CARNIVAL OF THE VANITIES calls at Priorities and Frivolities. Thanks!

RULES WRITTEN IN BLOOD. In September of 2002, a Norfolk Southern (NS) train derailed near Knoxville, Tennessee. There was a hazardous material spill and an evacuation that didn't quite chase Insta Pundit. The November issue of CTC Board reports the main points of the National Transportation Safety Board investigation, which is available as a .pdf file here. (The mother lode of train wreck reports is here.) Why the derailment? Earlier in the day, an eastbound train crew discovered a problem with a track switch. As the switch was a spring switch, and the train was making a trailing point move, the dispatcher allowed the train to proceed. The train pushed the switch out of the way in such a way that it appeared normal to a cursory inspection. A maintainer made such a cursory inspection, oiled the switch points, then stuck around for the next westbound train, which pushed the switch points out of alignment. Result: derailment. NTSB finding: "The signal maintainer’s initial visual examination did not reveal a problem, but he did not operate the switch before train 15T passed over it. NS operating rules did not specify that an inspection of a possibly defective switch should be completed before trains are allowed to operate through the area. NS procedures also did not address the reduction of train speeds after receiving a trouble call about the condition of a switch."

NO DISAGREEMENT. Highered Intelligence correctly surmises "I admire excellence in philosophy and plumbing. If by 'such attitudes' Stephen was obliquely referring to the attitude that I was mocking in my post, then so be it. I have no quarrel." I was. In this post, the "such attitudes" might have more than one antecedent: I did intend to refer to the parents and students of Certification University.

The fun stuff is in an earlier paragraph. "He's got a point. In the long run, the cost might be nontrivial, although I seriously doubt that there's any substantial causative link between outsourcing and college certifications. That seems to be more a simple question of wages -- although the economic inefficiency of having to go to college could be exerting some sort of upward pressure on wages. I'm not an economist, so I'll leave that to the King if he wants to tackle it."

I know just enough about labor economics to be dangerous so here goes: if any of the economists among the sources of Company Mail call me out on it I'll advise the readers. There's one central idea in labor economics that will get you a long way: Low Wages = Low Productivity. (That's why you don't see a lot of outsourcing to Alabama or Mississippi or Bangladesh. Plenty of cheap labor, but not a whole lot by way of human capital investment or complementary infrastructure.) Now consider someplace like China or India where there has been a lot of recent investment in human capital and in complementary infrastructure. With satellite telephones and portable computers it's a whole lot easier for an employer to find a competent file clerk who does not expect the salary of a vice president. (There is a rather wicked Federal Express commercial that might be a harbinger of things to come. Upwardly mobile suit-type is in shipping department. Middle aged shipping supervisor wants him to help get the packages out. Suit type finally says, "I don't do shipping. I have an M.B.A." Supervisor thinks about it, says, "Ohhh, you have an M.B.A. I'll show you." If that's at all representative of employer views of recent college graduates expect a lot more outsourcing.)

If you've been following this conversation about the changing role of the university, do head over to Porphyrogenitus (who recommended Stanley Kurtz with some thinking on related lines) and to Disenchanted (via Insta Pundit) whose observations on the blurring of the university distinctions are worth a look.

ECLIPSE CONDITIONS? Andrew Sullivan has a few questions about National Command Authority's planning for the reconstruction of Iraq. Good questions, not easily dismissed. Sometimes, even the predictable contingencies don't work out exactly as anticipated. Case in point: Allied troops held as war prisoners by Nazi Germany. The Protecting Power had a pretty good idea how many were there, and where they were, until the Germans started marching them around just before the end. Then it got messy. Just how messy is spelled out in The Last Escape (details or compare prices.) That's the latest piece of recreational reading, although it's sometimes grim going. (The reader will learn how close the Oflag at Colditz came to being busted up, how effective the U.S. artillery was at busting up castles by 1945, and that there was a Stalag XIII near Hammelburg.)

