In case anybody is wondering why I stopped posting, that’s because I have moved to Lowe’s, a place where everybody calls me “sweetheart” and tries to touch me.

“I need a crowbar, where can I find it?” I asked one of the perky store assistants of my father’s age.

“So who are you planning to whack over the head with it?” he guffawed with delight.

As usual when people subject me to the unexpected bouts of sociability, I blurted out, “My husband is asking for it.”

You can imagine the extreme delight this pronouncement caused to the store assistant.

I’m talking to a contractor I’m hiring to do some repairs on The Hedgehogs.

“When can you start?” I ask.

“Any time,” he says. “I can start on Wednesday morning, if that works for you.”

“Good!” I say. “Let’s start at 10 am on Wednesday then.”

“Right. . .” the contractor responds without enthusiasm. “Or, you know, I could start in the morning.”

“OK, then. At 9 am on Wednesday,” I suggest.

“Sure. Or, I mean, I could get there in THE MORNING and start working.”

“At 8 am then, OK, I’ll see you on Wednesday at 8,” I blurt out as fast as I can, fearful of discovering what a contractor’s definition of “morning” really entails.

 

Mexicans are suffering from the rain and clamoring for more photos of the car. So here is one more photo.

Today I’ve been driving everywhere on my own and it’s a great thing to be able to go anywhere and do anything. I’m so coming up with more errands for myself to run tomorrow because it’s incredible fun.

I’m like the Jew with the goat from the old joke.

The King of Spain abdicated today in favor of his son Felipe. This is an effort on the part of the King to save the monarchy that has been heavily damaged by the corruption scandals involving the King himself, his daughter Cristina, and his son-in-law Iñaki Urdangarín. In the midst of a severe economic crisis, the endless revelations about the insane amounts of money acquired by the royal family through its practice of corruption have not been taken very well by the Spaniards.

Felipe has not been at the center of these scandals, and the King is trying salvage the monarchy in Spain by pushing him to the forefront.

I have to say that I find few things as barbaric as calling anybody a King or a Queen in the XXIst century. When you have a decorative monarch, like the British do, this is not a big deal. However, when you have a royal family that is actively selling  governmental favors for bribes and engaging in really outrageous crimes, it’s high time to rethink why anybody needs this monarchy at all.

The people of Spain have gotten themselves into the trap of believing that having a King guarantees their democracy. That is an outdated vestige of the events of the 1970s, however. Today, the monarchy is a threat not only to Spanish democracy but to the continued existence of Spain itself.

So you’ve heard that  the New York Times‘ Jill Abramson was fired, right? Have you wondered why?

Well, Russians have the answer for you. Apparently, she was fired for revealing the truth about the fighting in the Ukrainian city of Slovyansk, and the US government had her fired for telling the truth about Ukraine’s fascists. (The link is in Russian, of course.)

Could Obama just butt out of higher ed and go mess up some other area of human existence? We have enough problems as it is, without his outdated and bizarre fixation on the defunct MOOC scam.

I understand that he realizes what a disappointment his entire presidency has been and wants to leave “a legacy.” But in what concerns higher ed he is just like he has been in everything else: he has no idea how this stuff works, he believes there is no time to try to learn, so he comes up with a pastiche of Dem-pleasing and Repub-pleasing talking points and gimmicky half-measures that will improve nothing and will simply destroy what is there.

If you look at what he’s actually proposing, the shit is scary. Take, for instance, the idea of tying the Pell grants to colleges whose graduates make the most money upon graduation. How is anybody going to find out what graduates make? Asking people to report that info is useless. Only the most successful ever do and not even they do it in overwhelming numbers. Do you fill out the questionnaires sent out by your college? Mine doesn’t even know where to find me because I moved 2 months after graduation.

So what’s left? Spying on people? Even more spying? Don’t we have enough of that already?

And gosh, when I imagine the insane number of deanlets, deanlings and deanazoids that will be hired to “ensure compliance”, I just shudder.

The tragedy of the situation is that a good college-rating system is surely needed. But it has to be created by the people who actually work on academia. If 70% of higher ed teachers are adjuncts, then the committee should consist of 70% of adjuncts.

The only college rating system I have any interest in is the one that affords the highest ratings to colleges with the smallest number of administrators per 1,000 students and the lowest number of adjuncts per 100 tenure-track professors.

Every other rating system is bunk.

People, when I say “MRA” I refer to folks who call themselves “Men’s Rights Advocates.”

I never write about the NRA because I have absolutely no knowledge about it.

For those who are in Mexico but wanted to see it:

I don’t understand why it’s so hard to give away a really kick-ass Steam account for free. Come on, folks, help a fellow out, just take it. Here is a more detailed announcement:

I am giving away my Steam account with the following games:

Black Ops I

Black Ops II with all four map packs

Metro 2033

Supreme Commander 2

James Cameron’s Avatar

What you need to do:

1) Login into this Yahoo email account:

don_campino-at-yahoo.com

Password:  DoNotCamp777   (case-sensitive)

If it doesn’t work, it means someone already got the account.

2) Change the email’s password.

3) Find Steam online and install it on your PC.

4) Login into the following Steam account:

Login: niktuz

Password: same as for the email

5) Because you are logging in from a new computer, Steam will send a verification code to the Yahoo email above.

6) After you enter the verification code, change the Steam password as well.

7) GLHF!