Tightly Wound

Tuesday's Exercise in Pointing and Laughing

No matter what you think of him as an intellectual, you can always trust David Horowitz to bring out the academic wankery.

Here we have a Horowitz rebuttal to a review written by Inside Higher Ed's Scott McLemee. Now, if you've ever read anything by McLemee, you'd know he tends to go for the snark, which is fine as far as it goes, I guess, but that's neither here nor there.

Hilarity ensues in the comments following Horowitz' rebuttal, complete with the academic equivalent of "Shut up!" "No, you shut up!" "You're a poopy-head!" "No, you are!" And at least one weird-ass comment about black helicopters, but I didn't bother to try and decipher that one.

It would be amusing, if it weren't for the fact that these folks are completely missing the point, which, as one commenter remarked, isn't about Horowitz at all. It's about the changing public perception of the university, and what may happen as a result.

Tuition costs keep rising at a higher rate than salaries. We've got kids coming out of school with more debt load than I have with a mortgage and a family. It seems pretty natural for folks to start questioning the value of college education, and to start paying attention to what, exactly, these tenured "untouchables" are doing in their classrooms.

Academics should be worried, and not about David Horowitz, because it seems to me that--fair or not--we're heading toward a place where "learning for its own sake," no longer justifies the expense, and the consequences will be dire indeed--and not just for the academics.

Salt, Cold Water, and Shout

With these three ingredients, you can Conquer the World!

Or, at least you can get the bloodstains out of your child's pillowcase, pillow, comforter, sheets, and pajamas.

The Boy suffers from nosebleeds, courtesy of his maternal grandmother. No, she doesn't punch him, but it's her DNA that's giving him this little problem, as she was a nosebleedin' fool throughout her childhood.

Me? I had one nosebleed in 7th grade during English class, and that's been it. Yes, it was traumatic. Junior high is not the place to be different, and projectile bleeding during The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner tends to make a person stand out from the crowd. So I didn't get the nosebleed gene, unless it only fired once. I'm thinking I just had a really bad visceral reaction to Coleridge. He's still not my favorite.

So Sunday morning at 5:59 a.m. I am awakened by "Mommy!" I hop out of bed and cross the hall. "My nose is bleeding," says The Boy, so I grab a tissue from the bathroom and go to his side. It's dark, so I don't realize how MUCH his nose is bleeding until I sit on his bed and look at his hands.

Total Carrie moment. However, I manage not to freak out, he manages not to freak out, and after about 15 minutes of pressure, and 8 or 9 more soaked tissues, the bleeding stops. I was frankly surprised that local predators weren't drawn to our home by the scent of fresh blood. It was kind of a lot.

That's followed by the cleaning. Lots of cleaning.

The next time it happens, I'm calling my mother to come do laundry. Her genes, her fault.

Just Me and My Microwave

Wreaking havoc, Goodfellas Style. Watch out, Boopsie! I'm coming for you!

Via Feral Girl.

Angel Dust People Iced: Thirty Six Car Bombs Planted: Two Favorite Weapon Microwave Oven Arms Broken: Four Eyes Gouged: Twenty One Tongues Cut Off: Thirteen Biggest Enemy: Boopsie Get Your HITMAN Name

Voicemail-bag

From the "If I could make stuff like this up I'd be a much wealthier person," files:

This is a somewhat truncated transcription of a voicemail that our office received yesterday. Name has been changed to protect the dangerously stupid, and drunk, recent graduate who left it. Read it and weep--weep!--for our future.

Voice Message received at 6:49 a.m.

"Um, hi. This is Cynthia, C-Y-N-T-H-I-A Simmons, S-I-M-M-O-N-S, but really my friends just call me Cindy, C-I-N-D-Y. And yeah, your voicemail system is good with the emergency number to call and everything even though I haven't spoken to a human being."

"I graduated in 2002, if you need to look that up. I majored in Philosophy and Business."

