… reflects on the tenth anniversary of September 11.

For UD, mindful of Iris Murdoch –

For most of us, for almost all of us, truth can be attained, if at all, only in silence. It is in silence that the human spirit touches the divine.

– days like this are about attending to the drawn-out si…….lences of Henry Purcell.

But UD is also moved by this:

Elijah Portillo, 17, whose father was killed in the attack, said he had never wanted to attend the anniversary because he thought he would feel angry. But this time was different, he said.

“Time to be a big boy,” Elijah said. “Time to not let things hold you back. Time to just step out into the world and see how things are.”

Be silent. Then step out and begin to talk.

The sprightly violin. The distinctly speaking flute. Tis sympathy you draw.

… Swedish style.

… Jan Björklund, the minister of education, moved to tighten central control over [for profit] schools and is soon to launch a parliamentary inquiry into competition and free schools.

“Loopholes in the legislation have meant that free schools can elect not to have a library, student counseling and school nurses,” he complained. “And as they get just as much money as the municipal schools, the owners have been able to withdraw the surplus.”

… Much of the learning at the 32 schools in Sweden run by the company is done alone by students, using an online system, with one-on-one guidance from teachers once a week, interspersed with lectures in classes of up to 60 students.

If students prefer to play cards and chat all day, it’s up to them.

[The author of a recent study] argued that such systems were brought in as much to save costs as to improve education.

Kunskapsgymnasiet’s IT-based teaching system allows it to cut the number of teachers it employs in Malmö to 5.1 teachers per 100 students, compared to an average of 8.2 teachers per 100 students at municipal schools.

“Many municipal schools are horrendously bad,” Vlachos said. “But the difference between the free schools and the municipal schools is that the free schools actually have a profit incentive to reduce quality.”

Hey! Same here!

Pharma loved Harvard because of its big ol’ name.

That has changed, as a Harvard professor who studies the interaction between industry and med school professors notes. “For a long time in medicine, not just at Harvard, but everywhere, there was a culture that said doctors were entitled to industry perks, but that culture is breaking down,” [Eric] Campbell said. “Doctors no longer assume it is their right and duty to accept these perks from industry.”

But hey. One school keeps the perk banner waving — and it’s UD‘s own GW!

“It’s just a rough environment,” said Dr. Lawrence DuBuske, [a Massachusetts] allergy specialist… “The industry wants very little to do with Massachusetts.”

DuBuske, who has been a top speaker for GSK and AstraZeneca about asthma medications, resigned from Brigham and Women’s last year, rather than give up his speaking appearances. Since then, he has landed a job at George Washington University School of Medicine and Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

WKU: a perennial University Diaries favorite:

“Our president has great vision and does not settle for anything less than excellence,” [coach Willie] Taggart said. “The school has put a lot of money and resources into upgrading the football program. We have unbelievable facilities and the budget to get the job done. It won’t happen overnight, but we’re going to get this thing rolling again.”

Western Kentucky has struggled mightily since leaving the I-AA level in 2007, compiling a 4-32 record the last three seasons. WKU posted a 2-10 mark in Taggart’s first season at the helm, snapping a 27-game losing streak along the way. The Hilltoppers have not won a game at Houchens Industries-L.T. Smith Stadium since Sept. 20, 2008. That home losing streak currently stands at 15 games.

The University of West Bohemia law school (Plzeň, Czech Republic), was famous for its fast-track law degree, awarded tout suite to anyone with money, until some journalists got hold of the scam and it had to shut down.

Now there’s a lawsuit from a guy pissed that he can’t make people call him Magister anymore (his degree was rescinded). He wants his diploma mill degree back.

Closer to home, there’s this pathetic guy, who bought his PhD at a diploma mill and made everyone call him Doctor until some journalist noticed that Madison University is way bogus.

Asked who was on his dissertation committee, Rogers said, “Oh, God, it’s been eight years. I don’t remember.” Asked for a copy of the dissertation, he said all his copies were at his house in Norfolk, Virginia…

and he lives in North Carolina now and is unable to access it.

… her grandfather, Joe Rapoport, ran Rapoport’s department store in Port Deposit, Maryland. This red brick building

was Rapoport’s. (Click on the photo for a bigger image.) UD remembers visiting there – the long dark store with clanging registers and rows of dusty shoes in the back, and the upstairs apartments (we slept in the rooms on the second level; the balcony overlooks train tracks and the Susquehanna River).

Port Deposit has been evacuated; the Susquehanna has overrun the place.

**********************************

I found the photograph here.

UD thanks her sister.

Uh, yeah…

Some are, I guess.

Not Ohio State, though.

…[S]everal Fort Hays freshmen are currently living in a Motel 6 across town from campus because… there isn’t enough dorm space to house them. The problem isn’t fixed, and students stuck at the motel have to shuttle to and from classes and on-campus events.

People are instead worried about wasting time bidding on an autographed copy of Jordy Nelson’s autobiography to further contribute to this stupidity.

Again, I wonder if Hays knows how lucky it is to have Fort Hays State University. If it did, its citizens would be more worried about providing better student life and academic quality than donating money to an athletic program that rarely accomplishes anything.

… Apparently, a current weight-lifting room, a wrestling room, a track and two gyms isn’t adequate to house a football team that hasn’t won a state championship in decades. Their prestigious history of never winning anything must demand more.

Excellent writing from Josh Dreiling of Fort Hays State University.

… from UD‘s house in Summit, is under water.

Teehee.

Wired surveys the night of the living dead which is Righthaven, the company which has the distinction of having sued your blogger, UD.

A bunch of UD‘s friends and neighbors are featured in this Fox report about the dire USPS situation.

… and trying to worm your way out, once you’ve been accused, can also be ugly.

For an article about the rise of fascist movements, the Polish news magazine Przekrój used a cover image of Hitler’s face with a barcode instead of a mustache.

Very clever. Also very already done.

The cover artist argues it’s all a remarkable coincidence:

[T]wo artists arrived at the same conceptual solution independently … [T]he similarity is more a comment on the fact that we think and solve visual problems alike than anything more.

Unfortunately, the similarity lies in far more than the use of the mustache as a barcode.

… as university football season finally gets under way!

Maryland fans, with boos and taunting signs, turned the Hurricanes’ pregame entry into Byrd Stadium into a gridiron perp walk. Eight Miami players, including quarterback Jacory Harris, were suspended for at least one game for receiving improper benefits from a convicted Ponzi schemer and former Miami booster named Nevin Shapiro.

I come to praise GW.

It’s been a long dark wet day, and I’m just about to walk to the Foggy Bottom metro and go home. But first I want to praise GW.

When I got out of the metro station this morning, anxious about how well I’d do in my second week of teaching, since I’m not quite recovered from my surgery, it was impossible to feel anything but good. Good and strong and happy.

Because here after all was the world – the world of people – and I hadn’t had much to do with that for three or so weeks, as I lay in bed reading, blogging, and taking pain pills. Here were… Wellies! Wellies of all kinds – spotted, mid-calf, plaid, psychedelic, thigh-high. Gazing especially at the stylish GW women splashing around me, their elegant suede-like Wellies setting off black leggings and soft brown jackets, I was… I dunno… enamored. It was a hyper-urban scene – people jogging, servers setting out tables in front of the row of new restaurants across from my office, a wrecking crew working its way through what used to be a campus parking lot – and I realized I’d missed this, faces and bodies whirling around me, chic new foodie places coming on to me with their starched tablecloths and big pink container plants. It was opening day for Whole Foods. It was morning in the city, and even in the rain people were crisp and excited and beautiful.