Make the Hurting Stop!

I am fucking sick of all this crap over Anna Nicole Smith! Yes, it's sad that she died and that her son died and all that. But let's face it, where she's buried really has no impact on my life. And I couldn't really care less who the baby's father is. Why is this shit still news? I'll tell you why. It's like a car accident or a train wreck. People can't help but watch. It satisfies some deep, perverse sense of humor. We want to see celebrities crash and burn. It's like watching some yuppie-fuck's expensive little sports car get demolished by a dumptruck. Admit it, you see something like that, you just sit back with a big grin, thinking "Boy, we're having some fun now!" Sure you have. This is fun shit! But when it reaches that point that your camped out, still watching as some poor guy is sweeping away the broken glass and the yuppie-fuck is crying to his insurance agent, you've become obsessed. That's where we are with the whole Anna Nicole Smith drama. We're down to sweeping up of the glass and crying on the cell phone. Not literally, of course, it's hard to physically cry into that damn little blue-tooth ear piece he just has to have, but you get my point!

Ah shit . . .

I have firmly decided that there are few things more depressing than waking up thinking it's Friday, only to realize that, no, you're wrong. I'm so ready for this week to be over and done. Nothing real bad or stressful, it's just seemed incredibly long. Well, at least I can take consolidation in that fact that, while not Friday, it is at least Thursday. I would have been in real trouble if I woke up on a Tuesday thinking it was Friday. Come to think of it, I have done that. And yes, it really really sucks!

It's Amazing

It's amazing to me sometimes how easy it is to make someone's day a lot better, simply by taking a few minutes to help them out. It could be taking 10 or 15 minutes to help a professor set up some tech so they can deliver an old lecture in a new way. They're grateful for the help, and their students may become more involved than they might be otherwise. This is not a big commitment, either in time or effort, so it does not seem like a big deal to you, but it is to them. Or it could be loaning a friend a spare set of old speakers so they can listen to music in their office as they work. It's not like you're out anything - those speakers have been sitting on a shelf, collecting dust, for months - but to them it's the difference between a long, boring day in a little, poorly lit cube in silence, and at least being able to listen to the radio or their MP3 player for a while. Or it even could be as simple as telling people they are welcome to help themselves to a cup of coffee from the pot in your office. Never mind the fact that there's only the little pink packages of fake sugar* - the fact that it's good coffee and they can get a quick caffeine fix for free (even if there is a donations cup) is enough for them.

And do you really expect anything back for doing these things? No, not really. It is simply the fact you have made their day better. And karma has a way of coming around when you least expect it.

*Personally, I won't touch that crap. Pretty much the only thing I add to coffee is either whiskey or Irish cream, and even those I don't add very often.

---

What prompted this? I really have no idea. Yes, all the things I described above happened today, but things of this nature happen on a pretty regular basis, so I don't think that's it. This was triggered by something else, I think, but I'm not sure what.

There are probably times I seem to be overly cynical and angry. This is really only partly true. True, I do get angry at times, but it rarely lasts long, and more often than not, it's less true anger and more plain annoyance. This is how you know I'm not a pessimist. If I really didn't have any faith in humanity, I would either be far more angry or simply apathetic. As far as being cynical is concerned, in general, I am. But I'm a happy cynic. I may decry the breakdown of society, but I'll have a rueful smile on my face the whole time. As the Grateful Dead said in one of their songs, "I may be going to Hell in a bucket, but at least I'm enjoying the ride!"

