New human rights agency chief Hyun Byung-chul came under fire Sunday for allegedly plagiarizing his own academic papers in 1989 and 2002.

The allegation is expected to deal a fresh blow to President Lee Myung-bak …

Hyun, a law professor at Hanyang University, allegedly copied many paragraphs from his papers published in 1986 and 1998 for other papers published by different journals in 1989 and 2002, respectively, the Hankyoreh newspaper reported.

The original papers and the copied ones had different titles and some different sentences, but virtually are the same, it said, quoting legal experts. Hyun failed to identify quotations or reveal the source of information in the copied papers.

Hyun denied the report, saying he wrote about different subjects in the papers, but they could carry the same sentences…

Hyun had been president of Hanyang Cyber University, an Internet unit of Hanyang, since March 2006…

Earlier, presidential secretary designate for social affairs Park Mee-seok, a former professor at Sookmyung University in Seoul, resigned for plagiarizing her student’s thesis for one of her past research papers.

In 2006, then education minister Kim Byong-joon stepped down from his post, taking responsibility for a thesis plagiarism scandal only 12 days after taking office…

… has died.

I’ll have more to say about him in a bit.

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I’ve now sent off a post about Kolakowski – about, in particular, his interest in religion – to Inside Higher Ed.

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The post is now up. Remember that you can use the list over there… over there to your right… now down a little… the one that says LATEST UD BLOGS AT IHE … to read any of my Inside Higher Ed pieces, starting way back in 2007.

He’s lost all his Rothkos.

CityFile proposes we pitch in with replacements.

Customers [at a Berlin brothel] who arrive on bicycle or who can prove they took public transportation get a 5-euro ($7) discount from the usual 70-euro ($100) fee for 45 minute sessions.

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UD thanks her sister for the link.

Some details on who’s who, and background, here.

UD is, to say the least, flattered.

What is it with Harvard business school professors? There’s the Bionic Man (currently in trouble for a spot of public aggression); and now there’s Mr Nipples (watch the film).

Lauren’s a kind of nerd Superman:

He was cocaptain of the Waverly High School football team, changing uniforms at halftime to play tuba in the band.

At the gym:

During a workout on a recent Friday afternoon at Total Performance Sports, his T-shirt and shorts were stained with sweat and the white chalk he uses to help him grip weights. Blood trickled from old leg wounds reopened by deadlifting a heavy bar across the space between his ankles and knees.

That which does not kill me!

His wife:

He weighs about 200 pounds, but overall his physique is not particularly imposing – especially for someone who can flip an 800-pound truck tire end over end for 100 feet. In fact, his wife said that when she first met him, she thought he was merely “fat.’’

The workshop follows recent controversies in Australia over commercially-funded clinical practice guidelines for venous thromboembolism prevention, and a sponsorship deal between Sanofi-Aventis and the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute which was in breach of the Medicines Australia code of conduct.

Australia takes up conflict of interest.

Nice photo of her from college days.

“[C]oncerned that ‘not one permanent
course in this university now deals in
any notable detail with the Puerto Rican
or Chicano cultures,’ she succeeded in
convincing Princeton history professor
Peter Winn to offer a seminar on
Puerto Rican history.”

… Harvard professor….  And now…

He’s engaged to Ivanka Trump!

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Update: How he got there:

When Jared applied to college, [his father] was determined to get him into the most prestigious schools, and he called in favors to achieve his goal. In 1998, [he] made a $2.5 million pledge to Harvard. According to The Price of Admission, the best-selling book written by Pulitzer Prize–winning Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Golden, [Jared’s father] asked New Jersey senator Frank Lautenberg to lobby Ted Kennedy to put in a call to Harvard admissions dean William Fitzsimmons on Jared’s behalf.

Scathing Online Schoolmarm reads the Mark Dreier letter.

Sentenced to twenty years in prison for theft of hundreds of millions of dollars from investors, Dreier “used money obtained from the scheme to support a lavish lifestyle, including purchasing two beach-front homes in the Hamptons valued at about $12.5 million, a $10.4 million Manhattan apartment, a $18.3 million yacht, a 2007 Aston Martin DB9 Volante, [and] more than $30 million in art work … ‘He abused his clients for seven solid years in every way imaginable,’ said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Streeter at the hearing.”