POSSIBLE SOURCE OF COMPANY MAIL? Check out Academic Game. Just keep scrolling.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "There are places on Earth where "police" can arbitrarily arrest and torture whom they like, and ask for bribes not to do so. And some people in the United States, sheltered from such things, will tell you that American soldiers are no different from such fighters.

"It is their right to think so. But the children know. The children of those tortured lands laugh and play with American soldiers, wave to them, speak a few American phrases, ask for candy and treats or simply give a shy smile. They crowd around us when we walk the streets, cluster around our bases and safe houses, run out into the streets to wave to passing convoys. They thank us.

"They do not do the same for the other soldiers. They vanish when they see them about their business, hide when they sense the trouble coming, run before they can get chased away. They understand the difference, even if our pacifists do not."

Reminds me of a passage toward the end of Citizen Soldiers (details or compare prices) contrasting the reaction of civilians to a squad of G.I.s with their reaction to a squad of soldiers wearing any other uniform. The quote is from a letter by Sgt. N. J. Todd, USAR and is worth reading in its entirety. (Hat tip: Photon Courier.)

MIND YOUR MANNERS. Going Underground finds a prohibited transit practice that the Chicago Transit Authority has not yet seen fit to ban.

REPRISING THE THIRTIES? Arnold Kling has some bad news and some good news. The good news: he retracted some dire prognostications.

DOMESTIC DIVIDES? "Added together, the differences suggest people who live in different worlds that are on a collision course." Dennis Prager spells out those differences. (Via Betsy's Page.)

THE NEXT FRONTIER FOR MULTI-CULTIS? Buzz Machine discovers a new category of offensive mascots.

FAMILY AND MEDICAL SHIRKING ACT? Apt. 11d passes along two tales, one of a colleague with no children who resents picking up the slack for colleagues who plead sporting events and the like as a way of leaving the office early, another with children who regularly takes work home. (The tales are incomplete, as the resentful colleague has not introduced evidence that the early-leavers aren't taking stuff home to work on after the kids are in bed, and the overstressed colleague has not explained why she doesn't mention her responsibilities at work.)

I have to wonder what my ancestors would have made of the pressures of the modern economy. There was no artificial lighting to prolong the working day. There wasn't much distinction between paid work and home work for many of them, particularly the dairy farmers. Equally clearly, I have to wonder how much longer the One Path to Promotion model is going to go without competing career paths. Too much stress, too much resentment, too much discontent. It has to contribute to turnover problems for employers as well.

UNDECIDABILITY THEOREMS? "One nation under God, indivisible." Bad mathematics, notes Scrapple Face.

OFFICIAL RESULTS OF THE AVIATION POLL. The Shops did its own assessment of the ten most notable aviation innovations. Reader David Karlson discovers the official poll results, identifying the jet engine as the peoples' choice. The poll is part of the Centennial of Flight countdown.

NO WAY TO RUN A RAILROAD. The weather was favorable for a road trip, to the Civil War re-enactment at Princeton, Illinois. The battle ended (a Confederate retreat, described as a draw, did you know that very few battles ended with the winner holding onto the ground for some time after?) with time to get an early supper and check out the local railroads. Amtrak's westbound California Zephyr went through a little after 4 pm, close to schedule. The Southwest Chief was due at 5 pm. It had not yet appeared at 5.30 pm.

IS HUMAN LIFE THE REVENGE OF THE NERDS? An Extension 720 show last week builds from the centennial of anthropologist Louis Leakey's birth, which was being celebrated at a conference hosted by Chicago's Field Museum. One of the factoids that came out on the radio show was the emergence of a pre-human with smaller teeth. I did not listen to the call-ins and missed whether anyone asked the question that later occurred to me: did the use of stone tools in that species precede the emergence of smaller teeth? In the absence of tools, a primate species that has small teeth will be at a disadvantage in a fight. A primate that figures out how to augment his power with a stick or a stone might be able to overcome some of that disadvantage. Is the fossil record showing the selection for survival of tool-using pre-humans (sorry if that's not a proper term of art) with shorter teeth?

