… will shortly appear at Inside Higher Education.

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“Murder in the Cathedral” is now up at IHE.

And UD’s not sure why people are paying attention to this one. Because it’s being operated from inside a prison?

[I]t seems wise to ask if the authorities are taking a close look at [Amy Bishop’s] husband, James Anderson. His statements and observations about his wife don’t always compute, and he was also questioned, with her, in the matter of the pipe bomb mailed to a Harvard physician in 1993.

A blogger at The Hill agrees with UD (see this post) that authorities shouldn’t be as nonchalant about Bishop’s husband as they’ve long been about Bishop. Given her desperation and madness, and the couple’s possible tendency to commit atrocities together, UD believes investigators should consider putting their children in protective custody.

As details emerge of the failure of Canada’s First Nations University (background here), it’s clear that this was a textbook case of institutional failure.

Or, rather, comic book. You have to laugh at the maniacal thoroughness with which its overseers inflicted upon FNU every conceivable injury you can inflict on a university. Only the story of Yusupov’s plot against Rasputin chronicles as many wounds.

Ignore the twee family website. Tasha Tudor (a successful book illustrator, she died a few years ago) is the object of a squalid dispute among her children. They are fighting over her assets like animals in an Aesop’s fable.

Moral: Only lawyers will get anything.

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A detail from her will:

Tudor’s 2001 will asked that she be buried with her predeceased dogs and the ashes of her pet rooster Chickahominy, should he die before her.

There are two models for this.

One, typified by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, is a comprehensive institution, almost entirely devoted to extortion of private and public funds. Other examples of the-university-as-criminal-conspiracy are Asia University (currently available for purchase at seven billion won) and Panteion University in Greece.

The other model involves top-down, restricted theft, as in the recent case of Hungary’s National Defense University. Here the extortion seems to have been performed by the rector, on his own initiative.

The rector of the Zrinyi Miklós National Defense University – Hungary’s higher education facility for military personnel – was placed on remand last Thursday on suspicion of abuse of office. János Szabó had to be wrestled to the ground by National Bureau of Investigation (NNI) officers while attempting to resist arrest the previous Tuesday.

Szabó had allegedly told the Hungarian arm of the German parcel carrier DHL that it was the subject of an investigation over personnel transporting drugs and arms. He is alleged to have offered to use his influence to have the probe stopped, in exchange for DHL signing a contract with a security firm nominated by Szabó.

Scrappy Hungarians! Can you imagine an American university president wrestled to the ground while resisting arrest? You know they’d go quietly.

Kajoko Kifuji, a professor at Tufts, prescribed homicidal amounts of anti-psychotics to a child.

I mean, of course, she handed the prescriptions to the child’s parents – the child was only four at the time.

Kifuji had been giving her powerful drugs since she was two.

Rebecca Riley’s parents killed her (the mother has been convicted of second degree murder; the father’s trial begins soon) via doses of the multiple non-FDA-approved (for use in children) drugs Kifuji gave them.

Kifuji – who prescribed the same drugs to the parents’ other two children – based these prescriptions on what the mother told her about her children.

Kifuji testified that her diagnosis was primarily based on Carolyn Riley’s description of her daughter as aggressive and disruptive. She in 2004 prescribed Clonidine to Rebecca for ADHD; the next year, she prescribed Depakote to treat bipolar disorder.

Kifuji went on to approve a double dosage of the medication after Carolyn Riley told her that she was giving Rebecca twice the daily recommended amount.

That’s from the Tufts newspaper. Here’s Lawrence Diller with more detail:

Dr. Kifuji determined that Rebecca at age two had hyperactivity and began prescribing drugs to her at that time. Kifuji changed her diagnosis to bipolar disorder at age three. She also made the same diagnosis for Rebecca’s brother and sister who were nine and seven. All three were receiving variations of these sedating psychiatric medications. Kifuji, who was granted immunity against prosecution to gain her cooperation, testified during the trial that she relied almost exclusively on reports from Rebecca’s mother on the children’s aggressive behavior, sleep problems and history of mental illness in the family to make the diagnosis for the three children.

… [A] three year old was prescribed three psychiatric drugs for bipolar disorder…

… Joseph Biederman, head of Harvard’s Pediatric Psychopharmacology Clinic, has long espoused the bipolar diagnosis in children. He and his group have claimed the diagnosis can be made in children as young as two and should be followed by aggressive psychiatric drug interventions…

Once Kifuji’s finished with her busy court appearance schedule, she will be hiring lawyers to defend her against a malpractice suit from the estate of Rebecca Riley.