But he could write. And he wrote a long letter to the judge before sentencing. Let’s take a look at some of it.

And let’s think about what he wants this letter to do. Clearly, he wants a lighter sentence as a result of sharing with the judge his humanity, his motives, his anguish and guilt.

He says at the beginning, “I am writing to give some context to what I did… to try to explain how a person with my background and advantages came to do the unconscionable. Perhaps in learning how I made these terrible decisions which have ruined my life, others may avoid such mistakes. [This is] a warning to others not to follow in my path.”

Dreier indeed had every advantage, growing up in a loving, affluent home and attending the excellent schools in this post’s title. So one is curious to know how a person to whom so much had been given was able to take so much away.

Although he got the wondrous jobs you’d assume, “I was achieving less satisfaction and recognition than I expected. Colleagues of mine and certainly clients of mine were doing much better financially and seemingly enjoying more status. By my mid-forties I felt crushed by a sense of underachievement.”

Well, he’s honest. And he does write well. He tells us quite clearly that although filthy rich and located at the pinnacle of success in New York City, it wasn’t enough. As long as one other person seemed to have more money or status (That ‘seemingly’ is interesting, isn’t it? It acknowledges the pesky, abstract nature of status. By definition, you can never really know, can you, whether other people are enjoying more?), he was crushed.

Again, you have to admire the honesty. But how sympathetic can you be to someone who honestly tells you that his greed is cosmic, infinite, transtellar, surpassing the imaginings of humankind and deity? Sympathy implies the ability to perceive and feel at least a little of the reality of someone else’s emotions, experiences… What he has done is so extreme, so grotesquely bad, that the idea of his mea culpa serving to stop others from the same behavior doesn’t really get off the ground.

“[I felt] overwhelmed by debt, by a disappointing career, by a failed marriage… And so, incomprehensibly, I started stealing.” But it’s not incomprehensible, even if it is impossible to sympathize with it. If we assume a totally amoral, grasping human being, eaten up inside at the thought of any person with more money or status, the crime is perfectly comprehensible. If your bottomless greed sends you into debt despite your earning an enormous salary; if you don’t care about destroying people; and if you care cosmically about being rich and showing off your goods, then you will certainly steal.

“I lost my perspective and my moral grounding; and really, in a sense, I just lost my mind.” We have no indication of any moral grounding ever in this man’s life – he provides none in the letter – so we cannot go with him here. Bernard Madoff’s parents were both crooks; he understood morality, but never cared for it, and probably didn’t know many people who did. It might be the same situation here. Everything points to an amoral, grasping person from the ground up.

And Dreier certainly never lost his mind. He carried out his crimes with brilliant forethought for seven years, and stopped only when the police hauled him in. There’s nothing crazy about stealing from people if you want their money and don’t care about the law, morality, or the destruction of other human beings. “I just wasn’t in control of myself.” But he was. He may have lost control of his scheme as it became more and more complex. But he himself was always – as was Bernard Madoff – under control. Still is. Writes one hell of a letter.

“In some sense, being caught was a relief.” Now we’re starting to have problems with honesty. Not only that, but as the letter winds down the self-dramatization everyone who knows him describes as part of his spectacular narcissism emerges in a damaging way. His final paragraphs are self-pitying, though meant to be poignant. “I have lost all my friends. I have lost my law license, my law firm, and all that I ever owned. I have seen my family suffer the unimaginable.”  Like ‘incomprehensibly’ earlier, this just doesn’t work. Smart guy like this – he certainly imagined this outcome. He  didn’t care. He doesn’t care about people. He cares about money and status.

This is from the letter’s final paragraph: “I don’t know what gives some men the strength of character to lead virtuous lives for all of their lives, and what causes others, such as myself, to lose their way.”

