Search committee at work

An academic search committee at work:

At first the candidate’s own list of questions felt refreshing, but soon became counter-productive to the interview process. His spirit of inquiry masked an indifference to time constraints and a passive-aggressive need to dominate the conversation. As another candidate cooled his heels, the request for him to conclude his thoughts on the ideal society scarcely registered as we wondered if, then began to wish that, someone would spike his drink.

Read more from the evaluations of imaginary search committees:

Belagir M. Synkina, Unsuitable candidates (Times Higher Education)

A related post
Mozart and tenure

Going to the meeting

Elaine and I went tonight to a “town hall meeting” on health care given by Congressman Tim Johnson (R, Illinois-15). It was a disappointing experience. Of the allotted sixty minutes, ten were lost waiting for Rep. Johnson to arrive. Nine were given over to introductory remarks. Rep. Johnson’s talking points in those remarks and thereafter remained consistent: we have the best health care system in the world (whoops and cheers); a public option is “socialized medicine” (whoops and cheers); it is time for people to “reclaim,” “take back” the government (more whoops, more cheers).

A public option, one audience member pointed out, is a prelude to, yes, communism. And speaking of things Russian, Rep. Johnson confessed to being troubled by the presence of an energy czar in the Obama administration. Johnson evidently has forgotten that czars are what communism did away with. But he has also forgotten that an energy czar was in place as far back as Richard Nixon’s administration.

I heard no clear arguments as to how to make health care more affordable in the absence of a public option. And as Elaine discovered, searching for health care on Johnson’s web page brings up the following:


[Click for a larger view.]

What most bothered me in Rep. Johnson’s remarks: his sneering references to President Obama, whom he twice called “our esteemed leader,” to general laughter. If that’s how he talks about the president in public, I can only imagine what he says in private.

Related reading
Lorem ipsum (Wikipedia article)

Orange Crate Art, a Google Reader pick

I just saw that my blog is one of Mark Frauenfelder’s picks for Google Reader. Mark is a founder and editor of Boing Boing (“A Directory of Wonderful Things”). Thanks, Mark!

(The BOING! BOING in the previous post: serendipity.)

A riddle

My son Ben created this page years and years ago in second grade. It appeared in a hors commerce edition, 2F Riddles, which I discovered while poking around in the family archives. I’ve reproduced this page with Ben’s permission. As he says, he still has plenty of “2F pride.” Thanks, Ben!

(Yes, it says Boing Boing.)

That shirt is [not] blue

[August 25, 2009.]

The color stylists at Hi-Lo Amalgamated are on strike.

Related reading
All Hi and Lois posts

A back-to-school post

Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bosnia And Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guam, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Palestinian Territory, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, Virgin Islands:

Yes, all the world over, people want to know how to write e-mails to professors. Thus they come to a 2005 post on Orange Crate Art, How to e-mail a professor. The numbers rise big-time when semesters begin and end.

In June, I began looking at my StatCounter info to collect the locations of readers coming to that post. Hence the list above. I’m amazed, still, always, at the way the Internet erases distance across space and time. (It’s the world of tomorrow!) And I’m happy that my 2005 post continues to help faculty and students improve the quality of life online.

Okay, back to school.

You know you’re really an English major of a certain age when . . .

. . . you immediately recognize T.S. Eliot’s Complete Poems and Plays: 1909–1950 (1971) on the bookshelf behind the interviewees on MSNBC’s Hardball. That’s my copy, which I bought from the Book-of-the-Month Club as an earnest undergrad, and MSNBC’s copy, “as seen on TV,” perhaps also from the Book-of-the-Month Club.

Pop quiz: Why did English majors of a certain age join the Book-of-the-Month Club? What book were they looking to get?

[Photographs resized with ImageWell.]

Then and now

Joe Klein notes that things ain’t what they used to be:

It was a Republican, the lawyer Joseph Welch, who delivered the coup de grâce to Senator McCarthy when he said, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” Where is the Republican who would dare say that to Rush Limbaugh, who has compared the President of the United States to Adolf Hitler?

The GOP Has Become a Party of Nihilists (Time)

1,000 ukuleles

Now they know how many ukes it takes to fill the Albert Hall: 1,000.

[With apologies to “A Day in the Life.”]

Scrimping and printing

Hewlett-Packard’s not doing so well:

On Tuesday, H.P. showed how its printer business remained vulnerable to the recession when it reported third-quarter financial results. H.P.’s printing and imaging revenue fell 20 percent, to $5.7 billion, as sales of supplies tumbled 13 percent and sales of printers fell 23 percent.

Says Mark V. Hurd, Hewlett-Packard’s chief executive, “People are printing just as much as they did last year.” Hurd blames lower sales of supplies on currency fluctuations, inventory adjustments, and consumer reluctance to stock up.

Stocking up, at least on ink-jet cartridges, is never a good idea — the carts dry out and become unusable. But it’s my printing (not buying) habits that make me doubt Hurd’s explanations. I suspect that many people are doing exactly as I am: printing less, not so much perhaps to save money as to not waste ink. I’m much more inclined now to tinker and tweak in pixels for a good long time before printing a draft to edit by hand.

The Times says that in response to lower sales, Hewlett-Packard “has been scrambling to raise prices.”

H.P. Tries to Keep the Ink Flowing (New York Times)