What do we think of Christopher Walken?

For those of you who follow things academic, FGSU does not offer tenure.  Make of that what you will.

Organic chemistry professor here with 35 years in the saddle.  I can categorically state that without tenure I would not have taken an academic job.  I had other career options, but exchanged a lower salary for the prospect of a tenured position.  It took me 10 years to reach where my salary exceeded the starting salaries of my doctoral students, but when my colleagues began being 'let go' at age 55 during the Big Pharma downsizing I thought I had evened out.

For me, what we are calling 'academic freedom' is fine in theory but means little in practice.  I know lots of folks with tenure who still feel stifled for a variety of reasons.  What tenure does for me is give me the chance to do higher risk research that stretches past my core expertise.  If it comes a cropper, and I don't get publications for a couple years, I can reconfigure and move to the next project, not the next job.  I regard tenure as a vote of confidence: 'we know you are pursuing good ideas and are willing to have you take risks that might not pan out.'

While I agree that crushing Saddam at that time was the proper move, I think the blame for the caveats goes above his pay grade.  In my version of this history, the blame goes to Colin Powell.  I distinctly recall him claiming that destroying an enemy after defeating it was unsoldierly.  Hence another incompletely won war that messed over this country.

The seeds for the present nations of Japan and Germany were sown at Hiroshima and Dresden.  It may not be nice, but war seldom is.

A bit off topic, but I think relevant.  IMHO, the worst thing to happen to American Catholicism was the election of John F. Kennedy.  I think it (along with Vatican II) began the decline of what we can call Catholic Exceptionalism (trying to analogize to the decline in American Exceptionalism going on now).  The concept spread that being a Catholic was carried no special distinction, duty or obligation.  Church attendance down, pick the tenets you choose to honor, what I can only call Jesuitical reasoning to justify whatever you wanted to do in the first place.  No wonder there was no Catholic vote against a pro-abortion candidate, Catholic is just a word.

Reagan said it best: "We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one"

What SPare says in post 39 resonates with me.

As a 62 year old chemist (Ph.D.) I consider myself liberally educated.  If you really look at it, though, I will admit that I took very few courses that might qualify.  the key for me was taking those few courses seriously (actually read that Chaucer, not the Cliff notes) and kept on with such things as time went by.  As a prof, I often despair at how little value students (even those 'good' students) want for their tuition dollar.  Two problems I see:

1. their 'liberal ed' courses are often pretty bad in terms of content and expectations, so that students strive to get them out of the way, usually by sticking to a topic as close to a previous high school course as they can

2. the faculty who teach these things don't take them seriously either.  I've heard it described as a sort of devil's bargain: "I'll be teaching a lackluster course, but I'll give high grades, so let's not bother each other too much"

The left is uninterested in leaving your religion alone.  It is interested in relieving you of your 'evil thoughts' or, failing that, subjugating you.  Trying to discuss this with the left is useless.  You may think you are engaging in discourse, but they are using your words to their advantage.

Hold on now.  There is a difference between raiding a head shop with a legitimate warrant and going SWAT on a residence.  Was there any reason to suspect that the police would be met with force?  Was there foundation laid that evidence would be destroyed if they knocked?  Were there times when the house was empty and entry would be unimpeded while arrests were made offsite?  These questions have nothing to do with marijuana, they have to do with the Constitution.

Clearly this is just step one.  The real action comes when he appoints a small business czar.

There is the world you would like to see and the world as it exists today.  To deny yourself a benefit that is legally available to you is akin to unilateral disarmament.  It happens at all levels.  Nothing irritates me more than seeing a governor criticized as a hypocrite for accepting a government handout for his/her state while advocating government austerity.  You can't opt out completely, either as a state or an individual, so you maximize your standing under the current rules while trying to improve the system.

Now when it comes to voting for someone whose policies will benefit you, but hurt the country is a horse of a different color....

It is tough to find a better series than the Ellis Peters novels.  As a fan of the late Roman Republic, I enjoy Steven Saylor (Gordianus the Finder) for content and the John Maddox Roberts SPQR series for fun.

One of my favorites has been less recognized than these authors.  I highly recommend Alan Gordon and his Fools Guild series.  The premise is great: medieval jesters as a spy network dedicated to advancing their humanitarian goals and opposed by both church and state.  The first in the series in "Thirteenth Night," a 'sequel' to Twelfth Night.  After several novels, he returns to a Shakespearian theme in "An Antic Disposition," my favorite and goes on to several more in the series.  I've enjoyed every one.

Put me down as a big fan of Loren Estleman.  I'm not sure which category I'd put him in.  There are some analogies to Block's Scudder series (which I also enjoy very much) but the dialogues in Estleman's books (Amos Walker series, he also writes a boatload of Westerns that I have not read) are special.

I also think Walter Mosley had a good series with Easy Rawlins.  He seems to have gone on to other things that I find less interesting.

If you have a Part Three on historical mysteries, count me in for more comments.

The folks with green eyeshades will continue to have a grand old time.  Salary and benefits are straightforward.  Most graduate assistants have tuition waivers for their coursework.  The sticker price for tuition differs immensely from the marginal cost of each student to the university.  These tuition waivers are mostly treated as scholarships and are not taxed (but there is varying discussion on this).  Students supported on research grants may or may not have tuition charged to the grant (waivers for these folks used to be routine, much less so now), but paying out of pocket is relatively rare.

Depending on how you cost this out, a graduate student may be a financial loser compared to a casual instructor (where collective bargaining is another separate issue).  Since graduate tuition is often more an internal transfer rather than a real revenue stream, you can make the numbers be anything you like, but institutions with a graduate mission will need to continue supporting the programs in some way.  

They just installed a group of these in my town.  They haven't enabled all the features yet, but they include a sensor for cars moving out so they can be zeroed.  There is a limit on total continuous time in one spot so I imagine they will also be programmed to forbid adding additional time.  They also take credit cards and using a credit card will eventually require paying a premium.

I am sure the next version will snap your license and send you the ticket.  When public safety becomes revenue generation, law enforcement starts to become the enemy.

I guess there are several points to be made here.  The War Powers Act is the law.  In the same way that the administration should defend DOMA, should not the Congress enforce the War Powers Act?  The way to get rid of the Act is either to repeal it or for someone to challenge the constitutionality in the courts.  Either would be fine with me.

Until it is not the law,the administration should be held to it.  Giving them a pass they would never give anyone else is perhaps being more catholic than the pope.  The conduct of the administration, in being more deferential to NATO than the Congress is despicable and I'm willing to use whatever tools are at hand to make them accountable.