A FISKING. Number 2 Pencil is unimpressed with a proposal to race-norm scores on standard tests as the latest correction for cultural biases. A further note: the kind of golf handicapping being discussed in the proposal and the rebuttal is in use only in recreational play. It is not in use in professional tournaments. (At least nobody is seriously proposing a handicapping system of the form in use in keelboat racing. The system, which is supposed to enable similar boats to compete on something resembling an even basis, sometimes leads to boats withdrawing from races because for the wind speed and course configuration set, those boats will have their time adjusted in such a way that with best sailing they have no chance of winning.)

QUESTION OF THE DAY: "Most of the schools mentioned in the article are state universites, meaning that the construction is taxpayer-subsidised; is this good value for public money? Also, if these schools took their teaching mission seriously, is a student who weights his decision heavily on the standard of the saunas worth having?" India West weighs in on Jacuzzis rather than faculty as student-recruiting strategies.

THE FRUITS OF VANGUARDISM. Daniel Drezner looks at Democratic efforts to come up with some bumper-sticker issues of their own, as a counterpoint to Republican themes that can be put rather simply, such as "Cut Taxes." "Deregulate." "Beat the Commies." (Oh, that last one has been accomplished.) Such efforts would be welcome. The usual "our positions are more principled and nuanced" stuff is unlikely to work very well. As Andrew Sullivan notes, such posturing is likely to antagonize potential voters, a point Linda McQuaig misses. Best of the Web finds much to criticize in the mindset. Newmark's Door notes the likely outcome of vanguardism. (I hesitate to comment further on the scrap between the Angry Left and the Triumphant Right over who is more stupid. If that's what you're after go here or here or here or here.)

It is not to the name-calling that I wish to speak. I suspect there are as many deep thinkers on the Right side of issues (or pick any other stratification you want) as there are on the Left. Accordingly, a debate on the meaning and effectiveness of the bumper sticker slogans (let's call them Big Ideas) is likely to be more useful than any number of snarks about the moral consistency or intelligence of advocates of particular positions. One good place to start is with this essay about the effectiveness of tax rate cuts. Key paragraph: "Democrats have lost faith in Keynesian-type fiscal stimulus, and are instead worried about the effects of deficits and a growing debt on future spending programs. Republicans, on the other hand, appear to be favoring a fiscal stimulus, but they are mainly trying to limit future spending on entitlement and other programs favored by Democrats." Plenty of room for serious debate about serious economics right there. As I noted here, both major parties (not to mention the minor parties) have erred on the side of hype and spin in selling their messages. I'd like to see better.

OVERWHELMING THE LOGISTICS. Public response to Chief Wiggles's toy drive has been so strong that the military cannot accept any more shipments at this time. (There still are minor combat operations in progress, with the bad guys still killing and wounding our neighbors, and the munitions and water rations must go through.) Operation Give will be providing information about new shipping channels. The first toys have arrived. Snapshots and slideshow herer.

THE END OF AN ERA? The south side of Milwaukee, and the nearby industrial suburbs, used to feature lots of neighborhood taverns. A bar with a few stools, a couple of tables, possibly a fish fry on Friday, certainly a color television turned to a sporting event and a trophy case for the bowling or softball trophies. All changing. Perhaps one of these days, people who make development policy will figure out that creeping yuppification does not equate to progress.

CARNIVAL OF THE CAPITALISTS makes its first stop, at Business Pundit.

RECOMMENDED ECONOMICS READING. Newmark's Door finds some thoughts on the evolution of the Wal-Mart economy.

QUOTE OF THE DAY. "Pricey rite of passage." Welcome, Joanne Jacobs readers.