Next Time Consider Your Demographic

I was flipping through channels just now and came across a show on new video games. They were blathering on about voting for the best game of the year. I have no problem with gamers voting on which game is their favorite of the year. I have no interest, but equally a lot people have no interest in the things like the NHL All-Star game which I vote for every season. They vote their thing, I vote mine. So it was not the fact that the hosts of this particular show were trying to galvanize the vote which caught my interest. But rather it was the way they were going about it. They were trying to make jokes about fucked up voting practices in Florida and Ohio, and how people would be able to decide the best game of the year unless the Supreme Court decided to make the choice for them. Now I picked up on these references to (relatively) recent elections and all the shit that surrounded them. But my first thought was to question how many gamers would actually get them as well. Of course, I'm not saying that all gamers are idiots or anything of that sort, but I have noticed a correlation between excessive game play and a being oblivious to the outside world. Wouldn't it make more sense to pick a reference more directly related to interests of their specific demographic? Of course, I have no idea that other reference might be as I'm not a gamer myself, but I'm sure there must be something for fitting. I mean, it's kind of like trying to convince yuppie-larva to buy the latest MP3 player by talking about classical music on wax cylinders. Yeah, on some level it makes sense, but let's face it, how many yuppie-larva are going to even know that music used to come on things called "wax cylinders"?

Randomness for February 1, 2006

Random Quote: "Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." ~Douglas Adams

Question of the Moment: What are all the factors which go into the crafting of a narrative?

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Steve Earl, "Copperhead Road," The Definitive Collection, 1983-1997

Muhahahaha!!!

Well, despite my previous post, I actually am in a rather good mood this morning. This is because I have discovered that the key to my office (which I had to wait so long for at the beginning of the school year) opens more than just my office.

Maybe I should explain a bit here. There is one standard key which opens most all the graduate student offices. And opens only the graduate student offices. It does not open things like the break room or the work room. And I understand and accept this. So when I finally received the key to my current office, I assumed the same thing and didn't even think about it. Well, it turns out I was wrong. My key opens both the break room and the work room! Now, I rarely have much need to get into the work room outside the hours that it should be open (about 8:00 to 5:00). Access to the break room, however, it another matter all together.

I am a big coffee drinker during the work week. It's not the caffeine, but rather the taste and smell of it which I enjoy. (And, no, I will not switch to decaf, for reasons which would take too long to explain here.) So, when I get into the office in the morning, I need to get water for my coffee pot. Often the break room has been left open from the night before and there's no problem. But sometimes, it's actually locked when I get here (which is before the secretaries start their day). This causes a problem. I can't really use the drinking fountain on the floor as it's too small and has too little water pressure to use unless I want to take 15 or 20 minutes, by which time someone would have showed up with a key to break room anyway. So I have often been forced to wait.

This was the situation in which I found myself this morning. After finding the door locked, I threw a good little four-lettered word at the ceiling, and got ready to wait. And then I though, "I wonder if one of my new keys might work?" I decided it was worth a shot, so I tried. And the key turned. I was so dumbfounded that I actually pulled the key out and retried the door handle to make sure I wasn't hallucinating or something. Nope, still locked. I re-inserted the key and turned it again. And, as if by magic, the door opened!

After I got my coffee going, the evil little part of my brain whispered "What other doors might this key open?" So I tried the work room and it worked there as well. I'm still slightly curious if it might open some of the professors's offices, but I respect other people's privacy too much to go there, so that will remain an idle curiosity.

Now this discovery presently me with some new found power. The only question is whether I use it for good or for evil (cue the maniacal chuckle). I have mentioned the professor who's so anal about noise (here). Now there is no time constraints on my messing with him. That, obviously, goes in the "evil" column. On the good side, should there be an early meeting which needs to get into a room, or if someone has forgotten their keys that day, I can get into the work room and get them the spare. Will I be faced with these sorts of things every often? No. Really, the big deal, as far as I'm concerned, is simply being able to get water for my coffee whenever I want.

"What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate"*

This falls into the category of stupid drivers in Phoenix (or the Phoenix area as the case may be). I have ranted on this before, but this particular crime of stupidity came up last night. Admittedly, this was at about 9:00 PM, after I had been on campus for 13 and a half hours, so maybe I'm just being "over-reacting-bad-karma-boy" (to use the words of Henry Rollins), but I really don't think so . . .

