that A) you knew I was an eccentric and irascible soul back when I was a student; B) some of you probably realized that I had substantially more than half a brain, so you had faith enough to back me up in my endeavors; and C) any one of you is more than welcome to tell me where to get off --just as long as you can stand toe-to-toe with me in an intellectual exchange without pejoratives or non-sequiturs. (Hint: I don't need a pitcher of beer in me to confound an entire seminar.)

Technorati Tags: academia, revisionism, The world is full of morons

A Sad Day On The Frontier

2010-03-19T08:43:00.001-05:00

Davy Crockett star Fess Parker dies Ask my mom about my favorite wee childhood hero. Hint: we share a birthday.

Customer Service Morons

2010-03-10T16:03:00.001-06:00

I cannot help overhearing a VERY exasperated conversation going on in the office next to mine. A colleague is having difficulties with the software package that our campus uses. [Hint: this is from a major company that supports many large universities in their online course offerings...] He spend quite a bit of time explaining the problem with the support tech. The tech was quite helpful, took all the information, offered several workarounds, and when those did not pan out, the tech put my colleague on hold, first giving a phone number "in case we get disconnected."

My colleague waited on hold for twenty minutes. And sure enough, he got disconnected. He dialed the number he had been given, only to be routed through to a completely different tech who wanted to start the whole process over again. Naturally, my colleague was a bit put out.

"Listen: I just spend twenty minutes going over the problem with XXXX, and another twenty minutes on hold. Why can't you put me through to XXXX?"

"I don't know who XXXX is."

"What do you mean, you don't know the other people working in your group? "

"No. You're going to have to start over again."

"That's ridiculous, I'm not going to spend another half-hour working through this problem with a complete stranger when XXXX has all my details --and you're telling me you don't know who XXXX is!!??"

At this point, the conversation grew slightly heated and my colleague now found himself transferred to a supervisor --who, not so surprisingly, also didn't know who XXXX was.

"So you're telling me that as the supervisor, you don't know who XXXX is, who works underneath you and answers to you?"

"Sir, if XXXX didn't give you an extension or a last name, I can't do any more than what I've already done."

"But XXXX DID give me a number and it put me through to YYYY, who has now dumped me off on you. Can YOU give me a last name?"

"No, sir, company policy prohibits that."

[And at this point one could hear the *palm* across the office.]

"Did you listen to what you just told me, at all?!? You said to ask for XXXX's last name next time, and then you just said that your company's policy forbids giving out last names. Maybe company policy needs to change a bit, perhaps?"

Technorati Tags: puppy

And Here Is Why I Won't Let Joe and Terry Help Me Teach My Lectures

2010-03-10T13:39:00.001-06:00

Yes, This Is My World

2010-03-10T13:19:00.001-06:00

Myths of the Ivory Tower | The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy: I especially liked the part about which one was the real paper and which one was the fake.

Technorati Tags: academia, News I Can Use