This is my new favorite movie. I have not had a new favorite movie, apart from some brief flirtations, since 1987 when Burden of Dreams came out. From the beginning Biutiful reminded me of what Tree of Life could have been, had that film been actually good. Here is the last scene, dubbed into Italian, … More Biutiful
For someone I wish I knew how to get in touch with more directly, this is a picture of our good man I took today. Grab it girl, I shouldn’t keep this post up too long. Vous-autres, sorry for the mystery; I will explain or have explained, if you have been with me long enough … More A Smoke Signal
Ça va, man? I asked, running into one of our newer hires; evidently ça n’allait pas, because of social life. I may place a manifesto on my door: dear assistant professor, dear instructor, the reason the other instructors and assistant professors are not hanging out with you is not that they are mean, but that you … More Mais yeah, cher
Readers, don’t worry, these are catharsis posts. I realize how Gothic they sound but I have absorbed many decades of dire warnings and discouraging words. Every post in which I expel my hatred for the various weak beings with whom I have attempted diplomacy as they tried to pull me into the graves they sleep … More “The Real Truth”
“My own University (U.C. Berkeley) was also approached in an inappropriate manner during that same Winter of 2005-06, but such untoward pressures were simply rebuffed. That, in the end, probably goes right to the heart of what really separates a top-flight university with one of the top Colleges of Engineering in the nation (and the … More Raymond B. Seed
Axé.
And I quote: “At least he’s not in jail.” Axé. Lagniappe this election day: my post on abusive relationships, at the Seminario.
The Iraq War “ends,” but: The final drawdown will leave behind thousands of private security contractors and State Department employees. “As promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year,” Obama said during his announcement. “After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over.” Is … More A Privatized War
Before this semester began I was told I could not write a major grant proposal, do major administrative work, and teach five courses. I could have said no to the grant proposal and canceled my seminar, and I could have, although it would have caused major trouble, wormed my way out of the administrative work. … More On “Protecting Time”
I do not agree, really, but I am charmed. We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price; for the moment he appears, our … More A Petition from 1845