"But I'm calling because I need to talk to someone about a refund? Because I only work 15 hours a week at this job that pays $7 an hour and it's just not working for me because who can live like that? So I want a refund of the money I spent because it's not helping--like, I want all my tuition money back."

"So someone needs to call me, Cynthia, C-Y-N-T-H-I-A, Simmons, S-I-M-M-O-N-S back at 111-111-1111. Or if you could tell me if your office is hiring, because I need a different job. Thanks."

Ah, Cindy's got her crunk on. It could explain why she's working 15 hours a week for $7 an hour. Although the more likely explanation is the fact that she got a Philosophy degree from a land grant university that specializes in agriculture and engineering.

So maybe the next time Davidson calls me for a donation I'll ask for a refund. Because obviously I should be pulling down 6 figures simply because I went there and got a degree! My own ambition, work ethic, and abilities have nothing whatever to do with it!

Just think! Cindy, C-I-N-D-Y, and her buddies will be running the country when we're old!

Dumb Quote of the Day

And it has nothing whatever to do with the Summers ousting at Harvard. My take on that boils down to "typical." Interpret it however you see fit.

No, the dumb quote of the day comes from a local story on schools separating middle school boys and girls for the core classes, ostensibly to remove the distraction of those burgeoning hormones and the self-consciousness that entails and to tailor the classes to the learning patterns of boys and girls.

Personally, I think that's a great idea. But it wouldn't be journalism without the obligatory "dissenting view," (and don't get me started on the number of professional cranks this particular journalistic practice has created--grr) and so we have this little "I'm totally missing the point but I'm on auto-pilot and it's a decent soundbite" gem from the local NOW dingbat:

Groups such as the National Organization for Women have likened classes split by sex to the unconstitutional "separate but equal" reasoning used to keep schools racially segregated.

"When kids say science is for boys, that's just what society has told them," said Worthen, who works in the technology field mostly around men. "If I had not learned to interact with men, how could I go into my workplace and encounter them every day?"

Anna, WTF? Did you even pay attention when the reporter explained the article to you? Let's break down the stupidity bit by bit, shall we?

1. Ooh, the eeeeevilllle spectre of "separate but equal." Let's see...they're in the SAME school, being taught the SAME subjects by the SAME teachers. Yep, it's practically apartheid. Man-de-la! Man-de-la!

2. Girls being shortchanged because they DON'T learn "the girl way?" Then they're being screwed right now, sweetie, largely because organizations such as yours have been instrumental in changing the pedagogy so that everyone is now learning "the girl way," with the result that boys are suffering. Or didn't you read that article, because it didn't portray girls as helpless victims of the patriarchy? Do you hear the words that come out of your mouth, Anna, or are you just reading the talking points memo aloud again?

3. Where in the teacher handbook does it say that in addition to managing classrooms full of unruly teens, piles of useless administrative busy work, psycho parents, and school politics, teachers should be "challenging assumptions about the sexes?" When exactly are the teachers supposed to TEACH THE SUBJECT MATTER, Anna, before or after the Up With People fireside singalong?

4. Oh no, these poor stunted middle schoolers will have no idea how to get along with the opposite sex if they don't diagram sentences together! Again, Anna, did you pay attention? The sexes are only separated for a few classes. There's plenty of time to interact both inside and outside of the classroom.

Grr. My tolerance level for the stupid has decreased exponentially today. Just...between reading this tripe and dealing with a shirty reporter from a large Yankee publication, I'm done for the day.

The Mommy Malaise, Part 1,173,413, or, Why I Will Never Move Back to Wake County

So I was randomly surfing the blogroll yesterday and came across this woman's book-plugging site. Remember her? With the "Oh, it's so hard to be a mom, we've bought into the myth, blah, blah, blah, my child's pediatrician might not be the RIGHT ONE and no one appreciates me" whinefest?

Remember how silly I thought that was, and how folks I knew simply weren't that out-of-control?

Hah! Hah again, I say! These women are everywhere, and they quite frankly must. be. stopped.