There are some people around here who seem completely incapable of reading road signs. As I have mentioned before, there is an insane amount of road work going on around here. In this particular case, I was riding the bus back to my truck so I could go home. The route this bus takes means that we have to go through a section of construction which narrows both directions down to one lane right at an intersection. There are a number of very clearly posted signs which say "no left turn" - you know, these ones:
They have these signs because if you try to make a left turn in a construction zone along a particularly busy street, you are going to hold up traffic rather severely. And this results in many many pissed off people behind you. Well, this happened last night, and I have seen it happen many times at this particular intersection over the last week or so. The bus driver and other drivers who were forced to wait on this idiot all began to lay on their horns. To no avail. The idiot continued to wait until they could make their turn. Unfortunately for the rest of us, this meant waiting until the light had changed. To make his infraction even more annoying, he had been the first one in line when light turned green initially - so the rest of us had to sit through the whole cycle twice.

And this not the only place or time I've witnessed this sort of behavior. It is unbelievable common around here.

I find myself forced to consider this question: "Are these people really that stupid, or are they simply so self-centered that they don't care?" In the end I'm forced to conclude that whichever is the answer, it worries and disturbs me and I really don't like it.

*And if you don't know this quote, go watch Cool Hand Luke, you uncultured shmuck!

Randomness for January 24, 2007

(Boy, been a while since I did one of these!)

Random Quote: "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." ~George Barnard Shaw

Question of the Moment: When did it become a bad thing to ask questions?

Current Mood: Tired but relaxed
Current Music: Grateful Dead, "Black Muddy River," Touch of Grey

Arizonans in the Rain

I have decided that there are hardly any Arizonans who know what to do when it rains. And I'm including many of the people who have moved here as well - this is not just directed at native Arizonans. Every time it rains, I fully expect to see someone curled up the fetal position in the corner sucking their thumb and staring blankly into space. And almost none know how to drive in the rain. Even when it just sprinkles a little, they go into a complete mental shutdown and lose all ability to think rationally (by the way, it seems to me that rational thinking should be an integral part of driving - just a little important). They seem to either slow to a crawl or drive even faster. And given that the normal speed of traffic is at least 10 to 15 mph over the posted speed limit, that's saying something.

If you don't believe me, just consider the fact that Arizona has a "Stupid Motorist Law." Read it for yourself here. Basically it says that if you drive around posted barricades telling you that the road is closed due to flood conditions, and they have someone to rescue your dumb ass, you can charged for any and all fees and costs associated with the rescue. Personally, I like this law. It means that my taxes don't have to go up when the city or state it forced to save someone from becoming a candidate for the Darwin Awards (speaking of which, I have added the Darwin Awards to my list of links). Here's a picture of the barricades.

I got this picture from here

And it's not just drivers who fall apart in the rain. People walking around do it too. For example, we had some rain here last night, which naturally meant there were some puddles on the sidewalks this morning. Walking from the bus stop to my office, I encountered several of these. Unfortunately, so did the people in front of people. At the first, a few of them actually stopped short and had to think about what they were going to do about this puddle. I was dumbfounded. It's not like this was a big puddle or anything. It was maybe 3 feet long, 1 foot wide, and maybe, maybe half an inch deep. Half an inch! And they had to stop and think about it. And none of these people were wearing expensive or open-toed shoes (I know, I looked, thinking that had to be the reason for the stoppage). They were all in tennis shoes or boots, for fuck's sake! Eventually, they decided that, yes, it was possible to step over or around it, and we all proceeded on our way, me shaking my head sadly and muttering "unbe-fucking-lieveable" under my breath.

Of course, many of these people were probably the same ones you see walking (okay, maybe it's more like "scurrying") around in the rain wearing nice leather coats, or no coats at all, and then going around bitching about how their clothes have been damaged. Here's a hint, dumbass: when it's raining, wear something which is meant for the rain! Like, say, oh I don't know, a rain coat. Once you're inside where it's dry, then you can take off the rain coat and go back to worrying about looking trendy and/or stylish.

