The moon emerges like a night sun out of cloud bands.
Au fond, I’ve always come to the beach more for the sky than the water – the sunrises, the moonrises. (Au fond each summit is a cul-de-sac, as one of James Merrill’s most adorable lines has it.)
Tomorrow night’s the big Rehoboth fireworks display on the beach just outside our apartment; tonight was a smaller show at neighboring Dewey Beach, along with, more spectacularly, a string of small red and yellow explosions all along the Jersey shore, easily visible from our balcony. It reminded me of one July Fourth evening in upstate New York, when suddenly pyrotechnics emerged between two distant Catskill peaks.
Why do these silent far-off displays move me more than big crackling in your face shows? They seem a natural event, the earth itself celebrating the country; and their miniature gaiety has a modesty far more attractive to me than the bombast of the bomb blasts.
… A photo taken moments ago by our
friend and fellow Garrett Parker Koneti.
Click on it to see Les UDs sitting
in front of their Prius, UD clapping
and Mr UD holding a copy of the
Declaration of Independence, which
every year he reads to UD while the
parade is going by for maximal inspiration.
One of the [restaurants] that will be purchasing [a new beer named, in honor of Donald Trump, “Chinga Tu Pelo” or, in English, “Fuck Your Hair”] is Gino’s East Pizza Joint, [which] will then donate all proceeds from the sale of the beer to the International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago.
… a retreat from the pettiness and divisiveness of the real world.
Of course UD will continue blogging from the beach, as she has always done.
… Wojciech Fangor will interview Mr UD. Details as the project proceeds. Put fangor in my search engine for my Fangor posts.
It was the university as cult of personality, the first American university where the founder’s face took up more room on its logo than the heraldic shield. It was the university Benito Mussolini would have founded if he’d been allowed to retire rather than been executed by firing squad and hung upside down in a public square. And now to be reduced to this… Its very identity as university poked at, questioned, ridiculed…
Trump Must Disclose Profits From His ‘University’ in RICO Lawsuit
DONALD TRUMP MUST DISCLOSE PROFITS HE MADE FROM FAKE UNIVERSITY, JUDGE RULES
Donald Trump must disclose how much money he made from his so-called Trump University …
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Donald Trump must disclose how much money he made from Trump University, in the discovery phase of a RICO class action accusing him of defrauding students of millions of dollars, a federal judge ruled. U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel [Uh-oh: Curiel’s a “longtime member of the National Hispanic Bar Association.“] on Tuesday ruled that Trump’s financial transactions involving Trump University are relevant to lead plaintiff Art Cohen’s claims.
The first time an SEC school’s fan base violates the [don’t-rush-the-field] rule, the institution will now face a $50,000 fine, which is 10 times more than the previous penalty. The second offense carries a $100,000 fine, and any subsequent offense will result in a $250,000 fine.
[The University of South Carolina] already has two offenses …
“So if it happens again, we would be subject to that third offense which is $250,000,” Jeff Davis, Associate Athletics Director for Operations and Facilities… “So that would come out of operating funds, and would be a huge blow.”
And there’s more.
Conservatives are footing the bill for taxes that Planned Parenthood, a nonprofit, doesn’t pay — while liberals are making up revenue lost from the National Rifle Association. I could go on. In short, the exemption-and-deduction regime has grown into a pointless, incoherent agglomeration of nonsensical loopholes, which can allow rich organizations to horde plentiful assets in the midst of poverty.
Readers who’d like to (re)visit UD‘s long-running amazement that Harvard University, sitting on close to 36.4 billion dollars (No, that’s silly. That’s crazy. “[W]hen it comes to these fancy universities the official endowment figures are a drastic understatement of the real wealth of the university. Harvard’s real-estate assets are mind-bogglingly valuable, for example, but not part of the endowment.“), continues to enjoy non-profit benefits, can click on the category harvard: foreign and domestic policy. You’ll find it at the bottom of this post.
… Arthur Porter, who died resisting extradition to Canada to stand trial for one of the biggest university-related thefts in history. As head of the McGill University Health Centre, he initiated construction of
a $1.4-billion mega-hospital.
Within a year, news broke that $22.5 million in kickbacks had been paid by the winning contractor, SNC-Lavalin.
Police have alleged that Porter received $11.25 million in secret commissions for rigging the hospital contract in SNC-Lavalin’s favour.
It’s a pity Porter’s trial will not happen. It would be good to know how far the culture of crime extended (extends?) at McGill.
Ah. With each clause, UD’s smile widens.
***************
Very good brief backgrounder here.
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The next big change, they say, came in 2006, when Congress passed legislation backed by the Bush administration that erased a requirement that colleges deliver at least half their courses on a campus.
The top regulator on higher education at the Education Department during this time was Sally Stroup, now general counsel for the for-profit’s chief lobbying arm, the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities.
“That’s when these guys took off,” said Tom Harkin, a former Democratic senator from Iowa who led a 2012 investigation into the for-profit industry. He said moving everything online made it easier for private investors to snap up failing schools and hide from regulators. Meanwhile, the schools invested heavily in lobbyists and making political connections that guaranteed access to federal student aid would be protected, he said.
“These schools went out and ran wild with government money,” Harkin said.
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A fed’ral official named Stroup
Did the ol’ gov-to-biz loop de loop:
She made our schools trash
And sucked in the cash
But now it is time to regroup.
A mid-summer reminder from UD that research fraud – whopping big research fraud – is a year-round phenom at American universities. Two representative cases that have recently hit (re-hit; these stories have been kicking around for years) the news come from med and business schools, the two great incubators of research fraud. (Engineering schools do financial fraud, as in professors taking grant money and setting up secret businesses into which they divert said grant money.) (And let’s not forget psychology and sociology – two departments with extremely impressive histories of fraud, if not as impressive as med and biz schools, and with less capacity to inflict serious damage on humanity.)
