{"id":6213,"date":"2013-07-14T16:42:53","date_gmt":"2013-07-14T20:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shermandorn.com\/wordpress\/?p=6213"},"modified":"2013-07-16T10:11:52","modified_gmt":"2013-07-16T14:11:52","slug":"odds-and-ends-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/?p=6213","title":{"rendered":"Odds and ends"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On the good side, it&#8217;s Bastille Day, and I survived my biweekly killer workout. ((This does not mean I&#8217;m in good shape but that I&#8217;m in <em>better<\/em> shape than if I had stayed home.))\u00a0On the other hand, I&#8217;m depressed about virtually everything involving the prosecution of George Zimmerman, and not concentrating well as a result. So just a few bits and pieces today:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I am still bewildered that the prosecution of Zimmerman first chose a high-risk strategy of only one charge (second-degree murder) and then pursued it incompetently. ((The judge apparently gave the jury the option of manslaughter, though it wasn&#8217;t on the original charge sheet.)) Florida has a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.leg.state.fl.us\/Statutes\/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&amp;Search_String=&amp;URL=0700-0799\/0784\/Sections\/0784.05.html\">culpable negligence statute<\/a>, which appears to my lay eyes to fit the circumstances as a first-degree misdemeanor if not murder or manslaughter. At this point, I&#8217;ll just reminder everyone that stupidity happens in your area, too, and the United States is a recovering racist nation, taking it one day at a time.<\/li>\n<li>I have decided to torture myself this month by reading a good portion of materials related to the de-accreditation of the City College of San Francisco (see coverage on July 3 by <a title=\"Inside Higher Ed\" href=\"http:\/\/www.insidehighered.com\/news\/2013\/07\/05\/accreditor-votes-shut-down-san-franciscos-community-college-1-year\">Inside Higher Ed<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/chronicle.com\/article\/City-College-of-San-Francisco\/140133\/\">Chronicle of Higher Education<\/a>). Every step I wade into the mess, it becomes clearer how much the multiple layers of the situation comprise a fotal tustercluck.<\/li>\n<li>On the much-better-news side, the federal government <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/wonkblog\/wp\/2013\/07\/14\/the-feds-are-finally-cracking-down-on-ratings-agencies-what-took-so-long\/\">is finally going after the ratings services<\/a> that contributed to the 2007-08 financial meltdown through their see-no-evil approach to rating collateral debt obligations and other financial derivatives. Those who cover Moody&#8217;s moody and ridiculous pronouncements about higher ed should always mention this in future articles. I&#8217;m looking at you, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.insidehighered.com\/news\/2013\/01\/17\/moodys-report-calls-question-all-traditional-university-revenue-sources\">Kevin Kiley<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/chronicle.com\/blogs\/wiredcampus\/moodys-says-moocs-could-boost-a-universitys-credit-rating\/44519\">Sara Grossman<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Also in better news, tomorrow morning my college welcomes our new dean, <a href=\"http:\/\/news.usf.edu\/article\/templates\/?z=38&amp;a=5444\">Vasti Torres<\/a>. A week later, she goes through the HR new-hire process, with all of its paperwork. I&#8217;m having a medical procedure the same day, and the main difference is, I get anaesthesia. More seriously, the HR new-hire process has its rationality, and there are some very good pieces of it for new employees, but it&#8217;s generally designed around staff needs rather than faculty or administrators, where it isn&#8217;t a mandatory-paperwork collection time. I&#8217;m curious how she&#8217;ll experience and see USF as an outsider coming in; this is a benefit from outside administrator or senior faculty hires, to get an experienced and fresh perspective.<\/li>\n<li>I still haven&#8217;t followed up on my <a href=\"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/?p=5945\">lashon hora etc.<\/a> post about faculty misbehavior, but in working on a follow-up, I realized I had failed to point out that the vast majority of cases where I or my colleagues make social errors, it&#8217;s at a much-lower-than-asshole level. As both a department chair and former union chapter president, I&#8217;ve seen plenty of stuff that&#8217;s better handled by more subtle redirection\/education or a silent &#8220;I see what you did there&#8221; sigh to myself. The bulk of such things are irritations or minor and unnecessary fibs at most. If you&#8217;d likely just sigh at your teenager over it, why would you go ballistic with a colleague?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I hope you are having a good and peaceful day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the good side, it&#8217;s Bastille Day, and I survived my biweekly killer workout. ((This does not mean I&#8217;m in good shape but that I&#8217;m in better shape than if I had stayed home.))\u00a0On the other hand, I&#8217;m depressed about virtually everything involving the prosecution of George Zimmerman, and not concentrating well as a result. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20,12,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-florida","category-higher-education","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pag0MB-1Cd","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6213"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6221,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6213\/revisions\/6221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}