… that Justin Crosby was probably on campus to sell marijuana to students.

Which doesn’t explain why he was shot.

… now being conducted by researchers from the University of Prince Edward Island (where UD once gave a paper about James Merrill’s poem Santorini) gives UD an excuse to update you on her own singing.

Faithful UD readers already know that UD loves to sing Henry Purcell’s songs (This year is the 350th anniversary of his birth.)  (And look what I get when I Google News him!  From an interview with British musician and novelist John Wesley Harding:

Purcell is kind of a bit of an obsession of mine, and my third novel [coming out this year] is about a composer who writes the first great English opera since “Dido and Aeneas.” … Singers like myself — folk singers or pop singers or whatever — there’s a real kinship with the baroque because it’s based on the same song structures as I use.

Er, close parenthesis somewhere.

UD also loves to sing jazz, and her latest enthusiasm there is Witchcraft by Carolyn Leigh in The Collection of Jazz Music. (Lyrics and a recording here.)

While the song doesn’t have a challenging range (only goes up to a D, a note UD can hit in her sleep), it moves sexily up the scale and has clever, naughty words. The last phrase is hokey (’cause there’s no nicer witch than you!), but the rest of the song shimmers.

… but one takes one’s commemorations where one finds them.

[Come to] the 10th anniversary of the Agee Crash Bash Monday at the Clinton Highway bar that sits almost astride the very spot where James Agee’s father had his legendary fatal accident. [This crash inspired] the Pulitzer Prize winning autobiographical novel, “A Death in the Family.” … [W]e usually have readings and … local music stars to serenade us. The mythic “Cotter Pin of Destiny” will once again change hands for a year’s keeping by some thus blessed individual. It is currently in the hands of an actual second cousin of James Agee. This being the centennial of Agee’s birth lends some additional psychic heft to the event, don’t you think?

This is where we’ll be — the Checker Flag Sports Bar, 7428 Clinton Hwy, 947-8667. The bar is in a shabby little commercial strip in the southeast quadrant of the intersection of Clinton Highway and Emory Road in Powell.

Like the wife of Maryland’s governor many years ago, Easley will not be moved.

Bootsie wouldn’t leave the governor’s mansion, while Mary won’t leave her amazingly lucrative patronage job at North Carolina State University.

Is UD the only person who recalls Bootsie?

Bootsie Mandel, perhaps not everyone remembers, was the aggrieved First Lady of Maryland who, in 1973, refused to vacate the governor’s mansion when the governor (I remember her name but not his) [Marvin] declared he was maritally moving on. Needless to say, the standoff was a jolly media occasion, which ruined the forgotten governor’s career.

While Bootsie said many memorable things (“I don’t know what everyone’s talking about. The governor left my bed this morning.“), Mary’s kept absolutely silent as everybody screams at her to haul ass.

Leaders in the state’s university system moved publicly Monday to force the resignation of Mary Easley, the former first lady criticized over a $170,000-per-year position she holds at N.C. State University.

The chairwoman of the UNC Board of Governors, the president of the UNC system and the chancellor at N.C. State University all said Easley should give up her job.

… has died.

Justin Cosby was a student at Salem State College. Police aren’t clear about the motive behind the shooting.

He was snobby. “I gave the department secretary the syllabus for this course to type up,” he told us, his Northwestern University undergraduates in a course called Joyce/Nabokov. “She said Oh, I’ve heard of Joyce Nabokov.” Imitating her uneducated speech.

A few students laughed. Most of us were taken aback.

Alfred Appel, who has died, was very kind to me. Had me over to his house and showed me his inscribed Nabokov novels, in some of which the writer had drawn butterflies. He was funny. His Annotated Lolita (which Gore Vidal thought a creation of Nabokov… Vidal thought Alfred Appel was a creation of Nabokov…) is hilarious.

While [Ezra] Merkin faces an intense legal onslaught, he also must cope with a thorny situation at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue, where he serves as president and where his father was a co-founder. According to The Jewish Week, Mr. Merkin is slated to become chairman [Replacing Ira Rennert! Way non-stringent admissions criteria.] on Wednesday.

Although the title is largely ceremonial in most congregations, the promotion has infuriated at least some members, with one calling it “the height of chutzpah” for Mr. Merkin to stick around.

… correcting UD‘s misunderstanding of the nature of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston:

First, disclosure: I am on the verge of graduating from UTMB with a Ph.D in ethics & medical humanities, so my affiliation most assuredly colors my views.

Second, some of my academic work involves COIs in research and medicine.

