From Short-Circuit Signs: [I]t is hard not to notice how often standardized tests come up as examples of good, or at least acceptable, assessment – ironic because faculty are exhorted to take this stuff seriously on the grounds that doing otherwise will mean federally mandated testing. Sounds like a Foucauldian nightmare/farce, right? It gets worse … More Precisely
I have an interesting life, although I claim I do not. These are fragments of e-mails from me sent in the past week or so: * I went fishing again and caught a black drum … the marshes are beautiful this time of year … we bought shrimp at a roadside stand for $3/pound … … More I Want Another Day Off
I keep discovering that my experience with Reeducation is legion, and uncovering new evidence of why Reeducation is or was a program designed to lead backward in life. As we know, one of the more obvious anti-teachings of Reeducation was that one should not act to solve problems (this was “controlling”), but should ruminate upon … More Rewind
I can tell it is January because I am spending a certain amount of time giving people tips for handling their first campus interviews. Mostly what I am telling them is to calm down. If there is anything they forget to ask now, they will have a chance to ask it later. I am good … More On Being Where One Is
This is the twelfth day of Christmas and the feast of the Kings. I am buying a fishing license and going fishing. It may do me good. I am plagued with nightmares about the coming semester which wake me each hour, so that I do not sleep. This has been going on for six days. … More Fishing
1. As we know, in Reeducation I was considered unfeeling. To prove I was not, I was directed to renounce the intellectual life. 2. I have already realized before that “unfeeling” only meant “not histrionic” and “frighteningly bright to a man like me.” Now I realize that what it meant more fundamentally was that I … More Repaso
The number of myths now masquerading as fact are very tiring to refute, so I am glad when other people help to do it. Right now I am glad the NYT has refuted a few myths about religion, the Founders, and the Framers. The article refers to Mitt Romney’s speech on the matter earlier this … More Refuting Myths
From 02138: Because, in any number of academic offices at Harvard, the relationship between “author” and researcher(s) is a distinctly gray area. A young economics professor hires seven researchers, none yet in graduate school, several of them pulling 70-hour work-weeks; historians farm out their research to teams of graduate students, who prepare meticulously written memos … More More Outsourcing
Here is a small excerpt from one chapter of a book by Robert Jay Lifton. The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of … More Robert Jay Lifton
I Here is the First Amendment to the United States Constitution: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of … More On the Right to Opine
