The Chronicle on paper
Today the Chronicle of Higher Ed paper edition arrived in the mail as it always does…and the little article about me is there in print, too! How nice! 😎
Mountebank Blog
Upcoming Invasion List
Sometimes Wonkette is not too funny…but sometimes she really cracks me up!
With Colin Powell gone, the White House looks forward to a slightly less stringent approach to invasion rationale. And, according to this list we found floating around, they’re taking advantage of that:
Country — Reason to Invade
Iran — Part of the Axis of Evil.
Syria — Harbors terrorists.
Kyrgyzstan — Too much like Kazakhstan.
North Korea — Not allowed when on Atkins diet.
Egypt — The pyramid is speaking to me.
Canada — Mmmm….bacon….
Ukraine — Started that whole cellophane wrapping of CDs and we hate that.
Thailand — Well, now that Ashcroft’s stopped spending the weekends there…
The Fauklands — Dirty-sounding name.
Lichtenstein — President does not believe this country exists.
National Geographic Society — On every map, no apparent sovereign.
California — Why not?
Poland — Don’t forget Poland.
Wit
Today’s Patrick O’Brian quote is a description of Jack Aubrey–but I think it applies to me, too.
He derives a greater pleasure from a smaller stream of wit than any man I have ever known.
🙂
Patriotism
A quote of the day from Stephen Maturin in Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander
But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile.
It finally came!
I’ve read all of the Patrick O’Brian Aubrey/Maturin novels, from number one (Master and Commander) to number twenty (Blue at the Mizzen) at least five times. The series (it’s really one multi-volume work) is probably the best historical fiction I’ve ever read, and absolutely one of my favorite, most enjoyable reads of all time. I love the language, the stories, the characters, everything. Even though the series seemed to lose a bit of steam in the last couple of books, I was terribly sad when O’Brian died and we knew that there would be no more.
Although I love the Geoff Hunt covers on my paperback editions, they’re getting a bit tattered and worn, from the multiple readings. And for a full hardcover set, the price runs into the hundreds of dollars. So I was enormously excited early last month when I saw that John Berg at Sea Room was going to be selling a new “Omnibus Edition” handsomely hardbound in a boxed set of five volumes, and that the fifth volume includes the small part of 21–the book O’Brian was working on, the little bit that was on his desk, when he died. I ordered it immediately (John Berg’s price is fifty dollars less than anywhere else!), even though it wasn’t going to be officially released until November 4. Yesterday it arrived! And the volumes are handsome indeed, with ribbon bookmarks in the binding, and a good size for reading on the subway or in bed.
I’m ecstatically plunging back into the “music-room in the Governor’s House at Port Mahon, a tall, handsome, pillared octagon,” and to the “triumphant first movement of Locatelli’s C major,” I’m preparing for an extended cruise aboard the HMS Surprise (and other vessels) in the Royal Navy of the Napoleonic wars.
I made the bigtime!
I may never be able to complain about The Chronicle of Higher Education again, and I certainly can’t let my subscription lapse anymore. They not only attended and covered the League CIT, they actually sent someone to hear me! And not only that, she even wrote about it–and even included a photo. The little piece (I say modestly) is right in the middle of the Chronicle’s page of “Continuing Coverage” of the conference (their conference blog, to be precise). Right about halfway down the page, there I am.
It may be as close to the bigtime as I ever come. 🙂
Liveblogging from the League CIT (Jeb Bush’s Keynote)
I’m at the keynote address by Jeb Bush at the League for Innovation in the Community College‘s Conference on Information Technology in Tampa (against my better judgment). Since I’m here, I thought I’d try some liveblogging.
So I’m here with my laptop, just reporting it. First some performances. There’s some fun, light, Broadway-esque singing and dancing from a new musical produced by Santa Fe Community College. It’s about a presidential election pitting Walt Disney against Timothy Leary’s cryogenically preserved head. The first number is “the best things in life are French.” A quick reference to this as “different from the recent election.” Does the dissonance strike only me? Clearly not. 😎
Then we have the introduction of the special guest, with some jokes about hurricanes. There’s some talk about how Community Colleges are now important, as we can see because the presidential candidates visited them, and the president mentioned them in the state of the union address to a standing ovation.
