… a (really well-written) scandal-sheet. Or it might be exactly the sort of clearinghouse for developing stories, and public commentary on them, that strong journalistic blogs are meant to be.

Its target, Clemson University, is already experiencing terrible publicity because of its Animal Farm-based management structure. FITS suggests that there’s more wrong with Clemson than that.

We’ll see.

… about which UD‘s already posted, has now been released as a movie. Here’s the New York Times review.

… for Harvard’s outrageous mismanagement of its endowment, but Alex Beam (one of UD‘s favorite writers) doesn’t really have enough evidence for what he’s trying to pin on him here.

Ward Churchill, that is. And yes, you’ve noted correctly that UD isn’t covering Ward’s trial. She’s had enough of Ward. I think you can watch the whole trial on Fox News or something.

But Ward’s vile words about 9/11 look almost mild compared to those of his British counterpart, who has now been suspended from his university post because of the violence of his threats against capitalists.

Chris Knight, of the University of East London, told BBC Radio 4 things “could get nasty” after ex-bank boss Sir Fred Goodwin’s Edinburgh home was attacked.

The university confirmed in a statement the professor of anthropology had been suspended from duties on Thursday.

An investigation was being launched into his comments, it said.

… The professor was interviewed for BBC Radio 4’s PM programme after the home and car of former Royal Bank of Scotland boss Sir Fred were attacked by vandals early on Wednesday morning.

Mr Knight, who was organising [G20] protests next week, said: “We are going to be hanging a lot of people like Fred the Shred [Sir Fred Goodwin] from lampposts on April Fool’s Day and I can only say let’s hope they are just effigies.

“To be honest, if he winds us up any more I’m afraid there will be real bankers hanging from lampposts and let’s hope that that doesn’t actually have to happen.

“They [bankers] should realise the amount of fury and hatred there is for them and act quickly, because quite honestly if it isn’t humour it is going to be anger.

“I am trying to keep it humorous and let the anger come up in a creative and hopefully productive and peaceful way.

“If the other people don’t join in the fun – I’m talking about the bankers and those rather pompous ministers – and come over and surrender their power obviously it’s going to get us even more wound up and things could get nasty. Let’s hope it doesn’t.”

What can UD tell you about the friend she’s known for almost thirty years now that he’s a very big deal?

He was the best man at her wedding. He gave a glorious toast.

He and Mr UD go way back. Both sons of Harvard professors, the two lads lived only a couple of blocks away from one another in Cambridge, and they were among the first to attend Charles Merrill’s Commonwealth School in Boston. (Mr UD loves to tell the story of Merrill one afternoon awkwardly announcing that the kids were going to have a guest speaker that day, a poet… Uh… the headmaster’s brother… Guy named James Merrill…)

Both went to Harvard, where they remained close friends. Both moved to Washington, Peter to work for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Karol to work at the University of Maryland.

Over the years, Mr UD has accompanied Peter to Kurdistan, Baghdad, and East Timor to work with him on political issues.

Les UDs have spent many moody, meditative New Years in Vermont with Peter (he has long had a house there), his family, and other friends.

Peter is a loyal and loving friend.

He has an excellent sense of humor. UD once made him laugh so hard he almost lost it. Les UDs and Peter and Peter’s girlfriend were driving back from kayaking in Virginia somewhere. Peter was at the wheel. UD, notorious for being unable to tell even a simple joke correctly, was trying to tell the first of these two jokes. It all went terribly wrong, and became far more obscene than necessary, in her hands.

Somehow the total ineptitude of UD‘s telling, and the desperate obscenity of her version, sent Peter into such a spin that he almost lost control of the car.

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Peter has the driven, complex, difficult personality you’d expect with his high-powered background, his politically active and ambitious family, and the legacy of his world-historical father. In fact it looks as though the Number One diplomat in Afghanistan (Peter will be the second in command) didn’t want him appointed.

“Galbraith is a much stronger personality, he’s a bigger name, from a bigger country and he is going to carry more weight [than the Norwegian at the head of the UN team,” one diplomatic] official said.

Yeah, I guess he’s a strong personality. Sure. Very strong.

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Update: UD doesn’t have any pictures of herself with Peter on this computer, so she’ll run this one instead. He’s standing somewhere nearby.

Les UDs visited Peter when he was the American ambassador to Croatia, and they spent a day yachting and eating excellent food on various islands with Croatia’s then-president, Franjo Tudjman. In this photo, La Kid, showing a good deal of sense (Tudjman was an unsavory character), is hiding her face rather than be photographed with him. UD has no such reservations, and smiles, as you see, broadly.

… at the Alliance for Human Research Protection, who have written a letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association people asking for Bonnie and Clyde to be let go.

A nonprofit group that monitors industry links to medical research called for the suspension of the top two editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association, and an investigation into allegations that they threatened a researcher who criticized a study published in the journal.

The Alliance for Human Research Protection, which is often critical of industry-academic ties, made the requests in a letter it sent Wednesday to the AMA and the journal, also known as JAMA.

“We are deeply concerned about the unbecoming and unethical conduct of the editor in chief and executive deputy editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, who were reported to have used unprofessional and intimidating tactics against a conscientious academic,” the alliance wrote in a letter requesting the investigation. Many doctors and academics have criticized JAMA’s reaction to the academic, Jonathan Leo, on Internet blogs recently.

