In the New Yorker.
The top schools, led by Stanford, are now aggressively exploring online education, which they had previously left to the for-profits. This doesn’t mean that they will suddenly start granting degrees online to ten or a hundred times as many students; instead, they are likely to offer a second, cheaper (or even free) tier of education that will only enhance the lifelong value of their traditional, in-residence degrees.
Yeah, well, plenty of people – including this blogger – were appalled when the ninth law school in that state opened last year. Almost immediately, its president resigned because of credit card misuse.
Then there’s Irvine’s new law school, another concentration of overpaid professors and unemployed grads.
But on and on the ABA goes, accrediting everything, making the world safe for tens of thousands of useless lawyers and hundreds of professors who earn $150,000 to $350,000 a year preparing their students to be unemployed.
… just keeps it coming! Good on you! Especially for a religious school.
Bloomsday Central, part of the Rosenbach Library website, lists details of Bloomsday (June 16) celebrations all over the world. It doesn’t yet list Washington’s, in which UD will perform, both at the Irish Embassy and at the Cosmos Club.
UD will read, at the Club, from the end of the Ithaca chapter from Joyce’s Ulysses, when after a long day Leopold Bloom finally falls asleep next to his wife, Molly. UD loves the way, as Bloom loses consciousness, the text itself drops off.
He kissed the plump mellow yellow smellow melons of her rump, on each plump melonous hemisphere, in their mellow yellow furrow, with obscure prolonged provocative melonsmellonous osculation.
The visible signs of postsatisfaction?
A silent contemplation: a tentative velation: a gradual abasement: a solicitous aversion: a proximate erection.
What followed this silent action?
Somnolent invocation, less somnolent recognition, incipient excitation, catechetical interrogation.
With what modifications did the narrator reply to this interrogation?
Negative: he omitted to mention the clandestine correspondence between Martha Clifford and Henry Flower, the public altercation at, in and in the vicinity of the licensed premises of Bernard Kiernan and Co, Limited, 8, 9 and 10 Little Britain street, the erotic provocation and response thereto caused by the exhibitionism of Gertrude (Gerty), surname unknown. Positive: he included mention of a performance by Mrs Bandman Palmer of Leah at the Gaiety Theatre, 46, 47, 48, 49 South King street, an invitation to supper at Wynn’s (Murphy’s) Hotel, 35, 36, and 37 Lower Abbey street, a volume of peccaminous pornographical tendency entitled Sweets of Sin, anonymous, author a gentleman of fashion, a temporary concussion caused by a falsely calculated movement in the course of postcenal gymnastic display, the victim (since completely recovered) being Stephen Dedalus, professor and author, eldest surviving son of Simon Dedalus, of no fixed occupation, an aeronautical feat executed by him (narrator) in the presence of a witness, the professor and author aforesaid, with promptitude of decision and gymnastic flexibility.
Was the narration otherwise unaltered by modifications?
Absolutely.
Which event or person emerged as the salient point of his narration?
Stephen Dedalus, professor and author.
What limitations of activity and inhibitions of conjugal rights were perceived by listener and narrator concerning themselves during the course of this intermittent and increasingly more laconic narration?
By the listener a limitation of fertility inasmuch as marriage had been celebrated 1 calendar month after the 18th anniversary of her birth (8 September 1870), viz. 8 October, and consummated on the same date with female issue born 15 June 1889, having been anticipatorily consummated on the 10 September of the same year and complete carnal intercourse, with ejaculation of semen within the natural female organ, having last taken place 5 weeks previous, viz. 27 November 1893, to the birth on 29 December 1893 of second (and only male) issue, deceased 9 January 1894, aged 11 days, there remained a period of 10 years, 5 months and 18 days during which carnal intercourse had been incomplete, without ejaculation of semen within the natural female organ. By the narrator a limitation of activity, mental and corporal, inasmuch as complete mental intercourse between himself and the listener had not taken place since the consummation of puberty, indicated by catamenic hemorrhage, of the female issue of narrator and listener, 15 September 1903, there remained a period of 9 months and 1 day during which in consequence of a preestablished natural comprehension in incomprehension between the consummated females (listener and issue), complete corporal liberty of action had been circumscribed.
How?
By various reiterated feminine interrogation concerning the masculine destination whither, the place where, the time at which, the duration for which, the object with which in the case of temporary absences, projected or effected.
What moved visibly above the listener’s and the narrator’s invisible thoughts?
The upcast reflection of a lamp and shade, an inconstant series of concentric circles of varying gradations of light and shadow.
In what directions did listener and narrator lie?
Listener, S. E. by E.; Narrator, N. W. by W.: on the 53rd parallel of latitude, N. and 6th meridian of longitude, W.: at an angle of 45ø to the terrestrial equator.
In what state of rest or motion?
At rest relatively to themselves and to each other. In motion being each and both carried westward, forward and rereward respectively, by the proper perpetual motion of the earth through everchanging tracks of neverchanging space.