So what does all my ranting here come down to? Just this:

It's just water, so get over it and use your head, dumbass!

In Memory of Art Buchwald

"You can't make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it."

~Art Buchwald, 1925-2007

The Overlord

It has occurred to me that I've mentioned The Overlord several times without actually telling you anything about who he is. The Overlord is one of the professors in my department. He is one of those academics who really doesn't care to teach, so he takes on a bunch of different funded projects. He quite literally brings in hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants every year. Currently, he has at least four different projects going, each of which is funded by outside organizations or groups. With so many projects going on at any one time, he needs a number of grad students working for him. We are referred to as "minions". I think there are nine of us right now.

Overall, The Overlord is a good boss to work for. He expects you be in the office during your scheduled hours and working, and sometimes your hours extend beyond what you are assigned. He also expects you to be on email regularly, and to respond within 24 hour during the week (48 hours on weekends). If you're out of town, that's fine but you have to tell him in advance and still try to reply to emails as promptly as possible. But the flip-side is that he takes care of you. He usually takes his minions out to lunch at least once a semester. And he makes sure you have good equipment to use. I spent much of the last semester designing, purchasing, and setting up new computer equipment for one of the projects I'm working on. This means that I get to spend most of my time working on a brand new, top of the line computer. I have maxed out hardware (including a 20 inch, flat-panel monitor) and have up-to-date software. He basically handed me the credit card and said "Go buy it." Of course, I had to run things by him first, but he has never turned down one of my requests. By the time I have purchased everything we want, I will have spent over $18,000 on computer equipment. Here's the list so far: 2 desk-tops (1 maxed out, 1 a step down from there), 2 laptops (1 work-horse, 1 ultra-portable), a portable projector, 2 portable hard-drives, a color laser printer, a 3-in-1 printer/scanner/copier, and full versions of Adobe Acrobat and Macromedia Creative Suite.

He also throws a party every year, to which all the minions are invited and expected to attend. This is not just a little back-yard BBQ either. This is the fully blown thing, complete with all kinds of food, alcohol, and live music. Friends of his from around the country take time to come out for this thing. That's how big it is.

So, while he's demanding, he's a good boss. But the title of "The Overlord" is more than fitting!

In Town Once More

What's this? The RogueHistorian is actually back in town?!? I know, it seems unbelievable given the last month or so, but it's true. I'm actually in town again for a while. With the exception of weekend trips to Tucson to actually see my fiancee, I should be around most of the time for the next few months.

It's not that I have a great longing to be in the Phoenix area or anything like that. No, the reason is much simpler: classes have started again. And I already know it's going to be a busy semester. Besides my normal work for The Overlord, I'll have four classes (which is a heavy load for grad school). And Tuesday's are going to be my long day of the week. I work for The Overlord in the morning, have one class in the middle of the day, and then another class from 5:30 to 8:30 in the evening. This basically guarantees that I will be putting in more than twelve hours on Tuesdays. I'm just jumping for joy.

In other news, I'm having the great fun of searching for a new roommate (it's simply too expensive around here to live any place half-way decent without a roommate). He has decided to go back to school for his MLS (Masters of Library Science, not Major League Soccer - and on a brief side note, the idea of David Beckham playing for anyone but Man U is still weird to me). I cannot fault him for deciding to go back to school - it's hard to make a real living as a librarian without one. But he's going to a school back East, so he's moving out at the end of this month. Luckily, I'm currently in contact with someone who's interested and sounds like a good roommate, so hopefully that will work itself out in short order.

Oh yeah, I also received a notice for jury duty next month. Fortunately, the day they said I might have to serve is a day I don't have class, just work for The Overlord. And he feels that preforming one's civic duty is more important that working for him, so I'm in the clear there. Of course, the Maricopa County court system can't actually tell if I'll be needed until after 4:30 PM the day before, so I no idea if I'll actually have to serve until then. The Overlord has assured me, however, that if I tell them I'm actually capable of logical and rational thought, they'll dismiss me right away. Sounds about right to me!