The rhetoric is bracing but unreal. No one leads an entirely virtuous life; it doesn’t really take that much effort to lead the sort of pretty much moral life most of us manage to lead. It takes effort – unless you’re a career criminal – to spend seven years consciously destroying hundreds of lives.  

SOS suspects that this man did not lose his way, because his way was always degeneracy and covetousness — to get biblical about it. SOS indeed suspects that he took some pleasure at the thought of his evil, of what he was getting away with, of how he was making fools of people.

This letter, well-written as it is, would have been better had Dreier admitted that he is by nature and upbringing a thief, that he rather enjoyed his long run, and that the best he can offer at this point is to say that he’ll maybe spend some time in his cell giving thought to that.

It’s a pretty typical story, if you follow university sports the way UD does. Gruesomely-run state with way-past-dire economy features large public university run by jocksniffers. Pointless, cost-overrun new stadium, overpaid coaches, secret deals, academic mission shot to hell, blahblah.

But sometimes things get so shameless, so squalid, that a certain perverted integrity emerges. The people who run Rutgers will run it into the ground, and damned if anyone’s going to stop them.

It’s unseemly at best that as the Rutgers University Board of Governors was approving tuition and fee hikes this week, school officials were also exulting over a pair of large donations that will pay for a nearly $5 million luxury lounge for the new football stadium.

We know all the excuses. It’s free money. The wealthy donors — two of them — wanted the money used for this specific purpose. They have the right to attach whatever strings they want. And of course the lounge will be really nice and fancy and be a helpful recruiting tool for a program that aspires to greater glory, and since it’s all private money, who cares?

But here’s how officials could have — should have — responded to the donors. They should have graciously explained that given the current economic conditions and pressures it simply wouldn’t be appropriate to accept that much money for such a frivolous project. To pursue the lounge, some of the donated money would have to redirected to another worthy cause, either in academics or even to some of the more neglected sports. Some funds could even have gone to restoring the lost sports programs that a coalition of supporters is still fighting to bring back.

And if the donors refused, school officials could have politely declined the offer and moved on. Because that luxury lounge is hardly an urgent need, or a need at all.

… Let’s remember that the $100 [million]-plus expansion of the football stadium was a boondoggle from the beginning. After the football team threw together a couple of successful seasons officials started bending over backwards trying to grow the program. The expansion project was only part of it. The school also threw silly money at head football coach Greg Schiano, including secret, lucrative provisions that eventually prompted investigations and an overhaul of the entire athletic department…

Judging from my dog’s excitement, plus the general population of rabbits, I think we’ve got a nest of rabbits under the deck out back.

I’m okay with rabbits, as I’m okay with deer. Sure, these guys eat plenty of garden. The deer behead the lilies, the rabbits shred the hosta. But UD, despite her ‘thesdan locale, isn’t your basic suburban neatnik with groomed grass and worries about upkeep. Walk by her house and you’ll see a pretty well-tended garden with a natural lawn. But avoid the back. Broadly speaking, it looks okay, because it’s lush and green and forested; but UD does little with it, and the animals in the adjacent woods are having a field day.

The most amazing thing she’s seen
back there was a mink.

She has also seen coyotes.

She saw plenty of lizards in Key West (UD‘s just back from living there for three months), but of course you don’t see them in colder climates — unless they’re an escaped pet.

Betty Moran said she stepped onto the rear patio of her Libertyville [Illinois] home Friday, hoping to spend a quiet afternoon reading a summertime novel when she first saw the unwanted visitor.

Staring back at her was a two-and-a-half foot-long lizard, its long, blue forked tongue fully extended.

“I jumped up on the picnic table,” said Moran, 66, her face hinting at a fear that lingers days later. “I ran inside, slammed the door and called my neighbor.”

Although the leafy expanses lining St. Mary’s Road are not where one expects to find an exotic reptile, the Morans say their coldblooded guest has found a home beneath their front deck.

“We thought that it might be an iguana, but then I saw it eat a mouse in a single gulp,” she said. “Then on Saturday it was sunning itself on our deck, looking into the house and scratching on the window.”