SELECTIVE RECOGNITION. What makes a state chapter of a national organization a recognized faculty organization? At the University of Alabama, the Alabama Scholars Association (affiliated with the National Association of Scholars) is encountering resistance the AAUP chapter did not. Is the football-challenged University of Alabama administration attempting to stifle criticism from within?

BOWL ELIGIBLE. Wisconsin matches its Big Ten win total from a year ago, and ends Ohio State's win streak in a most dramatic fashion. Wisconsin's starting quarterback left the game after being tackled in a fashion that might have involved a chokehold. The broadcasters viewed the entry of a reserve quarterback as a major setback, with Wisconsin limited to running the ball. After one series that went that way, followed by an Ohio State drive to tie the score, the spin from the broadcast booth was, "Ohio State wants another three-and-out, then they'll drive and kick a field goal and go back to Columbus." Nope.

Earlier in the day, Central Michigan had the effrontery to score the first seventeen points of the game. Northern Illinois's sole first-half score came on a field goal at the end of the half. That's why there's a second half. The rest of the way it was Northern Illinois 37, Central Michigan 7.

RUNNING EXTRA: Ohio State fans are not impressed with the chokehold tackle, reports The American Mind.

THE VILLAGE IT TAKES. Joanne Jacobs links to recent research identifying the importance of "authoritative communities" in bringing the kids up right. She concludes, "nothing substitutes for a good family." Probably not. Wouldn't good families back up the schools and the police, such that a miscreant at school would be in for more trouble at home?

RUSH TO REHAB. Talk-show host Rush Limbaugh admitted to a pain-killer addiction and informed listeners he would be entering rehabilitation.

DISPLAY SIGNALS AND RUN AS SECOND EIGHT. There are a number of updates to yesterday's posts. Why is this one identified differently?

WE KICK 'EM OUT. The SCSU Scholars note preparations for future outbreaks of Gopher Envy at homecoming. We had a little trouble with that a few years ago. Students decided that tearing down the goal posts was a suitable way to celebrate the end of a long losing streak. (The coach at the time is the same coach that is now enjoying a nice run at the BCS.) OK. The next home game was a victory, with the goalposts suffering the same fate. The Judicial Officer has since issued stern statements about goal-post-pulling on Saturday, back to Mom and Dad on Monday. No more goal post pulling. It helps to have a Judicial Officer who doesn't mess around. Students who are caught cheating and offered a failing grade on the exam or assignment by the professor make a mistake requesting a hearing.

INSUFFICIENT ALTERNATIVES? Wednesday evening's Nightline featured the money crunch in education, with the travails of the good folk of Arlington, Massachusetts, who rejected a millage increase yet held a bake sale for their stressed schools. Also appearing was the Chicago superintendent, coping with the shell game mandated by the No Child Left Behind (but No Child Gets a Voucher) Act, in which a school "fails" if any of the pre-determined subsets of its population is not making progress. Students have the option of transferring to a non-failing school elsewhere in the system, which probably has the effect of moving the failures around. A concluding segment looked at the troubles at the University of Texas, taking the opportunity to list a few tuition increases without looking at the effects. The anchor -- not Ted Koppel -- left the viewers with an attempt to be witty: was it the politicians fault for promising school improvements and tax cuts, or the voters for believing it? No consideration of whether the State of Texas ought to be admitting as many students as it is, at the tuitions it charges. No effort to go to Milwaukee (an easy Amtrak ride from Chicago) to ask about the choice programs there. Jonathan Kozol got plenty of air time, but no reporter could be seconded from recall coverage in San Francisco to interview Eric Hanushek. The news clip that served as prime-time tease, and the Arlington coverage, focused on cuts in music and other basics. Must not have been enough time to look at invented math, invented spelling, environmentalist propaganda, and selective advocacy for justice crowding out the basics. (A reminder to parents: you can get your children reading and ciphering on their own. Simply provide the materials and the opportunities and turn 'em loose.)

