My favorite student graduated and decided to join the Marines. And now I have to write a recommendation letter evaluating his ability to work while in subordinate position, ability to deal with frustration, and personal appearance. I can’t say I’m hugely comfortable evaluating his appearance, but this is a very disciplined student. He will do great in the Marines. Plus, he is strongly pro-Ukraine, and maybe one day he will have to defend it with weapons.

So who’s watching The Fall with Gillian Anderson?

I’m so loving the Irish accent in the show. The Irish intonation makes everybody sound slightly befuddled no matter what they say. I’d so love to speak with this accent. I’d actually love to speak with any accent that is not my Russian one. That’s the ugliest accent in English.

In December of 2013, Putin met with Pope Francis. Putin disrespected the Pope by showing up 50 minutes late, which is a standard trick inherited from the Stalin era that Putin uses on everybody to humiliate and dominate.

Shortly after his meeting with the Pope, Putin started a war with Ukraine.

In spite of all this and of Putin’s constant bashing of Catholics, Pope Frances agreed to meet him.

This Pope is a total weirdo. There are tons of Catholics in Ukraine and he’s spitting in their faces like this, and for what? Just to let Putin use him as a propaganda device? What an idiot. Catholics just can’t catch a break with their leadership.

My stylist, the one who owns the salon I patronize, opened a free daycare on the premises because several of her workers are single parents and it will be great for them to spend time with their kids in between clients.

Just like the Charlie Hebdo terrorists were not Muslims in their way of life and worldview, the Duggars are not Christians in their life philosophy and way of being.

I had no idea the ACA had besotted groupies who tend to grow scary when anybody says anything even slightly critical of their idol.

See the comment thread here and observe the terrified and apologetic folks who provoke the ire of the groupies. 

Do you hate audiobooks as much as I do? I detest them with a burning passion that is only equalled by my love of regular books.

I had no idea why I hated them so much but finally there is an explanation. They are too slow and linear for my brain to process them without experiencing pain.

I just looked out of the window, and you won’t believe what I saw:

Yes! A rabbit, lying voluptuously among my sunflowers. Just observe how happy the little fucker looks!

I approached the enclosure and clapped my hands. The rabbit tried to get out and got stuck in the netting:

For a while, it just flailed there, making me worry that it would hurt itself and then I’d have to tend to a wounded rabbit. And then finally it just ran away:

So guess who will now have to schlep out into the garden to reinforce the netting?

I’m seriously shocked with how hard farming is.

P.S. Click on the photos and then press Ctrl and + at the same time to see the rabbit better.

Everybody is talking about the teaching track, and I want to contribute some ideas to the discussion.

I believe that the teaching track is a great idea. At my university, for instance, we have many people who got hired and tenured when we were still a 100% teaching institution. Things have changed, and now everybody is required to do research.

Obviously, you can’t become a research scholar overnight. Being a research scholar is a way of life. You need to accumulate intellectual capital and construct a scholarly base over the course of many years. So people who are asked to start producing scholarship at the age of 50 feel completely lost. They experience shame, fear, and stress as they try to come up with something to put in the research column of their yearly evaluation.

By the way, I met people like these both at Yale and Cornell, and now their careers are ruined because you can only fake being a research scholar for a while. So this happens everywhere, and it happens a lot. 

Wouldn’t it be great to let such people off the research hook and simply give them a 4/4 or a 5/5 teaching load? And give people like me a 2/2 teaching load? That would make every sense.

However, there are three major issues that will make the introduction of a teaching track impossible:

1. There is absolutely no way of justifying the need to have people with PhDs teach Spanish 101 , Composition 101 or French 102. And people who do no research can’t teach anything else.

2. There is absolutely no way of justifying the need for tenure for people who only teach Geography 101 and Co. 

3. There is absolutely no way of introducing the teaching track without making people angry and wounding their pride. People will freak out and start plotting like their lives depend on it. 

And thus, this great idea will die an untimely death.

Unless students magically start coming to college more prepared, somebody will need to be doing all the remediation. That’s just reality. And all of the endless complaining about the horrible unfairness of the unkind universe will not change it. Some sort of an arrangement will have to be made to accommodate this reality. The discussion of the teaching track is at least an attempt to consider a solution. So it’s a step in a good direction.

The stylist’s receptionist called me 2 minutes ago to confirm an appointment and started the conversation with apologizing profusely for possibly waking me up.

“It’s 9:40 am,” I said. “I’m up.”

“Good!” he exclaimed. “Because I know that teachers like to sleep late during the holidays. They always get grumpy if I wake them before 11 am.”

The breakfast features cucumbers, tomatoes, celery sticks, lettuce, hummus, an egg, and some crumbled feta.