Then the president of Santa Fe Community College, Jackson Sasser, (“one of the Texas gang”), comes out to introduce the governor as someone who arrived from Texas “literally with a laptop on his shoulder” (a funny place to keep a laptop). Sasser praises Bush for answering emails, staying in the state during the hurricanes, vetoing bills during the campaign, and meeting with Community College presidents. He says J Bush has given a 14% budget increase for Community Colleges in Florida. I wonder if the people on the ground, who are not introducing keynotes, feel that’s enough. I also wonder if it’s “tied to performance” as the elementary school budgets are here.
There are white cards on chairs for people to submit questions for the governor.
Jeb Bush comes out to a standing ovation from about 2-thirds of the audience! But not the whole audience. Some (including me) are significantly sitting.
Bush brags about his Texan tendency to stretch the truth and exaggerate. In general, his language is almost as ungrammatical, uninspired and pseduo-folksy as his brother. Talks about “I was watchin’ TV…” This seems to be where most of his information comes from.
What’s this Texas business, I wonder–all of a sudden (or maybe not so suddenly) everybody loves frigging Texas. It’s no coincidence, I think, that last night I noticed that Tampa TV plays Dallas reruns every night.
Bush goes on to brag about the practice of holding back third graders. Uses GW Bush’s remarkably disingenuous statement about “some folks want to say that some kids can’t learn because of race or ethnicity. We reject that.”
More about elementary schools, and not much to say about Community Colleges at all. Gives his email address, for those who want to share ideas, as jeb@jeb.org. (“Unless,” he says, “you have a trademark and want to get paid for that idea.” He goes on with the trademark theme “we want to be the Nike, and eat the Ovaltine, of higher education.” Does that mean anything?)
Then stops (after about 15 minutes) to take questions.
Some softball questions–“how did you get to be so great?”
Then one about the digital divide. Bush’s solution? Keep flunking those third-graders!
Next question totally surprises me. Apparently some people want Jeb Bush to run for president in 2008. The question gets asked, and there’s applause! 😯 He says that he “hates the national press.” (even more applause! :shock::shock:) and then says that no, he won’t be running. That’s a relief, at least.
A good question “what do you think about the process of assessing the assessments?” He doesn’t seem to quite know how to answer it. Asks his assistant “Patricia, what’s that thing I’m on? That assessment thing?” Then reiterates that he’s into standards, would like to keep flunking third-graders, and believes that Community Colleges should be “paid for performance.”
In response to some question I didn’t catch, he says that he just went to La Jolla, California, to visit Scripps. He’s impressed by their results in research, because they “don’t function like a university [they’re not one!]. They don’t have to deal with a faculty senate, or the priorities of a faculty. If their administration wants to get something done, they just do it. They’re like a Community College in that way. I like that.” There’s some laughter.
He ends (15 minutes early) after another question or two.
People seem to find anti-intellectualism and arrogant ignorance endearing and admirable. It doesn’t matter which Bush it comes from, a lot of people just eat it up with a spoon.
😥
A more encouraging map
Those red and blue maps we’re seeing everywhere are too depressing in their picture of an utterly polarized country–and of course, the reason for that is that they’re too simplistic. Over at boingboing, a reader, Jeff Culver, thought about this and made a more nuanced (and accurate) picture.
He says:
I was thinking today about how the ‘red v. blue’ states graphic is really misleading considering the slim margins that the candidates won some of those states by, so I sat down and created the map that’s attached. In the dozens of hours I’ve been watching the news I haven’t seen one like it, but thought that you and the BoingBoing readers might find it interesting. I think it definitely portrays our fellow states far differently than the extreme way we’ve been seeing to date.
The United States of…
Still looking for a silver lining today–and not finding anything. I badly misunderestimated this country, and I’m badly disappointed. 😥 Not only the Bush victory, which would be bad enough, but 11 states (eleven!) deciding that gay people are not really, quite, people in the same way as straight people. Thanks to Ruru for sending along a map that shows our current landscape.
Official Prediction and Endorsement
You heard it here first (well, not really first, I guess).
Mountebank officially endorses John Kerry and John Edwards, thus ensuring a landslide victory.
Well, maybe not landslide, but I do think it’s going to be a solid win. Not a near tie. That’s my prediction, and I’m standing by it!
Vote tomorrow! Vote early, vote proudly, and vote Kerry (on the Working Families line, if you’re in NY, rather than the Democrat–it doesn’t waste the vote, but it gives the message that we really do wish he were more progressive than he is).