Ann Arbor man punched during literary argument

Too awesome! Ann Arbor man punched during literary argument Posted: Mon, Mar 19, 2012 : 3:24 p.m. A 34-year-old Ann Arbor man was sent to the hospital with a head injury after another man punched him on Saturday during a literary argument, according to police. Ann Arbor police Lt. Renee Bush said the man went [...]

E.S.P. for naked ladies

I found this NYT article, “Journal’s Paper on E.S.P. Expected to Prompt Outrage,” pretty hilarious.  I had just finished a fascinating New Yorker article about unreplicable experiments, “the decline effect,” unconscious experimenter bias, and other problems leading to seemingly false or misleading conclusions in scientific research, and this E.S.P. research seems a perfect example. This was [...]

Mortimer Adler’s Syntopicon

This photo cracks me up: It’s from this NY Times book review: In “A Great Idea at the Time,” Alex Beam presents Hutchins and Adler as a double act: Hutchins the tall, suave one with a gift for leadership; Adler “a troll next to the godlike Hutchins,” with a talent for putting students to sleep. [...]

30 Rock Hates Graduate Students

Season premiere of 30 Rock, which I like a lot though sometimes find just a bit too antic & pleased with itself, this week.  A funny one overall; there was one line that somewhat mystified me, as Liz and Jack discuss the ethical dubiousness of their treatment of the inspector from the adoption agency: Jack: [...]

Remorseless Eatin’ Machine

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Obese diners at all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurants were more likely than other customers to sit closer to the buffet, face the food bar, use forks rather than chopsticks, use larger plates, and serve themselves immediately rather than first browsing the food, according to a study reported in the August [...]

English Professors as Therapists

I loved this, from Andrew Solomon’s The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression: In an important study done in 1979, researchers demonstrated that any form of therapy could be effective if certain criteria were met: that both the therapist and the patient were acting in good faith; that the client believed that the therapist understood [...]

Tenure Bleak House

A poignant tale about a comp lit professor denied tenure in 1976 and still fighting it: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i08/08a00104.htm From the issue dated October 17, 2008 The Tenure Lawsuit of a Lifetime By ERIC KELDERMAN Joseph M. Hayse’s three-decade quest for tenure is littered with bodies. It has outlived the careers of most of the people involved — [...]

Professors Gone Wild

Impressive to realize how low the bar can be set for professional behavior by university professors. An argument between two debate coaches escalates into a war of words, each showering the other with a string of obscenities before an audience of seemingly unfazed students. Before long, one coach has mooned the other, and the video [...]

Prof. Sha Na Na

I have to say, Sha Na Na (stupidest band name ever?) is just about the last group whose members I would have expected to go into academia. Also, can I observe that Sha Na Na did not “make doo-wop avant-garde,” they just turned it into an irritating parody and paved the path for Happy Days [...]

Local news story of the week

Local news story of the week: Police: Funny fudge made with lavender, not pot BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) — Indiana University police say brownies a girl gave to dorm workers didn’t contain marijuana at all. The leafy substance mixed in was lavender. IU Police Capt. Jerry Minger said the 13-year-old girl came forward after the case [...]