Clarissa's Blog

In a stunning move, prosecutors in Chicago dropped all charges against “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett on Tuesday despite acknowleging Smollet fabricated a street attack on himself in an attempt to get a pay raise.

“Let me just say, [MSNBC] should have their top host on primetime go before the cameras and hang their head in shame and apologize for lying to people for three straight years, exploiting their fears to great profit,” Greenwald told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. “These are people who were on the verge of losing their jobs. The whole network was about to collapse. This whole scam saved them. Not only did they constantly feed people for three straight years total disinformation, they did it on purpose, Tucker.”

Absolutely. 100%. I had watched Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell for years but I had to stop when they started peddling their Russia lies. As I keep saying – and nobody believes me – I understand Russia because I work very hard to stay informed. The story was insane. All of these Maddows and Co were lying on purpose.

This isn’t journalism. It’s shameless, wicked exploitation of people’s ignorance and fear.

Klara drew a person for the first time. The person is obviously me. Please note the blue eyes, the smile, and the tangled mass of hair. The hair in the portrait is the color she wants it to be. Observe also the slender body. She is a kind child.

Life as an associate professor with tenure can be even more isolating and overwhelming, she says, than being an assistant professor on the tenure track. The path to achieving what amounts to higher education’s golden ring is well marked and includes guidance from more-experienced peers. But once a professor earns tenure, that guidance disappears, the amount of committee work piles on, and associate professors are often left to figure out how to manage the varying demands of the job—and fit in time for their research—on their own.

Of course, by that time you are already in your forties or late thirties, so maybe it’s time to grow up and actually enjoy being an adult. And these are the people who can’t quit complaining about students’ immaturity.

“A lot of professors, when they get tenure, think they have arrived, but what they soon realize is that life is not that much better,” says Robert A. Rhoads, a professor and director of the Globalization and Higher Education Research Center, at the University of California at Los Angeles. “After tenure lots of faculty go through a crisis of meaning, where they think: ‘There has to be something more than writing research grants, publishing, and teaching.’ An associate professor starts to think: ‘Why am I doing what I’m doing?'”

I have no idea what these idiots are on about.

I really liked being on the TT, but after tenure it got even better. Even committees got more fun because I’m now chairing them. And research is so much better once you come into your own and fully inhabit your field. And by the way, with all I publish and all the service to the profession I do, the idea is working 80 hours a week that these losers keep harping on is ludicrous. If I worked 80 hours a week (which I’m not going to do because

Something is deeply wrong with people if they can’t even enjoy tenure. God, what a bunch of stupid whiners.

And the best quote of all:

“Everybody is asked to do a whole bunch of stuff we didn’t sign on for, like sitting on an admissions committee debating whether someone with a 15 ACT score should be admitted. It all feels so much more plebeian and mundane.”

Plebeian, eh? Her Royal Highness thinks she deserves something more elevated than talking about students. And she’s not ashamed to put her name to this.

On Monday, the Trump administration released several proposed changes to the Higher Education Act, which is in the early stages of reauthorization by Congress. The proposal recommends reducing the number of federal loan repayment options and capping the amount of student loans that parents and graduate students can take on.

This is great but why just graduate students?

Both the borrowing cap and the repayment consolidation are sorely needed. Now if Trump also proposes reducing support staff (diversity, assessment, inclusion, etc) at colleges by two thirds, I’ll even vote for him. But he’s not going to, so no need to worry.

A Women’s March leader blamed Jews for the Christchurch attack. And then blamed her small children for blaming the Jews for the attack. Of course, tons of people with small children somehow manage to avoid being rabid anti-Semites but whatever.

It’s funny how the same people who passionately (and correctly) insist that criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic argue that any criticism of anybody who happens to be Muslim is not only Islamophobic but actually leads to murders of Muslims. By somebody else.

“Trump defeats ISIS and fights for Lordstown factory while Democrats want another investigation of who said what to which Russian two years ago.”

It’s not a headline that will ever appear because people writing headlines don’t give a crap about Lordstown or ISIS.