ORDERLY MARKETS IN WHAT? Marginal Revolution looks at the costs of organ [donation] socialism.

IF YOU'RE SO SMART, WHY AREN'T YOU RICH? Irwin Stelzer suggests you might not be so smart. (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.)

QUOTE OF THE DAY. "Increasing academic standards is obviously not an option unless you're a scholar-oriented institution, which most state universities (I'm generalizing) are not, at least on the undergraduate level. If what you want to do is give out certificates of suitability for middle class life, then your audience is not going to be drawn in by something that purports to make life more difficult for them. So instead, you turn your University into Disneyland." That's Highered Intelligence. Why not outrage at this misappropriation of state property, or a Carthaginian Peace for the universities? In Highered Intelligence's view, because the outcome is the desired outcome.

"So do parents and students really balk at the increased cost?

"No. They are getting exactly what they paid for: a diploma with a minimally intrusive course schedule and all the amenities money can buy. Parents will do it because to not is to risk that your child will become... gods above... a PLUMBER."

(Via Betsy's Page, some commentary on the pacifying effects of third-party payments, and the continued neglect of breach of the social contract by the universities.) Moreover, plumbers might have a brighter financial future to look forward to. Mr Lopez is right in part and wrong in part with his inferences:

"The truly tragic thing about the transformation of the American University from an elite (if exclusionary) institution to a populist system of social certification is that none of the parties involved really lose out on an individual level. Professors still get paid, students get their diplomas and get decent jobs. Parents get saddled with debt, but they got what they paid for. No one has an incentive to say, "Wait a sec... I just graduated with a degree in English and I never had to read King Lear!" Because the point of studying English or History is just to have a major so that you can get a job.

"Ultimately, the cost is invisible. We -- the country and Western Culture in general -- will not know what we do not know. The cost is not in economics: people will still train for jobs and perform them well. America does not need philosophers in its factories, in its offices, in its public works. This is not about national survival, it is about something more subtle."

Working backwards, the cost IS in economics. First, using the university to certify entry-level file clerks because the high schools failed to do so doesn't come cheaply. Second, why do you suppose employers are taking advantage of improved communications to outsource jobs, including increasing numbers of computer programming and engineering jobs? Professors' working conditions worsen, and parents have to deal with boomerang kids. (Is it really worth sending them off to Beer and Circus U to hang out with other Party Animals for five or six years only to get 'em back later?)

A long time ago, John W. Gardner saw the consequences of such attitudes toward philosophy and toward plumbing.

EXPECT LIGHT POSTING. Stack of bluebooks on hand. Drop deadline next week Friday. Procrastination time likely to be spent outside. Thanks for visiting.

MORE ON WORKPLACE DISCRIMINATION. Disturbing, if true. The researcher in question appears to have dispatched applicants, rather than sent application letters with different sorts of names.

CHUTZPAH? "UW regents apologize for pay raises. While method was flawed, increases are justified, legislators told." Read all about it. Time permitting, comments tomorrow.

SECOND SECTION: Here are the key paragraphs from the article:

"However, no reporters were informed of the unusual meeting and no press releases were sent, normal steps when regents meet outside their usual schedule.

"[Regent vice-president] Walsh and Board of Regents members Nino Amato, Peggy Rosenzweig and Fred Mohs said the teleconference was pushed by Regents President Toby Marcovich and UW President Katharine Lyall in an effort to boost pay ranges for the vacant chancellor positions at UW-Milwaukee and UW-Stevens Point so search committees could attract top candidates.

"Walsh said regents have not delivered half of a 4.2% salary increase for executives that had been approved by the Legislature's Joint Economic Committee in 2001.

"Walsh and Mohs said the motivation - to allocate much of the leftover raise money to the vacant chancellor positions - was worthy. Walsh and Mohs did not take part in the conference call.

"State law requires the board to approve competitive pay ranges for executives, they said. And chancellors in the UW System make significantly less than counterparts in neighboring states, they said."