As you know, I have recently moved The Boy into a smaller daycare situation--really, it's more like a babysitting situation. Now, I didn't do this on a whim, and I was a little nervous, but I noticed that The Boy really seemed to look forward to hanging with the new sitter in the new place, etc. etc. The driving force behind organizing the move was the mom of The Boy's best buddy, and I was content to follow her lead because she's one of those hyper-organized women with too much energy. Ah, hindsight. You are no friend of mine. But all was basically well.

And then the sitter added one more part-time child, who, for reasons of anonymity I will simply refer to as Hellboy. Because, yeah. Hellboy.

Hellboy was a bit younger than The Boy's cohort, and much less mellow than the 18 month old brother of The Boy's best buddy. No one liked Hellboy. Hellboy was out of control. It was a problem.

Now, perhaps because we are women and have to talk about everything, I ended up speaking with high-energy mom and the mom of a part-time girl at a birthday party we attended. They were concerned, and yeah, Hellboy needed to be dealt with, but in the course of the conversation a whole bunch of other concerns came out. Concerns, might I add, that I didn't actually SHARE, because I was under the impression that if The Boy could write his letters, numbers and name, and he was happy, then I was cool. 'Cause, you know, he's FOUR, and it's not like we're gonna be busting out the SATs in the next 6 months or anything.

But anyway, I shook off the feeling of End Of Daycare Days deja-vu, and suggested that they just tell the babysitter their concerns. And--again, hindsight, you evil bitch I hate you--I asked the babysitter if she could maybe do a couple of things to formalize the schedule, just to put my mind (and possibly those of the other moms) at ease. So she did! What a shock.

So then high-energy mom called me--at work--and asked if I'd spoken to sitter-woman. I said yeah, and that frankly I thought if it was such a big deal we should just have a meeting--that it wasn't a matter of sitter incompetence but of communication.

Then the sitter calls me to tell me that high-energy mom had come to her house on Saturday for THREE HOURS to outline Things That Must Be Done. Jesus. And high-energy mom was seriously talking about enrolling her four-year-old in a Sylvan program over the summer to prepare him for Kindergarten. Jesus squared, people. Seriously. He's FOUR. He doesn't require grammatical remediation or fluency in a foreign language, although sitter-girl does teach them Spanish. In the current situation, he's gonna go to Kindergarten able to do letters, numbers, and to write his name. He'll be able to label both colors and body parts in two languages. He'll know how to use a computer--if he's in a public school, he's gonna be thrown in with kids who can't even do that. And most importantly, he'll have spent a decent portion of his childhood having fun. Remember fun? And childhood? Remember that?

Anyhoo, I haven't called high-energy mom, who probably thinks I'm siding with the sitter or undermining her or that I'm an uninvolved parent or some damn thing that I haven't the energy to explore. I'm trying to be blandly supportive of sitter-woman, who for some reason (probably because I'm not an over-protective psychopath) has latched onto me as a mentor. And I am sitting here praying to God to spare me from these crazy-ass Uber-Moms, because if He doesn't, bad things are probably going to happen. Very Bad Things.

Some days, it just doesn't pay to be sober.

Home again, home again

jiggety-jig.

Just got back from a fun-filled weekend in St. Louis at the AAAS conference, which for you humanities types is the MLA of science, except without the silliness and overuse of colons in the symposia titles.

A large paleontologically-themed time was had by all, as was toasted ravioli and decent beer from the micro-brewery down the street.

And yes, I did go up in the arch, where the day's conditions were accurately listed as "movement." It was a bit like being on a boat, only 630 feet in the air.

Side note - midwestern friendliness kinda creeps me out, and I'm not sure why this should be the case, as I am genetically southern and therefore used to that sort of thing. Maybe it was the accent...

More later, as I regain my brain and get out from under two tons of work-related crud.

