Calvin and Hobbes and the modern university.

This morning`s Globe has (yet) another piece on how online courses will clear out all those lazy tenured bums and bring edjumakashun to the masses.  It reminded me that recently Calvin became president of a new university on the customer model...

Still a few bugs to work out in the marketing department.

I turns out that the marketplace can be pretty demanding but Calvin resorts to creative accounting practices to boost the bottom line.

In the end, however, Free Enterprise is once again crushed by blatant government over-regulation.

Aurora Shooter Was PhD Dropout.

Aurora Shooter
James Holmes, 24.

from Yahoo.com

Colorado shooting suspect James Holmes was in the process from withdrawing from a doctorate program in neuroscience at the University of Colorado-Denver, according to university spokesman Dan Myers. Holmes began the program last year.

This photo, obtained by ABC News, reportedly shows the 24-year-old Holmes. Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said Holmes' apartment is booby trapped with a "sophisticated" maze of flammable devices. It could take hours or days for authorities to disarm it. Five nearby buildings have been evacuated. Oates said Holmes had no criminal record in the state.

Holmes' family, who live in San Diego, released a statement expressing their sadness for the victims and asking for privacy. Holmes is suspected of walking into an Aurora theater's midnight showing of "Dark Knight Rises" wearing a gas mask and bullet proof vest and shooting at at least 50 people. Twelve are reported dead.

Saga of the Chair.

For 6 years, I sat in a chair that would nearly tip over if I sat too far back. It didn't move up or down but was, luckily, stuck at a proper height. It was square, with faded light blue upholstery and rusted metal legs and arms. The chair cushion was stained from coffee, cookie crumbs, and chocolate bars. It was not comfortable, but it wasn't painful to sit there. I inherited from my predecessor. Who knows how old it really was. I have never seen one like it before in any office supply store.

When I asked for a new chair, I was told: "We could buy you one, but let's get one from surplus instead."

My new-to-me chair won't move up or down. I have a choice of sitting on the floor, or sitting hunched over like Bartleby the Scrivener, banging my knees into the edge of my desk. I should have kept Old Chair. At least, I knew what I had with Old Chair.

"Let's get you back on that surplus list. Maybe another batch of chairs will turn up soon. "

Guess I will be heading over to the local Office Despot to shell out some hard earned summer school money.

-Kunstnik

The Nattering Nincompoops of Notational Neurosis

"Hey Prof, I blew off class yesterday due to an unfortunate partying injury (looonnng story). Can you e-mail me your personal lecture notes right away? Thanks."

"Trees felled by a freak tornado blocked my commuting route today, and then demented mimes came out of nowhere and boxed me into my parking spot (I couldn't break through their invisible glass), so I couldn't get to class. Is there a note taker in the class who can send me typed notes? I'll be LOST without them!"

"I had to have emergency brain surgery yesterday but I'm all better now. Will you post notes online for what I missed?"


"My family forced me to go on vacation in the middle of the term, so I had to skip two weeks of class. Any chance of getting those notes? I'll DIE without them."

Notes. Notes. NOTES. Is this frenzy over "notes" happening to you, too? This desperate and at times nearly insane demand for the sacred keys called "notes"? Without which the course material is nothing but one maliciously contrived riddle after another?

Hmmm, let's see. They could try, dunno, reading the assigned material? Maybe even spending two paltry minutes doing a bit of online research beyond the book, in between multiple FB checks and porno breaks? Preparing specific questions on the material to show remorse and then making an appointment to see me in penance? Asking a classmate what we covered? Or doing the best thing and building a time machine and going back in time to the missed class and making sure never to miss class again as attendance is a solemn obligation according to my law? But, no, it has to be the Holy Notes, without which the entire cosmos is just a heap of cold unintelligibility.

Whence this helplessness concerning and distortion of the nature of the scholarly enterprise, and one's role as an accountable agent?

(The line about "the class note taker" is a real line from a real student. What class note taker? As though I have a hunchbacked medieval scribe I drive into the classroom every day with a flog so he can prepare the Divine Communion of Notes or Divina Signa for the convenience of all truants.)

