This year, the National Security Agency (NSA) is celebrating its 60th year in existence. To commemorate the anniversary, the agency has produced a book that is in some places referred to simply as an “Anniversary Book” but in other places referred to as a “Memory Book,” which sounds a great deal more sentimental. The book…
In this past week’s issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, there is a very revealing graph representing the changes in employment in colleges and universities from 1976 to 2011. The graph is based on an analysis of IPEDs data by AAUP’s John Curtis. Full-Time Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty 1976 – 353,681 2011 –…
In February, an op-ed by Thomas Freidman in The New York Times summarized an interview with Laszlo Bock, the senior vice president of people operations for Google, on how to get a job at Google. Bock is involved in about 100 hires at Google per week. With college graduations approaching, Freidman went back to Google…
What follows is taken from the United Mine Workers website. _________________________ The Ludlow Massacre The date April 20, 1914 will forever be a day of infamy for American workers. On that day, 19 innocent men, women and children were killed in the Ludlow Massacre. The coal miners in Colorado and other western states had been…
In one of my posts yesterday, I reposted an item from Futility Closet. Titled “Taking Literary Minimalism to Its Endpoint” [https://academeblog.org/2014/04/19/6702/] it included this lead: “In 1965 poet Aram Saroyan wrote a poem consisting of a single word, lighght. George Plimpton included it in the American Literary Anthology, and Saroyan received a $500 cash award…
Yes, glazed donuts topped with a layer of thick icing, with a dribbling of icing in a contrasting color, and then a peep. I know that some of you are dying to ask how many calories are in this confection, but, truly, if you would eat something that looks like this, the number of…
Since posting on David Brooks’ “When the Circus Descends” yesterday, Stephen Sondheim’s great song “Send in the Clowns” has been going through my head, especially these lines: I thought that you’d want what I want.Sorry, my dear.But where are the clowns?Quick, send in the clowns.Don’t bother, they’re here. What frustrates me so is that all…
In this case, ALEC has not even bothered to use an academic think tank as a front. This map purports to show the economic outlook for the states. What it actually shows, of course, is simply the degree to which business policies in the states align with ALEC’s vision of an America with no corporate…
This is another item that I am re-posting from Futility Closet (www.futilitycloset.com). It is re-posted with the permission of Greg Ross, who maintains the site. You can have daily updates from the site delivered to your e-mail each morning. ______________ In a Word: opuscule n. a musical or literary work of small size In…
On April 25, Northwestern football players will vote on whether to form a union. But we may never know the results of the vote, because Northwestern University is fighting to have any union banned after the NLRB Regional Director ruled it could exist. In a legal brief appealing the ruling (pdf), Northwestern made a number…