Gifts I Can Use

Oh, right. It's Valentine's Day. I have neither great love nor flaming hatred for Valentine's Day--I just think that if you're going to stick a random gift-extorting holiday in the middle of the bleak midwinter when everyone is feeling pale, doughy, cold and bloated, you should at least remind people that the gifts can be something useful, or that your beloved would really like.

So if your signifigant other shares any traits with yours truly (which might be a stretch, because I'm not like other girls, according to my co-workers, husband, and every other man I've ever known, but whatever...) here is a list of Valentine's Day gift-giving do's and don'ts:

Don't give me lingerie. Seriously. It's mid-February, I'm still coming off of the "pale, bloated and doughy need to hibernate with flannel and comfort food holiday binge," and I do not even want to THINK about what I will look like encased in satin, lace, or feathers. And if it comes with a thong? Oh, hell no. Even if you do give me lingerie, you will only see it as part of the lacy blur that races past you en route to heavy blankets or a flannel robe. Check the calendar, Romeo. February! It's COLD, dammit!

Same with chocolates. I love chocolates, but don't need any more help with the "bloated and doughy" thing.

No jewelry. I am hard on jewelry, so I will probably destroy anything you get me within 15 minutes of receiving it, I hate "accessorizing," and I always forget to wear it anyway. Plus, every time I look at it I'll be thinking, "How many pairs of shoes would that money have bought? Or DVDs? Or video games? Ack! The wastefulness of it all!"

Flowers? Eh. They're great to get when it's spontaneous; not so much when it's expected, and then they just die. And also I hate chrysanthemums. Violently. Tulips, please.

So I hate everything, right? Not exactly. Here's my idea of the perfect Valentine's gift:

1. Cook dinner.

2. Present me with my own copy of God of War.

3. Get the hell away from me for the rest of the evening.

My needs are simple, people. Possibly not very romantic, but simple.

You may send Hublet your condolences in the comments.

Shakespeare in a Day

So Hublet and I spent this past Saturday down at Davidson with 10 teenagers from Sampson County, an Activity Bus that was possessed by Satan, a bunch of snooty high schoolers from Mecklenburg County, and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Let me preface this by saying that I love theatre--I loved it even when my acting professor senior year wanted me to be Blanche DuBois because he felt that I needed to "explore my sexuality;" I loved it when I stage managed for a tiny start up theatre troupe in Winston-Salem where my "booth" was a choir loft in an old church, my cues involved poking the sound and light guys (who sat right next to me in the pew) with my elbows and pointing at my book, and my house lights were cued by tugging on a string which was attached to the finger of a guy named Bob who sat in the back of the church next to the light switch--and this weekend really made me miss all that.

Well, maybe not the part with Bob and the string, because that church had bad wiring and the lights would always short out halfway through the show and I'd be tugging the string and the lighting guy would be running to the basement to hit the breaker box and Bob would be snoozing and the actors would still be gamely plugging along onstage--I could have done without that drama, really. That and the fact that our opening night audiences were always mostly comprised of prisoners out on a good behavior field trip. But all the other stuff? Yeah.

Anyway, we were there to do "Shakespeare in a Day." The idea was to have 8 different schools perform one or two short scenes from either Romeo and Juliet or Midsummer Night's Dream. They would string the scenes together and end up with 25 minute versions of each play which would be staged in front of a live audience at the end of the day. Hublet's kids had gotten their lines down the week previously and done some rudimentary blocking, but he teaches English, not Drama, so we're talking bare bones here.

Hublet arose at 3:00 a.m., got to his school by 4:45 a.m. and they left for a 4 1/2 hour ride at 5. I met them at Davidson at 9:30, and at 10 we did a tour of the new performance hall at Davidson (which I would have killed to have performed on, by the way--holy cow!--you can do any show there with the exception of Phantom, because they can't fit the crane inside the building. But anything else is a go--they did Angels in America last year, complete with giant cracking wall and floating angel.). Then the RSC led the kids through dance and fighting workshops, did run-throughs of the scenes, then took them to the stage to do a tech run-through, then back upstairs to work on fine tuning, then back for a full rehearsal, then the curtain rose at 5.

