Essayist as Puck?
If we shadows have offended,Think but this, and all is mended,That you have but slumber’d hereWhile these visions did appear.-Puck, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, V, i In trying to explain Why I Write These Columns, Stanley Fish argues that his goal as an essayist is to probe the logic of an issue, and that he […]
Eating okra at the carnivore’s table
I’m in Tallahassee this evening, giving up a day and a half to convince legislators that a proposal for a diminished university Board of Governors would be a bad idea. This evening, I asked the hotel clerk for a restaurant. The one she directed me to had one car in the parking lot: not a […]
Embarrassments and education politics
Does anyone else think that Florida state senators waited to criticize the university system’s chancellor’s bonus until they wanted to decapitate the Board of Governors? I am no fan of huge bonuses for academic administrators, but surely the legislators knew of this for several years, as they’ve known about large bonuses for university presidents (which […]
Why I love reading blogs
Reason #421: when I have a headache and have to work on something tedious, Timothy Burke nails why I dislike Richard Dawkins. To be honest, it’s why Burke dislikes Dawkins, but as is often the case, he is more articulate than I would be making a similar argument. Incidentally, Burke would still be more articulate […]
Swamped
I wish I had time to write something pithy today, but I have a communications bungle in one direction, a crisis in another, several overdue items mating in this corner, and a Sword of Damocles overhead, and to boot I’m mixing all of this up with a swamp metaphor, so Margaret Soltan (aka University Diarist) […]