Tufts thinks she’s great. Happy to have on her board.

From an article about Chopin’s bicentennial this year.

The astronauts who blasted into orbit on the Endeavor space shuttle Feb. 8 carried with them a CD of Chopin’s music and a copy of a manuscript of his Prelude Opus 28, No. 7 – gifts from the Polish government.

The Endeavor commander, George Zamka, who has Polish roots, told the Polish news agency PAP ahead of his trip to the International Space Station that listening to Chopin in space would enhance the majesty of the cosmos.

I like Chopin too, but this seems excessive praise.

… the latest in Norwegian faculty speech codes.

The University of Oslo recently fired Arnved Nedkvitne, a medieval history professor with a mouth on him. He appealed, but a court backed the university, which argued that he often said mean things about his colleagues.

Spurred on by this victory, the university’s human relations specialist Mette Børing

… proposed to work out guidelines as a kind of code of conduct at the university with lists of words and expressions not to be tolerated when describing a colleague. She claimed this was needed, having four or five other cases on her table after the Nedkvitne case, with similar accusations of improper characterisations of colleagues. She said something had to be done.

This strange proposal brought her to the front page of the major Oslo finance newspaper, Dagens Næringsliv, with a comment by Kristian Gundersen that he regarded this as a clear breach of his democratic right of expression. The following day, Oslo Rector Ole Petter Ottersen denied such a work was in progress.

Several people commented on the proposal with Professor Bernt Hagtvet of political science at the university asking rhetorically: “Would for instance the expression ‘braindead perfumed puma’ be accepted in her list of words?”…

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Update: Limericks:

1.) From Ahistoricality:

There was a braindead perfumed puma
subsisting on gossip and rumor:
“When I make up rules
to govern these fools
I can fire all these Molly Bloomers!”

2.) Dave:

I said “you’re a puma: brain-dead, perfumed”
To the Dean, and my tenure was doomed.
It wasn’t much to the liking
Of a censorious Viking.
“Should’ve called him a lynx,” I assumed.

3.) UD:

The brain-dead and perfumèd puma
Lives deep in the hills of Exuma.
At first it was Prussian.
Then, quite briefly, Russian.
Until banned from the halls of the Duma.

You bet your ass.

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I know it’s not fair to brand them all.

As soon as she set eyes on football coach Rich Rodriguez, University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman decided to make this trouble-prone loss-leader her mistress.

Before Rich even came to Ann Arbor, she paid his millions in debts to West Virginia University. She overlooked his many legal entanglements, his long history of coaching violations, his tendency to belittle his players. She set Rich up in glorious surroundings and gave him massive amounts of money.

Love does funny things to you.

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Fervent she may be about Rich, but Coleman knows she cannot shout her love from the rooftops. Not everyone approves. So when she meets with trustees to discuss Rich’s latest infractions (the NCAA is investigating Rich for breaking team practice rules) , she makes sure it’s closed door.

But here we go again. When it comes to Rich, you never stop paying:

When the University of Michigan Board of Regents met this month for an update on the NCAA investigation of the football program, they did so behind closed doors. And that, says a lawsuit filed today, was illegal.

The suit, filed by a U-M alumnus in Washtenaw County Circuit Court, accuses the Board of Regents of violating the state Open Meetings Act, which places restrictions on how and why such public bodies can meet in private.

Robert Davis’ lawsuit says discussing the NCAA probe isn’t a valid reason to meet privately. The Open Meetings Act allows such boards to meet behind closed doors to discuss things such as personnel issues, student disciplinary cases and consultations with its attorney on certain issues. The law spells out procedures that must be followed to go into a private session. The lawsuit claims regents did not follow proper procedure…

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When asked to comment, Coleman burst into song:

He will not always say
What you would have him say
But now and then he’ll say
Something wonderful!

The thoughtless things he’ll do
Will hurt and worry you
Then all at once he’ll do
Something wonderful!

Amy Bishop’s Lawyer Expresses Regret For Calling His Client “A Wacko”

SUNY Binghamton’s Lois DeFleur
Told her students “I’m totally seur —
As the sports program grows,
We will smell like a rose!”
Only now the place smells like maneur.

Headline in the Kalamazoo Gazette:

SEARCH TEAM FORMED TO FIND
WMU MEDICAL SCHOOL DEAN

… you are SO not surprised by the iSight scandal.

iSight, SynchronEyes… Why are they always about eyes, guys?