The AMA and JAMA said they were reviewing the letter and declined further comment. Jordan J. Cohen, a professor of medicine at George Washington University, who is chairman of JAMA’s oversight committee, hasn’t returned telephone and email messages this week…

Perhaps Cohen hasn’t returned calls because he’s too busy dealing with his medical school being on probation.

It’s the only med school in the United States on probation.

Between the JAMA editors and the unresponsive Jordan Cohen, I’m truly beginning to wonder about this organization.

Background on the come an’ git me, coppers! editors of JAMA here.

… ass? Merkins aren’t made for that purpose.

Thus Ezra Merkin’s attempt to cover his ass in the Madoff matter by having his sister write a New York Times opinion piece minimizing his involvement was doomed to fail.

Yet the real question is how she managed to get the piece published at all. It’s rank conflict of interest, an attempt by a protective sister to twist the facts of her brother’s culpability.

Gawker and the Jewish Journal, among others, have expressed amazement at what looks to UD like simple corruption on the part of the NYT. Daphne Merkin’s a longtime contributor to the newspaper, no doubt a friend of some on the editorial board, and they’re doing a friend a favor by letting her try to influence the many lawsuits currently being filed against her brother.

It’s disillusioning for poor UD. She never thought of the New York Times as a provincial newspaper.

Boyce Watkins, in Black Athlete:

The NCAA needs to redefine its mission and be honest with the world. Right now, it is an elephant with bunny ears, swearing that it’s nothing but a harmless little rabbit. The truth is that the NCAA is exactly what it appears to be: a professional sports league. So, rather than allowing me to become the head of the NCAA, I would rather be the head of the House Ways and Means Committee, which initiated an investigation into the NCAA and began to question its non-profit status. A bureaucratic beast that has grown so deformed with contradictions needs to be deconstructed and rebuilt in a model of fairness. As it stands, the NCAA exists in stark contrast to the values most of us embrace as Americans. I’ve seen it up close over the past 15 years and it bothers the heck out of me.

That the NCAA remains non-profit is an absolute amazement. If you can believe the NCAA is a non-profit organization, you can believe anything.

… the worst university in America. Now a new book tells you why. In detail.

The Lawrence Journal-World wonders…

[Kansas University] athletic teams obviously attract many financial contributions that help support non-revenue sports, but it’s not clear exactly how much those contributions add to the academic excellence of the university or the well-being of the state. At some point, it seems that the money being spent on athletics could actually detract from a university’s academic mission.

… [T]he size of the investment [KU] and other U.S. colleges are making in athletic programs could make some observers wonder just what those schools see as their primary mission.

…writes a student on her RMP page, and I guess it’s true.

A creative writing professor at Drake University seems to have beaten up her boyfriend, and is under arrest for “domestic assault, first-degree burglary, criminal mischief and obstruction of emergency communication.”

[Anzalone] began yelling and threw a Yankee Candle at Peterson, which struck him at the base of his head. Peterson eventually went to Mercy Hospital where he was treated for minor injuries.

Anzalone allegedly followed Peterson through his house and tore a picture off of his wall and threw it down the bedroom hallway, according to the police report.

She then took his cell phone as he was trying to dial 911. Before she left, Anzalone hurled a glass vase at a double-pane window, shattering both panes, the police report said.

Peterson called police from a neighbor’s house. When police arrived, they went to Anzalone’s home and called Peterson’s phone. A phone rang on the bookshelf that showed the officer’s phone number in the caller ID, police reported.

When officers asked why Peterson’s phone was in her possession, Anzalone said that Peterson must have left the phone there the last time he visited.

… close up.

Faculty outrage over well-publicized administrative bonuses there has reached the boiling point, including some in the faculty senate calling for a vote of no confidence in Clemson president James Barker and provost Doris Helms, who saw her pay increase by 32.8 percent over the past two years.

Adding fuel to that already burning fire was news earlier this month that Barker’s son was recently hired in the Office of Marketing Services to make $51,000 and Board of Trustees vice chairman Joseph Swann’s daughter, attorney Erin Swann who works in Barker’s office, received a 24.2 percent raise. The information came out of a faculty senate meeting on Tuesday, March 10, in which Clemson French professor emeritus John Bednar brought the personnel and raise issues to the floor and issued strong condemnations of Clemson’s leadership.

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Over the past two years, Clemson gave pay raises ranging from 10 percent to 100 percent to 99 people — only 46 of whom were faculty members; the majority of those raises went to administrators, coaches and extension employee[s]. The university also has come under fire — rightly so — for hiring the president’s son and giving a 24 percent raise to a lawyer whose father is vice chairman of the Board of Trustees.

Background, if you can stomach it, here.

Selena Roberts, SI.com.

… As Florida State’s faculty frets over looming budget cuts that could push 200 staffers out the door, [FSU president] Wetherell is throwing money at lawyers to preserve football victories.

“Florida has been very hard hit by the mortgage crisis and recession — surely that impacts on the state funding that FSU receives for education,” says Murray Sperber, a professor emeritus at Indiana, who wrote Beer & Circus: How Big-Time College Sports Is Crippling Undergraduate Education. “Shouldn’t the FSU president be working on solving that problem? Now, he might argue that Bowden’s victory total is what keeps legislators and taxpayers happy, and so he has to get that up front. If he is right, why call it a university, especially when you overlook egregious cheating?”…

Why call it anything? It’s nothing, really.

This sort of contribution.

You’re missing a lot if you don’t occasionally troll Rate My Professors.