A little bit of invoking-the-market, a little bit of "we're just doing what we were asked to," a little bit of horizontal equity. But no coherence. And no understanding, either: "Walsh said it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for all departmental committees and subcommittees to advertise meetings in the newspaper and that the media would be swamped with notifications. It would also be inefficient for the board to do every vote by roll call and the Legislature should not micromanage the more than $1 million in salary adjustments the board approves annually, he said."

On the other hand, the Legislature has a responsibility as principal to ensure that its agents live up to expectations.

THE SOURCE OF OUTSOURCING? This Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel story presents a few superficial reasons for learning algebra. (Everybody uses the term "mathematics" to refer to "algebra." Computations are part of mathematics, but one can be a competent skilled worker with no head for the higher mathematics such as calculus and analysis). Here are a few more practical reasons, inspired by something I saw recently, about a student who failed a test for putting a decimal out of place. (I forget where, it will probably turn up later tonight, in which case expect a Second Section.) Anyway, student was in engineering, set the problem up right, made the right substitutions, screwed up on the decimal point, probably a minor error in algebra but the bridge fell down! The student had no estimating skills. Henry Petroski has written about that (no cite, I have one chance in three of guessing which book without my library at hand) as a criticism of the teaching of calculation with the aid of machines. Students get no sense of magnitude. You want to have a sense of magnitude to keep the bridge from falling down, or the drawbar from snapping. Hypothesis: lots of outsourcing of technical jobs to places with more development of estimation skills for lack of calculators and computers. Iraq, anyone?

FOURTH TURNING ALERT. The Superintendent has been unable to determine whether the impending secular crisis will be primarily international or primarily domestic. (That does not rule out some combination of the two.) Porphyrogenitus has a long post, suggesting the opening conflict will be primarily domestic. Roger Simon sees a domestic angle as well, namely the end of the two major parties as we currently know them. Glenn Reynolds is thinking about some of the same themes, but seeing more rather than less peaceful means of transformation at work. On his other site, he recommends a map that shows regional cleavages in Californian voting patterns. (You had to expect this reaction to the map, nicht wahr?) Will the future hold further polarization and further anger? Developing ...

SELLING EFFICIENCY ISN'T EASY. Fiscal policy problems confront both major parties. Crooked Timber's Ted Barlow sees a problem for President Bush: " But right now, it seems that two of the most significant parts of Bush’s legacy, the war on Iraq and the tax cuts, are not just controversial but actually unpopular. In a significant way, Bush won’t be able to run on his record." Something similar appears to have happened in California. Here's The American Prospect's Harold Meyerson, only two years ago: "California is more than just the Democrats' electoral anchor, however. Increasingly, a number of its cities are coming to look like Justice Louis Brandeis's 'laboratories of democracy'--enacting minimum wage, health care, and worker-rights ordinances that would normally be the responsibility of the federal government (if only the feds could be interested in the conditions of working-class life). In city after city, a civic left has emerged in California, with the state's new-model labor movement--the most dynamic in the country--at its core."

Opinion Journal got in a bit of pre-recall snarking, with "What Californians have witnessed is what the modern liberal coalition looks like in power: a gerrymandered majority dominated by the "progressive" special-interest trinity of trial lawyers, unions (especially of public employees) and environmentalists.

"Their priorities are the transfer of wealth from working people to an ever-expanding public sector; more mandates and rules on business that enhance union power but reduce the ability to invest at a profit and create new jobs; and of course legal standards and workers' compensation loopholes that create more openings for trial-lawyer assaults," and the best Tapped's Matthew Yglesias could do by way of a counter-snark was a bit of tu quoque.

