orichalcum

Breaking new ground in hedging, Bill Richardson claims to be both a Red Sox and a Yankees fan.

I'd like to have more support for Richardson. He's got lots of foreign policy and governmental experience and seems like a nice guy and is from a minority background. But the man seems to have extraordinarily low charisma for a trained diplomat.

I also still remain confused about the depth of Hillary Clinton's support, given that I have a hard time locating hard-core Clinton fans.

Lots of grading to do. Amusingly, my class's Wikipedia articles have already changed the Google results for a variety of my own common research topics.

Meanwhile, my students remain confused about Constantine's family tree. Not that I blame them - what possessed him to name his sons Constantine, Constantius (II, after his father), and Constans? Even in Latin it's not much better.

The Romans needed more names. If I ever have a time machine, after I do the important things I'll give the Romans an extra two dozen first names and the Welsh and Czechs some real vowels.

A 27-year-old woman has been denied a teaching certificate from the Millerville University of PA, after passing all her courses, because the program administrators found her MySpace page in which she posted a photo of herself, fully clothed, wearing a pirate hat and drinking from a "Mr. Goodbar" plastic cup. According to them, she failed in "professionalism" for promoting underage drinking, despite being 25 herself at the time of the photo.

She's suing. I hope she gets a whole chest full of doubloons from them. And once again, be careful what you put up on the Net, I guess...

Apparently, at least some of the escorts working for the D.C. Madam were college professors. It's easy to imagine, when you get paid $3,000 for a 12-week course, say, versus $1,000 for a night's worth of sex work, but still.

My first reaction: How depressing! The academic job system is so messed up!

My second reaction: Dude, I wonder if I can track some of them down and interview them for the book - talk about elite courtesans marketing their high education and ability to have intellectual conversations!

May it be happy, relaxed, and hedonistic!

Because this book, The Arab Mind,, is at the top of the recommended reading list for U.S. officers, sergeants, and diplomats posted to the Middle East.

And as far as I can tell, it bases its conclusions on research done in the mid-1950s. Bad research, but let's put that aside for the moment.

Imagine, for a second, a book about "The American Mind" based on data from the 1950s. Americans, it might say, are openly racist and minorities are legally second-class citizens. Women generally remain at home and are viewed as less inteligent and competent than men. Most people don't move more than a few miles from their birthplace.

Sometimes people mock universities and academics, talking about how much more effective and in touch think tanks and other governmental advisory organizations are.

But there's a reason why they mention in the article that no respectable university would use that as a textbook today. And that's for people who won't necessarily be using it as a guideline to interact with actual Arab people!