So Much For My NFL Playoff Predictions

Back in an August post, I made some predictions on who would make it into the playoffs this year. I got five of twelve right: Indianapolis, New England, Chicago, Seattle, and Dallas. This is why I usually don't bet money on sports.

Back in Town - Briefly

Okay - so technically, I was back in town as of last Wednesday, but this is really the first time I've felt like posting. Mostly, I've just been trying to get back on to a work schedule - and I've been somewhat successful, although not entirely.

And I'm off again as of this Wednesday. April and I are going out to Disneyland for her birthday. So I'll be gone again until early next week.

Now on to the holiday report. Nothing terribly exciting, just the usual headaches of travel and family which usually accompany this time of year. Luckily I missed the worst of the weather in Colorado. By the time I was flying in, they were starting to get caught up, and there were only a few snags. First, the plane was late getting into Phoenix, which meant it was late leaving Phoenix, which meant it was late getting into Denver. When we landed (about an hour late) and taxied to the gate, we had to wait for someone to come out and direct us in, which took about five minutes. And then we had to wait for them to extend the walkway (another ten minutes). And here's the kicker, we had to wait two and a half fuckin' hours for them to get my bags to baggage claim! As near as we could tell, it was because United only had one ground crew working that night, and they were trying to get all the bags which needed to go on connecting flights taken care of first. Bags which were remaining in Denver were of the lowest priority. This of course, included mine. Luckily, these were the only real travel problems I had.

The rest of the holidays went pretty well. My family and I went out to Hawai'i the day after Christmas, and spend a week out there, which was nice. There were, of course, all the usual family . . . tensions is maybe the right word. I like to think of it as tapping dancing around family landmines. As most people have probably noticed, I'm not exactly one to bite my tongue or pay lip-service. But when it comes to family, I often to have go against my natural inclinations and do exactly that. My grandfather's "companion" is one of the those people who always has to be the center of attention, and no matter what story you might have, she has a bigger and better version which she just has to tell you about. For my part, these conversations involve a lot of smiling and head nodding. I am willing to put up with these, however, in exchange for having views like these:

Looking South, with Mauna Kea in the background

Looking Southwest, and although you can't see it, Hualalai is behind the clouds

Looking West, over the ocean at sunset

And before anyone asks, yes, I took these.

Anyway, hope the holidays went well for everyone else! Now, get back to work!

12 Days of Christmas - Hawai'ian Style

("Tutu" is Hawai'ian for "grandmother" and everything else is said phonetically)

Numbah One day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
One mynah bird in one papaya tree.

Numbah Two day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Two coconut, an' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.

Numbah Tree day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.

Numbah Foah day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.

Numbah Five day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Five beeg fat peeg... foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.

Numbah Seex day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Seex hula lesson, five beeg fat peeg (that make TEN!), foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.

Numbah Seven day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Seven shrimp a-swimmin', seex hula lesson, five beeg fat peeg, foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.

Numbah Eight day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Eight ukulele, seven shrimp a-swimmin', seex hula lesson, five beeg fat peeg (that make TWENNY!), foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.

Numbah Nine day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Nine pound of poi, eight ukulele, seven shrimp a-swimmin', seex hula lesson, five beeg fat peeg, foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.

Numbah Ten day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Ten can of beer, nine pound of poi, eight ukuklele, seven shrimp a-swimmin', seex hula lesson, five beeg fat peeg, Foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.

Numbah Eleven day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Eleven missionary, ten can of beer, nine pound of poi, eight ukulele, seven shrimp a-swimmin', seex hula lesson, five beeg fat peeg, foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.

(Numbah Twelve day of Christmas the bes', and the bes' stuff always come
las'...)

Numbah Twelve day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Twelve TELEVISION, eleven missionary, ten can of beer, nine pound of poi, eight ukulele, seven shrimp a-swimmin', seex hula lesson, FORTY steenkin' peeg, foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree!

