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Monday, March 29, 2004
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MA's Are From Maharishis, Ph.D's Are From Postage
Much hoohaw au blogosphere about Dr. Mars/Venus, John Gray, having fudged his academic credentials. As with that other psychic credulity profiteer, Dr. Laura, Dr. Gray isn't quite the doctor he appears to be, having gotten a joke Ph.D. from a diploma mill and before that a levitationally correct MA from a maharishi madras. Like the New York Times Magazine writer who didn't appreciate people questioning his recent hard-breathing story about sex slaves (see UD post, Tuesday, January 27), Gray is running around telling various unlikely people - including an obscure Irish blogger - he's gonna sue, sue, sue if they don't stop beclouding his physicianly aura. Begosh and begorrah. Why would a zillion copies sold entrepreneurial giant like Gray - who has also lately established a national chain of mars/venus clinics for disorbital men and woman - want to get bogged down with lilliputians nipping at his heels? Why did he feel the need to butch up his BA in the first place? Americans don't give a rat's ass whether their lifestyle adjusters made it out of high school. It's only Gray's groundless middle-class anxiety about documentation that drew him into this swamp. Do I pause before opening Windows on my computer and say "Bill Gates is a college dropout! I can't do this!"? No. Does the United Nations look at Angelina Jolie and say, "She barely made it through high school. She's strikingly inarticulate. She can't represent us all over the world!" No. And what are the implications of this simple truth for the lemming-like run to college on the part of all young Americans? UPDATE, April 3 04: From the Springfield Missouri News-Leader , here's another tale from the diploma mills, this one particularly embarrassing given the professor's position running a "character" center: Embattled C of O dean gives up role in character program By Steve Koehler Larry Cockrum, the College of the Ozarks administrator whose educational credentials have come under question for several months, is stepping down as director of the school's character center. In addition, Cockrum has asked that the doctorate he received from the now-defunct Crescent City Christian College be dropped from behind his name in the school's online and printed academic catalog. Crescent City, operating in Louisiana, was found by Texas and Louisiana investigators to be a diploma mill, which offered degrees in exchange for little work. |