UD reported on Bentley University’s James Hunton this time last year; he’d been fired from Bentley back in 2012, when the school managed to overcome Hunton’s total refusal to cooperate with their investigation of one made-up research paper (the number of such papers has risen to 31) to can his ass. (Subject of Hunton’s research: fraud.)
The Washington Post provides an update:
One of the nation’s premier academic journals of accounting has retracted 25 articles co-authored by a once-renowned professor who specialized in corporate ethics but was later accused of “fabricating” data.
The American Association of Accounting, which publishes the Accounting Review, issued the retractions last week based on a “pattern of misconduct” by James E. Hunton, who resigned from his position at Bentley University in Waltham, Mass., a business school with nearly 6,000 graduate and undergraduate students.
The hunt’s on for Hunton:
Hunton has made no public comment on the allegations against him. Neither The Post nor Retraction Watch has been able to locate him now or last year when The Post, the Boston Globe and other news outlets wrote about the results of Bentley’s investigation of Hunton.
For a guy like Hunton, who had the balls to make up vast swathes of accounting firm employees across the globe, to pretend to interview them, to create copious data about them, and to write it all up in probably hundreds of academic papers, the business of dropping out and changing his identity was probably a cinch. No doubt he’s living in Jamaica, having dyed his hair red, had facial surgery, and stolen the identity of some poor student he had twenty years ago. You ain’t gonna find Hunton.
Dong-Pyou Han not so much.
Dong-Pyou Han pleaded guilty in February to faking results in AIDS-vaccine experiments. Prosecutors say his actions led federal administrators to award an extra $7 million to $20 million in grants for the research, and they want him to serve prison time for his actions… [F]ederal research administrators were “flabbergasted” by the supposed success of [Han’s] experimental vaccine, which led them to increase the project’s financing. [Han’s fraud led his] research team to focus on the specific vaccine, when they could have been looking into more promising areas.
Faking results in the great pandemic of our time. Stand-up guy.
Anyway. Terrific blogs like Retraction Watch couldn’t exist without the steady stream of research fraud coming not just from the States, of course, but from all over the world.
The problem some have with all of the money coming in through Oregon athletics is every dime of it is spent on athletics.
“They have $98 million in revenue and, strangely, exactly $98 million in expenses,” [a former University of Oregon business school dean] explained. “If you look back year after year, you will find that revenue and expenses match up almost to a penny. … When they get extra TV revenue, they do what they just did in February. They go to the president and the Board of Trustees and the coaches and the athletic director get raises, so expenses go up.”
There is something to be said for a football program that is capable of being self-sufficient in its operations, and it is far better than operating in the red on an annual basis. But how much should Oregon’s athletics department be contributing to the academic side of things? There may be no perfect answer to this question.
Whether it’s because there are too many distractions nowadays or they want to study, students, who are paying athletics fees to support the sports programs, aren’t interested in going to games. It’s not a problem unique to [the University of Akron].
“That’s a trend everywhere,” [Joel Maxcy, a sports management professor,] said. “It’s hard to explain.”
1.) My fraternity brothers were preparing for finals at the University of Florida…
University of Florida! Are you kidding me? That university was just ranked number one in America for most athletes arrested!… Oh whoops. Let me concentrate on the matter at hand. Fraternities. Ok. Frat boys studying for finals…? Uh… ok….
2.)
when word echoed throughout Zeta Beta Tau that we were being blamed for unthinkable behavior: harassing combat-wounded veterans.
Linda Cope, the founder of the Warrior Beach Retreat, a local charity in Panama City Beach, appeared on Fox News and other media outlets alleging that we spit on veterans and urinated on the American flag.
Panama City Beach? Are you kidding me? The rankest town in America, where three men raped an unconscious woman on the beach midday and no one did a thing… It was only discovered when the police chief reviewed video in connection with a slew of other crimes. … But ahem. Let me once again concentrate on the matter at hand. Spring break, unspeakable acts…
3.)
We went from being anonymous college students to being the most hated fraternity in America over allegations that, to us, came completely out of left field.
Completely? Says here (see response from the national chapter at the bottom of the page) that “What was not pointed out was that at the time these events occurred, the chapter was already on probation imposed by the University of Florida.”
4.)
Many of us have family members who have proudly served in the military. My grandfather fought during D-Day. I have a photograph of my grandfather sitting on the wing of a captured German fighter plane.
The focal point of our chapter house’s living room was an American flag that we proudly displayed.
That’s all great. Great. But, you know, the male bonding that you love so much … too much… “Witnessing the tears and anguish of my brothers at the moment school officials clarified that our chapter had been officially closed was indescribably painful… [Nothing can adequately convey] the heartbreak and devastation that I and my fraternity brothers feel over losing an organization that we loved so dearly. Many of my brothers feel they have lost their collegiate identity.” … plus alcohol, can make you forget how much you love Old Glory…
5.)
Due process was conveniently cast aside to mollify an angry public that deemed the allegations indisputably factual in light of the stereotypical fraternity culture portrayed in the media.
Yes, it looks as though your fraternity didn’t behave as outrageously as initial reports suggested. Maybe you’re right to be upset that the resounding response from America to this clarification of your Panama City Beach behavior is So fucking what. But you go to the University of Florida, you’re a member of a fraternity already on probation, and your guys were part of ongoing, high-profile Panama City Beach foulness. Sorry.
6.)
With no means to defend ourselves, we had no choice but to watch our execution in the court of public opinion.
Soyez tranquille! Guns are on their way. Once you’re fully weaponized, no one will be able to shut you down.