Still Here and Kickin'

Yes, I am still alive. Sorry for the prolonged silence. I spent all of last week fighting a nasty chest cold which had gotten the better of me. When I wasn't trying to cough up a lung, I was making and eating soup and trying not to cough some more. Yeah, that was a lot of fun.

And most of this week has been spent getting my new toys ready at the office. While The Overlord may be demanding at times, there are benefits to working for him. Specifically the fact that he always has a ton of money to spend on his projects. And since I'm his primary tech guy, he turns to me to spend his money. This is a good thing. So, I've been spending his money over the last few months and we finally got all of our equipment in. The university techs have prepped and returned it, so now it's just down to me getting everything else set up and ready, installing software, etc. And the best part is that The Overlord always wants us to have really good equipment. There are benefits to working for a man with more money than God.

And then today, my day off, I managed to survive the crowds at the mall to finish off the very last of my Christmas shopping. Now, I'm not a big fan of malls in general, but during the holidays they are absolutely evil. If I can avoid them, I do. Sadly, this year, I could not. Luckily, I managed to make in and out in under an hour and survived to tell the tale.

One more thing to bring people up to date on. As of last Friday, I officially have my M.A. After all the crap that went down at the end of the summer and having to delay my graduation until this semester, I just glad to have it all done.

Well, now that every one is all caught up, I want to wish all a happy (or at the very least, survivable) holidays. I'll be out of touch until after the first of the year. Assuming that it's not snowed under, I'll be flying to Denver on Saturday, and then we're going out to Hawai'i for a week. We'll be in rural Hawai'i with only dial-up, so online things just aren't going to happen. But I'll be back in Arizona late on the 3rd, so I'll see you all then (metaphorically speaking anyway). Peace!

D-U-N!

Done!

I have just finished the final paper for one of my classes. And I am happy! This class has been a bit of pain in the ass all this semester. It's one of those classes you only take because it's required. We've spent the entire semester looking at different theories and methodologies for the practice of history. As a public historian, this is not of that much use to me. I understand why they want everyone to take it and I accept that. But since it's not that important to me, and given that it's a fuckin' pass/fail class, I've spent much of the semester asking "Why should I care or put too much effort into this?" That's not to say that I've slacked off in the class or anything like that, but other things have taken priority on my "To Do" list.

One of the most aggravating things about this class has been the professor. She and I have not always seen eye to eye on things, and (personally) I have found her style a bit grating at times. She is very intelligent and very invested in making the class do what it's supposed to. No question about that. There have just been a few times that she and I have had fundamental disagreements on things, with neither one of us willing to give. From my perspective (and I want to make this clear - this is how I view things, so this is totally biased), she is one of those people who seems to feel that because of who she is, where she comes from, and how she was trained as a historian, she has some kind of special insight to all aspects of a few things. Without going into details, suffice to say that she seems to think that she has the authority to speak on all aspects of gender, religion, and the practice of history. On this last one, she has basically come out and said that she thinks that public historians are incapable of being objective in their research because they are working for clients. This, of course, annoys me quite thoroughly. I have tried to point out that historians working in academe also have clients, it's just that our clients pay us with money and their clients pay them with tenure positions, book and article publications. (She didn't much like that statement.) Now, I am more than willing to admit that my being annoyed is a big part of the reason I am so unwilling to back down on some things.

So, back to the final paper. This was to be 12-15 pages on "What is history?" The way the assignment was written, we could either focus on how people have thought about history over time, or how they have practiced it, realizing of course that there is a great deal of overlap between the two. I chose the second, focusing on how the practice of history has slowly but continuously moved away from being a strictly academic one, and toward being public focused. In other words, as historians have expanded their subject areas to include more than just dead white men in politics and the military, they have been forced to also expand their methods of presentation to include more than just teaching undergrads and writing wordy monographs for other academics.

Needless to say, my paper is a Big Fucking Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. But, the pin has been pulled (the paper is done) and it has been lobbed (and has been turned in to her box). Now we just wait for the fall out!