We deserve better. Democratic politicians have historically paid a little more attention to the Welfare Economics Paradigm than Republicans, but their attempts to sell corrective taxes (consider the carbon tax on fossil fuels) or approximately corrective taxes (licensing fees based on the weight of the car) have generally flopped. The Republicans, on the other hand, have been more prone to criticize tax-and-tax, spend-and-spend than to propose equivalent measures (tradeable permits, congestion fees on roads.) Their failings have been as bad when it comes to in-kind employee benefits. Governor Schwarzenegger is going to face that squarely when he attempts to square his plan to bring businesses back to California, which might involve ending the mandate that all but the businesses with very small work forces pay for health benefits with the efficiency gains in pooling risks implicit in insurance programs, meanwhile balancing the incentive employer-paid benefits provide to rely more on overtime and expand workforces slowly against the moral hazard that accompanies workers choosing larger pay packets without insurance. Whew. I get a headache just arranging all the ideas. Perhaps it is a bit much to ask for a political party to present a coherent, efficient, taxing and spending policy that appeals to allocative efficiency.

DAY-LONG MARATHONS of bad pizza, bad flourescent lighting, and bad pontificating. That's Dan Drezner's characterization of faculty retreats. Irascible Professor suggests that retreats, in light of the increasing speciation of university administrators, "are intended to cushion the blow. We are told, but we are told in a way intended to make us think that we are part of the process, rather than just cogs in the machinery." This Scott Smallwood article suggests that such telling, rather than the give-and-take of the existing retreats, may become more common, if faculties become trade unionists. Here's an interesting development: "Changes were also made in the faculty's role on search committees for provost, deans, and department chairs. Under the previous rules, chairs had to be recommended by two-thirds of the faculty members in the department, and professors had a system for reviewing their chairs' performance. Neither rule is in force anymore." No big surprise. Under a union contract, the provost, dean, and chairman are part of management and (at least under the union contract I'm familiar with, from Wayne State in Michigan) have responsibilities and prerogatives spelled out in the contract, with no union representation in case other members of management take a dislike to them. Because the contract spells out the responsibilities and prerogatives, it's less likely that a chairman or a dean will be able to give a little bit on some minor yet common-sense point, lest that give be written into the contract as a right enjoyed by all bargaining unit employees.

STOCKS AND FLOWS. The American Mind is less than impressed with the inference that "half of all marriages end in divorce." He correctly notes that if you talk about the incidence of marriages or divorces per 1000 people, "All that tells us is that in sheer numbers there were about twice as many marriages in 2001 than divorces.." (The figures are relatively low, 8.4 per thousand or 4.0 per thousand, because in a random sample of 1,000 people you will likely find a lot of people who were married last year and remained so this year, a lot of people who were not married last year and did not get married this year, and some people who got divorced last year and presumably did not have to repeat the exercise this year.) The most instructive statistic, provided one could calculate it, would be actuarial in nature, looking at the end cause of a marriage (death or divorce) which would give a better picture of the incidence of divorce within the stock of marriages than the flow of additions to and subtractions from a stock that is also changing as deaths occur.

SECOND SECTION. The American Mind finds Thomas Sowell's statement about stocks and flows, which is an early and spot-on smackdown of the "half of" miscalculation.

CAN'T BLAME IT ON "OUTSIDE AGITATORS". Students at Mankato State get case of Gopher Envy. Legislators propose withholding financial aid or otherwise sanctioning students convicted of drunk and disorderly, subject to horizontal equity considerations. This SCSU Scholars post proposes an economics question, and provides the Recommended Opening for any answer. In other news from James J. Hill country, the faculty senate rejects a Marcusian civility code.

Historical note: the large tuition discount offered to state residents enrolling at state-located universities, for which the official rationale relies on who pays the taxes, grew during the years of frequent campus protest, particularly if legislators could point to arrest records with lots of home addresses in other states. Northern Illinois University has on occasion waived the out-of-state premium for extension courses, for reasons that might not be limited to Wisconsin or Indiana residents working in Greater DeKalb.