In what posture?
Listener: reclined semilaterally, left, left hand under head, right leg extended in a straight line and resting on left leg, flexed, in the attitude of Gea-Tellus, fulfilled, recumbent, big with seed. Narrator: reclined laterally, left, with right and left legs flexed, the indexfinger and thumb of the right hand resting on the bridge of the nose, in the attitude depicted on a snapshot photograph made by Percy Apjohn, the childman weary, the manchild in the womb.
Womb? Weary?
He rests. He has travelled.
With?
Sinbad the Sailor and Tinbad the Tailor and Jinbad the Jailer and Whinbad the Whaler and Ninbad the Nailer and Finbad the Failer and Binbad the Bailer and Pinbad the Pailer and Minbad the Mailer and Hinbad the Hailer and Rinbad the Railer and Dinbad the Kailer and Vinbad the Quailer and Linbad the Yailer and Xinbad the Phthailer.
When?
Going to a dark bed there was a square round Sinbad the Sailor roc’s auk’s egg in the night of the bed of all the auks of the rocs of Darkinbad the Brightdayler.
Where?
At the embassy, UD will get about five minutes to read excerpts she’ll select from Molly Bloom’s soliloquy. She is grazing that grassy consciousness now, seeking outcrops.
Er, not exactly. What Carlos Slim, world’s richest man, said a few hours ago to UD and 25,000 other people at the George Washington University graduation on the national mall, was “God forgives our sins, but our nervous systems don’t.”
He was trying to say that it’s okay to make mistakes in life, “but try to make them small ones.” God may forgive us, but we might not forgive ourselves, and the guilt we feel will play havoc with our nervous system. The line got a laugh.
Maybe the Washington Post writer got it wrong – and in his misconstrual made the statement meaningless – because of Slim’s strong accent.
Slim’s words certainly weren’t drowned out by the protesters who hoped to silence him (they argue that he shouldn’t have gotten an honorary degree, because of what they take to be his unethical business practices). La Kid, who as one of the GW graduates sat much closer to the protesters, said it was “a little awkward” as they blew their horns and all. Those of us in the family and friends section of the mall heard almost nothing of them.
Slim’s address was pleasantly at odds with the bland upbeat dare to be great business UD had been hearing at the two graduation events – a smaller one just for GW’s Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, and today’s immense spectacle on the mall – she attended this weekend. Not that Slim was downbeat — not at all. But he took seriously the tragic nature of life, spoke of our tendencies to drag ourselves down, our self-destructive drives…
Against Slim’s flickering old world, bright blue USA shone like mad — the huge sky over the mall burned with full sun, the handsome newscaster who gave the commencement address made us laugh, and on either side of our white chairs neoclassical buildings glistened.
Endless jets arched out of left field, then passed behind the Washington Monument and away. The newscaster reminded us of all the other artifacts of air and space in the museum behind us – American capsules that broke out of the atmosphere.
He reminded the students that they’d been the first, on the night Bin Laden was killed, to rush over to the White House and cheer; and they cheered now, at the reminder.
At one point in the proceedings dark clouds massed behind us, over the Capitol building, but then – typical Americans – thought better of it and fell back into blue.
After the ceremony, after tracking down La Kid and making a fuss about her and watching another graduate have her picture taken as she stood between two police-mounted horses (“Now go out and change the world,” said one of the riders, and the student said “I will sir, thanks.”), Les UDs walked to the new Teaism at Penn Quarter and had Thai Chicken Curry.
It’s 5:15 AM, and just this moment the morning bird chorus started up. Catbirds, if mine ears don’t deceive me.
Strange plagiarism story developing here in UD‘s hometown, Washington, DC, involving one Arnaud de Borchgrave, a curious local figure, a sort of journalist, with the brains and charm of Donald Trump. Having grown up with this figure of fun, and having wondered all along why no one else seemed to notice his bogosity, UD isn’t surprised to find him at the center of a big text-theft scandal.
Plagiarists, serial plagiarists, are the ultimate empty suits, the nowhere men of the cosmos. Most plagiarize out of fear of their own incompetence; a select few (Germany’s von Googleberg is a good recent example) plagiarize because they’re demigods, too important to earn their by-lines and degrees in the way of mortals.
In this elite company lies de Borchgrave, who, like his religious counterpart, Richard Land, barks out his bombast without bothering to have written it.
****************************
Update: de Borchgrave responds to multiple side-by-side examples with adorable insouciance:
If I dropped a few quote marks inadvertently, mea culpa. Everyone makes mistakes. I will make certain the appropriate quotation marks will be there in the future.
The dean of the College of Islamic Studies at Mishkah Islamic University of North America has published a paper, “Circumcision of Girls: Jurisprudence and Medicine,” which “repeatedly point[s] to the idea that female genital mutilation is ‘an honor’ for women.” This guy is particularly excited about the idea of nicking the clitoris, “an incision of the clitoral hood.”