But I do think it is important to understand a bit more of the local context re UTMB. UTMB is indeed part of the UT system, but to assert that it shares in the Adzillatron and what that represents is something of an error or at least an oversimplification. Some knowledge of Texas politics is required in order to explain why. UTMB may “share” in the Adzillatron, but its share is pitiful compared to the two flagship institutions, UT-Austin, and Texas A&M. These two are both extremely wealthy institutions, with literally every other UT scrabbling for scraps. UTMB itself is near the bottom of this heap, since their very charter declares that the mission of the school is expressly to provide indigent care.

There is a perception that the regents have grown tired of this mission, such that the funds allocated to UTMB to provide indigent care have consistently crept lower. The regents very nearly ended the school’s clinical operations “due” to damage caused by Hurricane Ike. Only a well-positioned and powerful representative in the Texas Capitol prevented this from occurring.

None of this is to offer any opinion on the events surrounding Dr. Wagner. But it is inaccurate to argue that because UTMB is part of the UT system, it shares equally in the Adzillatron culture. UTMB has historically lacked the funds to even fulfill its charter; wealthy donors and endowments do not generally come UTMB’s way.

UD is very grateful to the reader for this clarification.

UD makes a poem out of this article.

***************************************

A LAPTOP COOLED WITH IONIC WIND

A laptop cooled with ionic wind
Wants less power. Silent and thin,
Taking heat better than a fan,

I just thought you might like it.

The Belgian bodybuilding championship has been canceled after doping officials showed up and all the competitors fled.

A doping official says bodybuilders just grabbed their gear and ran off when he came into the room.

“I have never seen anything like it and hope never to see anything like it again,” doping official Hans Cooman said Monday.

Twenty bodybuilders were entered in the weekend competition.

Cooman says the sport has a history of doping “and this incident didn’t do its reputation any good.”

As of ten minutes ago, the Boston Globe didn’t know very much.

A man was shot this afternoon at the entrance of a Harvard University residence hall, and police were searching for several assailants. It was not immediately clear whether the victim, who was shot in the abdomen, was a student.

Sergeant James DeFrancisco of the Cambridge Police said that after authorities were alerted about 4:50 p.m. they found the victim on Dunster Street, outside Kirkland House, one of Harvard’s 12 undergraduate houses. DeFrancisco said the victim was taken to the hospital and was in stable condition.

… Residents of Kirkland House have been asked to remain there as police continue to speak with students and others. Otherwise, police have indicated that students and other members of the community are free to resume their normal activity.

**************************************

Update: The person shot seems not to have been a Harvard student. UD speculates that this was gang-related.

OHSU PROVOST POISED TO

TAKE REIGNS AT PACIFIC UNIVERSITY

Background here.

Mary Easley has been told that she should resign from her $170,000-per-year position at N.C. State University because it is in the best interest of the university.

UNC system President Erskine Bowles said today that Easley has been given that message. He said he could not elaborate on her response. N.C. State University Chancellor James Oblinger earlier today also said it was in the best interest of NCSU that Easley step aside.

New disclosures over the past week about the position already have led to resignations of the provost who hired her and the N.C. State trustee — and friend of the Easleys — who also played a role in the job.

NCSU spokesman Keith Nichols said today that Oblinger would only say that Easley’s resignation now is “in the best interest of the university.” Oblinger will not discuss whether he has delivered that message to Easley, saying he cannot talk about personnel matters.

Bowles said he also believes it is in the best interest of N.C. State that Easley give up her position…

Sure sounds as though Easley won’t go easily. They’re ganging up on her, but she ain’t moving. Hm.

… Wall Street Journal article about the devastating consequences of doping tens of thousands of children with anti-psychotics, but it should.  This is his legacy.

Harvard University, which continues to employ Biederman, should also take a bow.

The growth in antipsychotic-drug prescriptions for children is slowing as state Medicaid agencies heighten their scrutiny of usage and doctors grow more wary of the powerful medications.

The softening in sales for children is the first sign that litigation, reaction to improper marketing tactics, and concern about side effects may be affecting what had been a fast-growing children’s drug segment.

… Antipsychotics have faced heightened scrutiny and investigation over the past year. In November, a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee asked the FDA to research children’s use of the drugs and expressed concern about possible side effects such as weight gain and increased diabetes risk. And 11 state attorneys general are investigating alleged marketing of Eli Lilly & Co.’s antipsychotic Zyprexa for uses the FDA hasn’t approved.

In January, Eli Lilly agreed to pay $1.4 billion to settle allegations it improperly marketed Zyprexa. The company also agreed to plead guilty to a criminal charge of promoting the drug for unapproved uses.

A Lilly spokesman declined to comment on ongoing litigation and said the company doesn’t track the drug’s use in children.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. agreed to pay $515 million in September 2007 to settle allegations it promoted Abilify for use in children. The FDA didn’t approve of the use of the drug in children older than 10 until 2008.