Sam Sweet, professor of Zoology at the University of California Berkeley, identified the animal as an African savannah monitor lizard through photos taken by the Morans.

“It appears to be someone’s pet that escaped after being well cared for several years,” Sweet said Monday. “My guess is that the publicity will reunite it with its owner. Savannah monitors are really harmless – just pick it up.”

The Libertyville Police Department loaned the Morans a cage to trap the lizard. Hamburger and apples lay on a plate, untouched.

Jim Moran, 68, performed a ‘tap-dance’ on the deck in an attempt to flush out the lizard, but to no avail.

“When he saw me over the weekend, he didn’t seem overly concerned,” he said.

Monitor lizards are intelligent and adaptable reptiles known for their venomous bites and quick-whipping tails. They are native to Africa, Australia and Southeast Asia, where they can grow up to seven feet in length. Despite their strengths, monitors are tropical lizards and a few chilly nights can quickly push them to the brink of death.

Sweet said people should contact organizations like the Chicago HERP Society when they encounter strange reptiles not native to the area.

“What happens all too often is that people hit the panic button and call the police who decide it is a problem and shoot the animal,” he said. “People should instead contact these organizations and somebody will try to find a good home for it.”

So while the Morans are pleased to know the monitor is probably domesticated and therefore harmless, don’t expect them to welcome it with open arms.

“I’d rather face a lion than this lizard; reptiles are not my thing,” said Betty Moran. “In my dreams, I’ve been hoping that the coyotes can have a feast.”

A few days later…

Libertyville’s most-wanted lizard was finally captured Wednesday afternoon.

College of Lake County Professor of Biology Mike Corn was called to the residence of Jim and Betty Moran after the African savannah monitor lizard was discovered sunning itself on the rear patio.

After a brief search of the property, Corn reached into a bush and came out holding the two-and-a-half-foot-long lizard.

“This lizard is very tame and was undoubtedly someone’s pet,” Corn said. “It is a growing young adult with healthy fat reserves.”

Everything from hamburger and hard-boiled eggs to sardines [has] been placed in steel cages around the home for weeks, but the trap-savvy lizard had eluded capture and likely remained burrowed in soil beneath the deck.

Wednesday’s muggy weather and a strong appetite for mice and chipmunks ultimately drew the wayward reptile to the surface.

“He gulped down a mouse the first day I saw him and I’ve only seen one chipmunk around here in the past two weeks,” Betty Moran said.

The well-fed lizard seemed at ease stretched out on Corn’s left arm and allowed careful hands to stroke its scaly skin.

For now it has been transported to the College of Lake County, where it will be cared for and displayed for biology classes.

“These lizards are active hunters – this one has been surviving on mice and small chipmunks,” Corn said. “We are fortunate because tropical lizards like this would have a real tough time surviving in this area’s autumn climate.”

The Morans were glad that the lizard had found a better home, although they appreciated the rodent control the coldblooded carnivore provided their property.

“Now all the neighbors will want monitor lizards to take care of their mice problems,” Jim Moran joked. “It’s a beautiful and fascinating little animal and I was truly amazed by how tame it was.”

Betty Moran said she’ll return to what was an ordinary summer until the lizard showed up June 26.

“Now I can go outside without worrying about what I’ll see in my peripheral vision,” she said. “I just hope I don’t find any of its eggs.”

Thomas Edwards, a good writer, was the reporter on both stories.

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Update: Are you kidding?

… is an attractive — nay, adorable — blog with a great title and great graphics, written by a thoughtful twenty-something who thinks UD‘s hot shit.

What more could you want?

… an influential Stanford university computer sciences professor, was found dead in his swimming pool last month.

Toxicology results show “a blood-alcohol level of three times the legal limit at the time of his death.”

Motwani was credited by Google co-founder Sergey Brin as his unofficial academic adviser. He called Motwani’s contributions to computer-science “brilliant.”

… Inside Higher Ed column in response to this, Scott McLemee’s thoughtful discussion of Isaac Rosenfeld, a tragic and compelling figure.

It’s now done, and should appear pretty soon.

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Here ’tis.