The Keelhaul

Hello, Student That Is Going to Receive an “F” in My Online Sophomore Survey Class.  You plagiarized. 

Did you think I was talking out of my ass when I had you read all that shit about plagiarism, and made you sign a contract stating that you wouldn’t do it, and that you understood you would fail the class if you did?  I don’t ever talk out of my ass, Student That Is Going to Receive an “F” in My Online Sophomore Survey Class. Though you have persisted in treating me like I’m your “bestie,” I have been deadly serious with you since you begged me to bump the cap for you three weeks ago.  If you recall then I wouldn’t bump the cap.  What makes you think I will spare you now?

Hello again, Student That Is Going to Receive an “F” in My Online Sophomore Survey Class.  Your sob story is not making me sob.  In fact, it is making me even happier about giving you that F you so richly deserve.  Do you think I fucking care that “all hell broke lose” at your house last night?  You want to know what I was doing last night?  I was weeping onto a broken flashlight at 2 a.m., trying to get it working so that I could go look for my beloved little dog.  She ran off instead of doing her business when I let her outside.  That fucking dog runs off if you don’t keep her in line, but I was not watching carefully because I had made the grave error of getting myself a glass of milk.  She is a little shit but I love that dog.  So there I was, driving around in the dark, searching for her.  She was in the driveway when I got home, and I was so happy that I forgot to be mad at her.  But I was still crying.  It took a trazodone, a Xanax, and a bunch of Kahlua and vodka dumped into that glass of milk to get me calmed down.  So go fuck yourself with your excuse about “all hell breaking loose”.  Go fuck yourself sideways.

I care even less, Student That Is Going to Receive an “F” in My Online Sophomore Survey Class, about your claim that you panicked and sent me a different file than you intended to send.  Do you know how often plagiarists use that excuse?  Do you even know?  It’s what they all revert to.  “Oh, I sent you my notes!” “Oh, I was so tired and I just made a mistake!” You’re a fucking liar. And you’re not even an interesting liar.  You’re just the same old boring Type-O liar I’ve seen a thousand times before.

And no, Student That Is Going to Receive an “F” in My Online Sophomore Survey Class, I don’t care that you’re a “mature” student in middle age.  This only means you should know better. 

No, Student That Is Going to Receive an “F” in My Online Sophomore Survey Class, I don’t care that you are begging.  This only means you are pathetic.

No, Student That Is Going to Receive an “F” in My Online Sophomore Survey Class, I don’t care that you need this course to graduate.  This only means that you shouldn’t graduate.

No, Student That Is Going to Receive an “F” in My Online Sophomore Survey Class, I don’t care that you promise “not to let me down” if I just let you go one more time.  This only means that you are delusional, or living in some alternate universe where there is a version of me that gives a shit about what happens to a lying plagiarist. 

In fact, your promise that you won’t “let me down” is the very source of your complete lack of understanding about our relationship and your situation.  You presume wrongly in that you think you have the ability to let me down.  I had no hopes for you.  I did not have faith in you. You were worthless from the get-go and you’re still worthless.  Forever and ever, world without end. 

So, Student That Is Going to Receive an “F” in My Online Sophomore Survey Class, shut your fucking face and prepare to be dragged under the hull. 

You fail.

"Instinctual Self-Defense Class for College-Bound Females." A Thirsty Article from Vicki in Van Nuys.

Some sobering statistics about the number of rapes on college campuses and the fact that Leslie Maltz’s daughter was heading to one, prompted her to start a self-defense workshop for college-bound high school girls at her Tarzana gym.

On Sunday, Maltz will hold a 2-hour workshop to empower young women with techniques to protect themselves from becoming a rape statistic.

She uses the Krav Maga self-defense techniques and common sense awareness drills to drive home the message that today is a different world than years ago and college is a petri dish of potential rape scenarios.

FULL ARTICLE from the Encino/Tarzana Patch.

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Q: I remember being a naive and careless young woman in my college "daze." It never occurred to me that there was the threat of rape or assault on a large campus. What are your own thoughts about the safety of female students on our campuses?