This story combines drug smuggling with academic point scoring – a new combination, I think.
A professor of physics at the University of North Carolina is in an Argentine jail because Buenos Aires airport police discovered an elaborate compartment in his luggage into which a lot of cocaine had been placed.
[Paul] Frampton says the cocaine had been cleverly built into a piece of his luggage without his knowledge, but he declined to say how it might have gotten there, saying that revealing details might harm his defense.
Frampton says the UNC provost has done little to help him, and has in fact stopped his pay. Why?
[Bruce] Carney had long been jealous, he said, because Frampton had earned tenure much more quickly and because Carney’s academic accomplishments were paltry compared to his own.
“I am one of the most published physicists, and really he hasn’t done much that is of interest,” Frampton said.
The provost is sorry he’s in jail … and is also sorry “to hear that Frampton had been missing the meetings of the general relativity class he was supposed to be teaching.”
Frampton responds that only one student signed up for it. Possible reason here.
March 20th, 2012 at 4:29PM
Wow…that’s as dumb as it comes. And it doesn’t make much sense. A first time visitor, I suppose. Otherwise, he would know that whatever you can get in Buenos Aires is much cheaper than what you can get in the United States. Pure economics.
It reminds me of how I couldn’t stop laughing when former Governor Mark Sanford was caught right out of the plane coming from Buenos Aires, and his first explanation was that he was stressed so he had gone to Buenos Aires to drive through the Buenos Aires coastline (2 miles of muddy river, at most), and relax (Buenos Aires driving habits are probably second to none in how dangerous they are).
March 21st, 2012 at 4:41AM
Rate my professor… this guy has been around 30 years (the site has not) and there are not even a dozen ratings. Can this possibly be meaningful data?
For instance, my own PI has been on the scene for 11 years, a whopping 9 students have rated him on that site, and no rating is more recent than 2005. (Recently he has been teaching at the graduate level only, hasn’t lectured to undergrads since, wait for it, 2005. The “insert-big-oil-company-that-still-won’t-hire-his-students-name-here” chair allows him to avoid the peons.)
For UD’s continued dismay:
http://www.pharmalot.com/2012/03/clinical-trials-exaggerated-antipsychotic-benefits/
http://www.pharmalot.com/2012/03/retraction-antidepressants-suicide-prevention/