The RSC staff were amazing! Imagine taking a year's worth of acting classes in two hours. They pulled great stuff out of the kids, and watching a bunch of sarcastic, "yeah whatever" kids transform into excited performers of Shakespeare was just beyond words. The staging was bare bones--we set Midsummer in a mall, and scene changes were marked by folks "walking" around the mall and striking "mall poses" every so often to the beat of the mall muzak. It worked really well--you could follow the change of actors and actions easily.

Most of the other schools were there with drama teachers. Most of the other schools had vibrant drama programs, and the kids knew their way around a stage. We had travelled the farthest of anyone else, and we were probably the only group there with a real honest-to-God pageant princess (Miss Teen something-or-other) among our number. We kind of stuck out, in other words, and consequently got taken under the wing of one of the program's directors, which was awesome, and had nothing at all to do with the fact that he found Hublet's "Randy Quaid quality" fascinating or that we bribed him with homemade Snickerdoodles. (NOTE: Hublet doesn't really look like Randy Quaid, but he reminds everyone--including random british people--of Randy Quaid. It is a mystery for the ages.)

None of the other kids sounded quite like ours did, either: listening to Antonio deliver Demetrius' line to Helena like this, "Ah luv thee knot thay-er fore pursoo mee kno-ut!" was jarring, but also hilarious and refreshing, and the kids just ate up the audience feedback.

The best part was seeing these kids from Sampson County get over their whole "red-headed stepchild" complex and realize that they belonged onstage just as much as anyone else. And our Rude Mechanicals doing Pyramus and Thisbe at the end just kicked all kinds of humor ass, even when our little Wall flubbed a line--she recovered and kept on, just like my fellow Winston-Salem actors used to when the lights would blow out in the church.

God, I love theatre.

Flop Sweat and Economics, Oh My!

So here at the U., we have a yearly forum-y hoo-ha in which movers and shakers from academe and politics convene to solve the world's problems! Fun (and a free lunch, if our office plays its cards right) is generally had by all.

This year's topic is economics, with all the excitement that entails for me.

But the highlight of this year's forum was definitely the high-profile lunch speaker, whose name rhymes with Saul Moogman.

I have never witnessed a professional academic with less public poise, ever. Seriously, I don't even remember what he was talking about, except that it obviously was geared toward policy wonks and not a lay audience, but I do remember the copious amount of sweat he produced while at the podium.

It was a LOT of sweat. And his hands were all trembly. And then he spilled water on his laptop. And did I mention the nervous cough that prompted some kind soul to give him the water that he then spilled on his laptop?

The coup de grace was when he let fly one final cough into his hand, which he IMMEDIATELY offered to our former governor and the host of the event. Hee!

All I could think was, "Dude, you're a professor! And a much-ballyhooed columnist for a high profile Yankee paper! Surely public speaking isn't new!"

But maybe he was afraid that the red state minions of North Carolina would rise up as one and set him ablaze for his heretical ideas. Of course, the red state minions would have first needed to rouse themselves from their stupor--oh, and stop laughing at the flailing economist.

As a counterpoint, the former presidential candidate and scion of publishing whose name rhymes with Jeeve Morbs was clear, concise, and used real-world examples. Also, he didn't sweat, spill water, or infect our former governor with whooping cough. However, he was a bit, erm, forceful in his delivery, which is why he will never succeed in politics. Motivational speaking, perhaps, but politics? Oh, hell no.

Snarky Question of the Day

RE: the whole Mohammed cartoon thing -

If no images of the prophet are allowed, then how do people know that the cartoons are of Mohammed?

Just wondering. I mean, we wouldn't want to have an embarrassing "Oh! Sorry I firebombed the EU headquarters--I thought you drew the prophet, but actually now that you mention it, you're right. It might not even be him! After all, it's not like we have a bunch of graven images lying around..." moment or anything, would we?

Sigh.