Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Does getting pepper-sprayed count as extra credit?
Columbia University is offering a new course on Occupy Wall Street next semester — sending upperclassmen and grad students into the field for full course credit.
The class is taught by Dr. Hannah Appel, who boasts about her nights camped out in Zuccotti Park.
As many as 30 students will be expected to get involved in ongoing OWS projects outside the classroom, the syllabus says.
The class will be in the anthropology department and called “Occupy the Field: Global Finance, Inequality, Social Movement.” It will be divided between seminars at the Morningside Heights campus and fieldwork.
On her blog, Appel defends OWS, arguing that “it is important to push back against the rhetoric of ‘disorganization’ or ‘a movement without a message’ coming from left, right and center.”
Addressing the safety risks of fieldwork among protesters, she writes on the syllabus, “I can say with absolute certainty that there is no foreseeable risk in teaching this as a field-base class.”
She said her allegiance won’t keep her from being an objective teacher.
“Inevitably, my experience will color the way I teach, but I feel equipped to teach objectively,” Appel told The Post. “It’s best to be critical of the things we hold most sacred.”
So let’s see…we have this Occupy movement made up of college grads who have discovered their diplomas are worthless in the job market because there is no demand in the field of Native American Womens Basket-Weaving or whatever. (I made up that particular vocation, it doesn’t gel with reality because a basket-weaver would, one presumes, provide a product every now & then that someone could use.) As a result, we’ve had Airhead Autumn in which these business districts of various cities have been flooded with malcontents who want something, but cannot coherently say what it is they want.
Now we have a useless college course inspired by the movement. When, if it could be said the movement was started by anything at all by way of frustration of the layman, said frustration had to do with the uselessness of college coursework when tested by the supply and demand of real life.
Hamster. Wheel. Squeak squeak squeak squeak…
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Oddly enough, I’m with Columbia and Dr. Appel on this one.
The students don’t know it, of course, but they’re actually getting a lesson in campus economics by taking this class. All “studies” fields are intellectually worthless, but the university system still requires research in order to make tenure. That’s where politics comes in. Since it’s impossible to “research” Wymyn’s Studies or suchlike nonsense (what are your data sets? your protocols? your blinds?), one climbs the career ladder by striking increasingly radical poses. And what’s more “radical” than actually teaching leftwing activism for course credit? I bet seventeen proposals for an “OWS studies” course hit the dean’s desk before the first tent went up in Zuccotti Park.
Dr. Appel wants tenure. Columbia apparently wants to give it to her, since she’s the one they picked to teach it. Everyone is responding to market forces efficiently and ruthlessly enough to make the most hardened Wall Street trader proud. If only they could make those connections…. but of course if they did, 3/4 of all the university departments in America would close their doors overnight.
- Severian | 01/02/2012 @ 10:54