He used to be on the faculty of the Mayo Clinic. They nicked him.
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who has died after a long life of lieder, captures, especially in this song’s final verse, the pathos that for many of us accompanies days of the sort UD is currently enjoying –
Spring, with magic words,
breathing sweet pleasure…
Breathing sweet pleasure, yet
What makes the breeze so tangy and refreshing
comes from anguish.
Listen to this final verse:
Die Kelche sinken nieder,
Sie schauen erdenwärts:
O Mutter, nimm uns wieder,
Das Leben gibt nur Schmerz.
The flower-chalices wilt
and gaze toward earth:
O Mother, take us back:
life gives us only pain.
Listen to his voice just barely rise on sinken and schauen, carrying – just barely – wilting life. That soft slight turn up the scale. How eerie it is to me.
So true. That’s why everyone’s writing about how dangerous and destructive (forget corrupt; corrupt we don’t even have time for) college football is. Nothing makes professors more envious than watching students play sports while failing to get an education, and then becoming unemployed.
One quarter of you have already been flushed out and diagnosed!
The massive “naturalist’s field guide” that is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has already tagged and bagged you.
A most serious problem, common to field guides, is the difficulty of separating entities that are similar in appearance.
The new emphasis on symptoms… has unfortunately encouraged a cursory “top-down” method that relies on checklists and ignores much of the narrative of …patients’ lives.
You coo like a mourning dove. But maybe you’re not depressed!
[P]sychiatrists using the DSM diagnosis “major depression” tend to mingle bereaved patients with both those afflicted by classic melancholia and those demoralized by circumstances. The mixing of similar-appearing patients who have conditions that are distinct in nature probably explains why use of this diagnostic category expanded over time and suggests why the effectiveness of antidepressant medications given to people with a diagnosis of major depression has, of late, been questioned. This tendency to blur natural distinctions may explain why other DSM diagnoses — such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and attention deficit disorder — have been overused, if not abused.
And don’t forget Hartz Mountain Industries.
[A] diagnostic category based on checklists can be promoted by industries or persons seeking to profit from marketing its recognition; indeed, pharmaceutical companies have notoriously promoted several DSM diagnoses in the categories of anxiety and depression.
[T]here is documentation for [fired Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis] to have received approximately $8.7 million since he left the school. That figure could rise to close to $19 million once the school reports its payments through the end of his contract in 2015.
Since leaving Notre Dame, Weis has kept working as a high-profile and highly paid coach. He was the Kansas City Chiefs’ offensive coordinator in 2010, the University of Florida’s offensive coordinator in 2011 and in December 2011 was hired as the University of Kansas’ head coach.
His contract with Florida was scheduled to pay him $875,000 for the 2011 season. Kansas gave him a five-year deal that is scheduled to pay him $2.5 million for the 2012 season.
After all, he’s an honorary doctor of laws.
And if during the proceedings he needs a character reference, he can get a fabulous one from Syracuse University, which not only conferred the degree but chose him to deliver the 2010 commencement address.
… are happening right now.
There’s apparently been a spontaneous outburst of student rage over basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski’s compensation.
At seven million dollars a year, Krzyzewski comes in a full million dollars short of Louisville coach Rick Pitino, and Dukies are not happy about it.
Duke’s president has joined the protesters, pledging in an address to them to set aside $500,000 of his own compensation next year for Krzyzewski. “I challenge my fellow administrators, our trustees, and, yes, our faculty and students, to make their own sacrifices on behalf of Coach K. If we’re going to compete with Louisville, it can’t be done by one person alone. Everyone can give something.”
As he spoke, a hastily composed cheer went up:
ONE K FOR COACH K! TWO K FOR COACH K!! HEY HEY HEY HEY THREE K FOR COACH K!!!
… meeting of the Garrett Park Town Council last night, UD perked up when the town administrator announced that one of UD‘s neighbors would be raising chickens — building a chicken coop in her backyard. All of the townspeople gathered in the Town Hall perked up.
Most of the meeting had been about important things – revisions to our land use ordinance in particular. Yet watching the Town Council eke out its new language word for word (“Is it possible to have a roofless oriel?”) was trying for those of us in attendance (regular readers know that UD reports on Garrett Park’s monthly Town Council meetings for the Bugle, the town paper), while hearing about chickens sent a thrill through the room.
Chickens! When Les UDs bought their Garrett Park house, they found the remains of two chicken coops at the top of their property, and for one mad moment thought about repairing and using them…
After the meeting was over, UD chatted outside the Town Hall (it was a dark wet night; it had been a dark wet afternoon, the sort that deepens the already deep green of the town’s rampant gardens and trees) with Chris, our last mayor.
“Chickens!” said UD. “But won’t that just encourage our foxes?”
“The more encouragement the better,” he answered. “We’re overrun with rabbits.”