Arkansawyer

I Hardly Know Me Anymore

The Scott McClellan story, as told to Michael Kinsley:

It’s sad. It’s just sad. In all my years of public service, I am one of the finest people I have ever had the privilege to know and work with. I cannot imagine why I have chosen this moment to turn against everything I have always stood for—lies, deception, secrets, double talk—unless it was for a six-figure book advance. But the me I knew believed that some things, such as duty, are more important than money. That me saw misleading the public as the highest of missions. That me would never betray me the way this me has done. Frankly, it’s a puzzle. But I will be talking with me later this afternoon, on Oprah, and maybe then I will get some answers. Until then, all I can say is that it’s just very, very sad.

It gets better, for certain values of “better”:

Actually, as I think about it, I start to get really angry. Who the hell do I think I am? Some pipsqueak from nowhere who was hired to tell lies and suddenly thinks he has some sort of mission to tell the truth? I mean, who cares what I think the real reason was for the invasion of Iraq? I wasn’t hired to figure out the real reason. I was hired to put out the phony reason, which I did without objection. But all of a sudden I’m too good to lie. Condi Rice will. Dick Cheney will and loves it. Absolutely loves it. But me? No. I suddenly feel I have some kind of duty to tell the truth. Well, excuuuuuse me!

There’s a very good blog entry from University Diaries at Inside Higher Ed:

The problem with deciding that such people — people who’ve read very few books, who can’t write a basic essay, who are probably functionally illiterate — shouldn’t waste their time, money, and dignity at a university, is that a college degree makes an enormous difference in terms of your employability, and in terms of the type of job and level of salary you can expect. We all seem to agree that, in most cases, you’ll lead a much better work life if you’ve graduated from college.

One solution to this problem has been the establishment of bogus colleges and universities which, after four years of nothingness, hand you a diploma. One hears stories of professors dismissed from their positions at places like these because they tried to give low grades to students. Live the pretense.

And what does Lloyd Biggle, Jr. have to do with this? He wrote the wonderful story “And Madly Teach” which has stuck in my mind since I was a teenager.

“I couldn’t stay focused,” she said, as she looked at cartoons on her laptop in the student union last week, taking advantage of the free Internet.

One of the most cynical things universities are doing lately, in response to their awareness that their worst students are — like Bellomy, who can’t carry on an interview without watching cartoons — internet-addicted, is introduce with all sorts of bullshit rhetoric the wonderful new world of online education. As if putting your courses online is this terrific pedagogical innovation rather than a desperate bit of scheming…

But that’s another post.

I’m ready to read it when UD is ready to write it.

A brief excerpt from a Relationship Therapy session:

Therapist: SP, is the issue that you don’t know anything about these IDPs?
SP: Definitely. User will have a few beers after work and then just show up with some IDP and, with only a very brief introduction, expect me to ‘party’, as he puts it. And then he says he wants to watch because he doesn’t trust us!
Therapist:Just to clarify, by ‘party’ do you mean engage in the transfer of identity assertions?
SP: Well yes, but you don’t have to be so blunt about it.

Well, then, that makes all the difference.

(via Jeff Bohren)

I’ve had some of the most interesting, stimulating, and just plain fun conversations. All of which occurred off-site, while hanging out in neighbouring pubs, coffee shops, or just walking. I’m not going to list names because that makes it sound like some stupid elitist club, and what was so great about these conversations is that they were nothing like that. Newcomers. Academics. Lay-people. Teachers. Students. Geeks. It just didn’t matter. And it was awesome.

There’s more meat in this post than I’ve excerpted, but what I put up there covers a point I’m aching lately to make.

I left a couple of words out of the title.

(Found via The Growing Life.)

This post had the quote that spurred me to add The Growing Life:

Everyone has something lying dormant within them that stands to come alive and wreak havoc upon the world in beautiful ways.

Those are words to conjure with. Check Clay Collins out.

Here’s another one, this time for Orlis (who I know perfectly well will not be reading this, but Clay is singing his song):

Who Should Not Read This Article

This article is NOT for people who naturally get up before 5:30am and who have trouble staying in bed after that. If you’re a morning chronotype (i.e. a morning person), then count yourself lucky — society is on your side.

And one more:

Since World War II, productivity in the U.S. has doubled. So we should be working 20-hour work weeks, right? Well, we’re not. We’re working more. In fact, we’re working more than medieval peasants, and the 40-hour work week hasn’t changed since 1940 even though productivity levels have been growing steadily since then. Productivity simply isn’t helping most people: it’s not making them happier or leading to more free time….

The Productivity Industrial Complex is a marriage between corporations and an entire industry of productivity companies, gurus, consultants, and solution-makers who help corporations squeeze every ounce of productivity from their workers.

Oh, yes, yes indeed. Where are the Fulbright hearings for this?

8. Idiotic (possibly apocryphal) abuse case gets high public profile.

10. New rules — means testing, reporting requirements, eligibility tightened.

14. Participation drops. Costs remain high, due to overhead for stricter reporting requirements.

Yes, I was tempted to call it “Lifecycle (mis)Management”, but given the political climate (which the next election will help but not cure–there’s lots of work ahead), this is about the best that can be done.

Let’s hope that by 2009 we won’t need a Mendelev to fill in the gaps.

via Joho the Blog

There’s much food for thought in this:

As a left-leaning sort, I like the idea that a kid without the money to ‘go away’ to college has access to the same academic rigor as the kid with rich parents. A former colleague of mine used to say that algebra is a civil right, and I agreed with him. To offer the less-well-off a diluted product offends my egalitarian sensibilities. If we’re serious about access, it has to be access to academic rigor. Otherwise we’re just babysitting.

Also, dig the title: “Failing Too Many”. It’s not just about giving failing grades.