An Important Anniversary

Today is a special day, whether you know it or not. It was on this day, 73 years ago, that the 18th Amendment was repealed. If you don't remember the 18th Amendment off the top of your head, allow me to refresh your memory. The 18th was the amendment which prohibited "the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States." In other words, Prohibition. The 18th Amendment was in effect from January 16, 1920, until December 5, 1933, when it was repealed with the passage of the 21st Amendment. In honor of this day, here is an old Irish folk song which seemed appropriate:

Of all the money e'er I had, I spent it in good company;
And all the harm I've ever done, alas was done to none but me;
And all I've done for want of wit, to memory now I can't recall,
So fill me to the parting glass, goodnight and joy be with you all.

Of all the comrades e'er I had, they're sorry for my going away,
And all the sweethearts e'er I had, they wish me one more day to stay,
But since it falls unto my lot that I should go and you should not,
I'll gently rise and softly call, goodnight and joy be with you all.

If I had money enough to spend and leisure time to sit awhile,
There is a fair maid in this town who sorely has my heart beguiled.
Her rosy cheeks and ruby lips, I own she has my heart in thrall,
So fill me to the parting glass, goodnight and joy be with you all.
~ "The Parting Glass," Traditional Irish Folk Song

Fuckin' John Madden

Every time I watch Sunday Night Football, I find myself more and more annoyed by John Madden. I know he's been in football for years, but that still doesn't stop the guy from being a complete idiot. When he's not stating the obvious, he's making comments which are just idiotic or wrong. I wish he would just shut the fuck up and go away.

What Made You Think You Could Get Away With Something Like This?

One of my colleagues is teaching a freshman survey class, US History to 1865. As part of this class, she has assigned a short book on women in the antebellum South (and by "short," I mean about 100 pages). Students needed to write a 3-5 page (double spaced) review on the book. No exactly a hard assignment.

As she was grading them, however, she came across one which struck her as remarkably familiar. Almost like she had read it before. Then she realized she had. It was a review which had been published on one of the online history networks. It's not even like this guy "borrowed" a sentence or two and didn't cite them. The entire paper was the same, word for word. The only thing which this student had written himself was the last two sentences, which were complete crap. The only other thing this student did to try and hide his plagiarism was to change a few words here and there. It really looks like he simply used the synonym tool on Word. For example, the original review used the word "champion" (as in champion a cause). Well, this student's paper had "gladiator" instead. Yeah, like no would notice that.

And in the course of grading, she has found a couple others, although none quite so egregious. Of course, my friend was more than a little pissed off. She feels that these students are treating her like she's stupid. Well, she's not. And now she's gunning for these students (I offered to walk into her class with one of my other friends, who's just a little unstable, and threaten to break the fingers of anyone who did this sort of thing again - she laughed but did not accept the offer). So, she brought this situation to the attention of the department chair. He looked at the paper, looked at the original review, and said "Give him an 'XE' for the class." Here's how the university defines "XE":

The grade of "XE" denotes failure through academic dishonesty and may not be appealed through the grade appeal process. The grade "XE" shall be recorded on the student's transcript with the notation "failure due to academic dishonesty." The grade "XE" shall be treated in the same way as an "E" for the purposes of grade point average and determination of academic standing.

An XE cannot be expunged from a transcript. It stays on there forever! Good luck ever getting into grad school, dumbass! And this guy is a business major. Companies often look at transcripts specifically for things like this. Worse case scenario, the dean can decide to expel this student, with no change for re-enrollment.

People like this often confuse me some. I can understand that you can get busy and may feel like you need to cut corners to get things done. Remember, I've been there and felt the same way - in fact, there are days I still feel that way. But to think that you can get away with plagiarism is just mind-boggling.

My books need no one to accuse or judge you: the page which is yours stands up against you and says, "You are a thief." ~ Marcus Valerius Martial, Epigrams (bk. I, ep. 53)