… Some states began moving to require special approval before they would cover a claim for an antipsychotic. A group of 16 states started studying the use of psychiatric medication in children in 2007 in an effort they dubbed “too many, too much, too young” …

******************************************

Via Alliance for Human Research Protection.

… this is one shitty letter to the editor.

I mean, yes.  Do damage control.  Do damage control until the cows come home.  SOS has no trouble with damage control.

But don’t do damage control so badly you end up doing more damage.

Here’s the problem:  The University of Toledo currently has the most corrupt sports program in the country, with all the national news coverage that implies.

A faculty member seeks to control damage.  Let us see how she does it.

Let us first notice the very end of her letter, when she provides some identification for herself:

Alice Skeens

Associate professor
University of Toledo

Fine, a concerned Associate professor…

And now let’s look at an editorial note below her name, provided by the newspaper that published her letter:

Editor’s note: The writer is UT faculty athletic representative to the NCAA.

Oh whoops yeah forgot to mention I’m faculty athletic representative to the NCAA!  (It’s possible the writer provided this information to the paper, which chose to present things this way.  If so, a mistake.)

*******************************************

March 29, 2007, was a difficult day for the University of Toledo. That was the day federal investigators filed a criminal complaint against a former football player alleging that he had been a part of a point-shaving scheme.

This dark cloud follows UT athletics to this day, yet the investigation has always focused on the past.  [Dark cloud ushers us into a world of clichés.  It’s hard to get a whole world of clichés into a letter to the editor, but this writer has done it.]  [The investigation focuses on the past because the crime, like all past crimes now under investigation, occurred in the past.  If you catch my drift.  There are two reasons its darkness insists on pursuing UT:  One, it involved organized crime and betting on university games, which is REALLY REALLY dirty stuff, even by the dirty standards of bigtime university sports.  Two, the president of UT refuses to deal with it in an honest and forthright way.   Like this writer, he’s trying to, er, sweep this event under the scrapheap of history.]
Indictments filed last week appear to be the beginning of the end, focusing on a 13-month period from Nov. 19, 2005, to Dec. 19, 2006.  [The past, the beginning of the end… Like UT’s president, to whom this writer toadies, the idea is to convince you that something profoundly, lastingly, corrupt is ancient history.]

I have spent a majority of [Pompous, wordy.  Say most.] my 47-year career working with UT’s student athletes and I couldn’t agree more with [President Lloyd] Jacobs’ assessment that this period is truly behind us.  [Toady.] [And a very nice example of what SOS has said many times on this blog about the desperate use of intensifiers to make what you want to be true the truth.  It’s truly truly behind us, I tell you…]

In a June, 2007, editorial, The Blade described intercollegiate athletics as “a monster – like the mythical multiheaded serpent Hydra – that is nearly impossible to subdue.” It then went on to applaud President Jacobs for being “determined to try.” Accolades were earned by “implementing aggressive new procedures to tighten up athletics administration.”  [Passive voice — were earned by.]

Shakespeare aptly observed, “What’s past is prologue,” as history sets the stage for future actions.  [Well done, Bill! Shakespeare certainly gets an A in this professor’s class… To quote Shakespeare at all in this tawdry context is laughable, and to use the tight-ass aptly observed is … oh well.  I suppose the writer attempts to lend some tragic gravitas to this unfortunate, long-forgotten incident.  She accomplishes exactly the opposite.]  Responding to the events two years ago, the university implemented its new procedures, including “a comprehensive educational program for all student-athletes in areas such as gambling …” as reported in the Blade on June 14, 2007.

One can argue that the success of these programs is evidenced by the continued retrospective nature of the probe.  [Deadly writing:  One can argue.  Is evidenced by.  As SOS noted above, the retrospective nature of the probe — again, note the pomposity — has to do with the retrospective nature of the events.  To be more precise, they already happened.]

On May 10, The Blade called upon the administration to successfully address the situation, noting, “To countenance cheating creates a culture of corruption that not only hurts [the athletes] as players, teammates, and representatives of the university but also damages UT’s reputation and that of its sports programs.”

I could not agree more.  [Repeats this phrase; she said it a few paragraphs above.  A stiff inhuman writing style coupled with robotic repetitions of phrases – it just ain’t gonna get you there, honey.  Now, what you should have done is start like this:  I’m the faculty athletics representative, and I’ve always… And then whatever.  Say whatever the hell you want to say.  Tell a story.  Tell it from the heart.  But make it honest and human.  Don’t make it a press release from the president’s office.] That is why swift actions were taken two years ago and the university can say it has truly turned the page.   [The intensifier truly again.  Writing by machine.]  Our best years are yet to come.  [Ends with a flourish — her biggest cliché  yet.]

SOS thanks a reader for sending her this.