SEEKING ELDER BREWSTER? Milt's File links to a New York Times article suggesting a developing schism in the Anglican Communion. Midwest Conservative Journal notes that the congregants are singing hymns long un-sung in the more fashionable churches.

AVOIDING THE SECOND DATE FROM HELL. A recognition chart for men. (Via Common Sense and Wonder.) The Superintendent will entertain serious suggestions for a similar recognition chart for women.

AND WITH THE CUBS DOING SO WELL. Knowledge Problem's Lynne Kiesling will be working with Vernon Smith on experimental simulations of energy markets. Good on ya!

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A ROCKET SCIENTIST to have opportunities to use optimal control. Spacecraft offers some notes for beginners, promises more. In economics, it's sometimes possible to work it out backwards (What happens if I cash it in now? Suppose I hold it and cash it in tomorrow? Under what circumstances would I be willing to give up the choice.)

COVERING THOSE OPPORTUNITY COSTS. Two seemingly unrelated posts from academic webloggers provide opportunities to revisit some basic economic principles. Apartment 11d responds to a Stanley Fish article continuing his defense of the academy (and in the process making a spot-on observation about bullet points.) The criticism from the fourth floor includes this: "Perhaps there has to be a different mission in public and private universities. Private universities can set tuition rates as they please, have a serious research agenda, and provide jacuzzis for the students. But public universities have to be responsible to others. If the public doesn't want the faculty to take year long sabbaticals or teach classes of five students, then so be it." The Superintendent's minor nitpick is with the second sentence: it is or, not and, as we have not yet disposed of the hypothesis that creature comforts are cheaper than a prestige faculty as means to encouraging enrollments; whether those are the kinds of enrollments to encourage is another matter. That leads to the major nitpick: the public has not told its representatives it does not want its university faculty to stop doing the kinds of work the private research universities do, and it probably hasn't hurt Northern Illinois University to have graduated the Speaker of the House (don't get me going on what I discovered at West Virginia.) Faculty are mobile. During the early 1980s, an era of tight state budgets and falling enrollments, a number of good economists at the University of Wisconsin were able to obtain more attractive offers elsewhere. Although the public does have a right to know where its money is going, it has to understand the rest of the story. Dean Fish is unlikely to be able to keep his best scholars at Circle (I know, it's Illinois-Chicago) if he's unable to match the terms of employment, which means research opportunities, participation in doctoral programs, and tech support as well as salaries and surroundings. That brings me to the apparently unrelated second post. Invisible Adjunct suspects this professor is crying with his mouth full. (He also doesn't know the territory: "OK, we're not in Boston, or the San Francisco Bay area, or Puget Sound, or Raleigh-Durham. The nearest beach is about 300 miles away. The local culture is conservative, with more churches than bookstores. We are south of the Mason-Dixon line, but we have indoor plumbing and a National Public Radio station on the campus.

"There is a major metropolitan area only an hour away. The weather is good, housing is affordable, the crime rate is low, and so are taxes. Schools are good, even if there is no Advanced Placement French or Urdu offered in the second grade." Sounds like some pretty good selling points to me: are there sailable lakes or dealers in O Scale near to hand? The article, however, neglects to mention salaries. Killer job description. Not your basic coastal College Town. Classic compensating differential problem. If the pay packet is also stingy, nobody will come.

WRITE THAT ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE INTO THAT CONSTITUTION. Joanne Jacobs recommends a Christian Science Monitor story about the evolution of the Hilla School of Religion. "Founded six months ago by a Shiite scholar, the institution bills itself as the Arab world's only school of theology, teaching Muslim, Christian, and Judaic texts. In a town full of deep-seated sorrow, the statue may best embody the school's credo of breaking down barriers and asking dangerous questions." The "statue" is a recent monument to people murdered by the Hussein dictatorship and buried nearby. The school makes use of the recently-completed Saddam Hussein mosque. The dean of the school seeks knowledge: " The school's 180 or so full-time students and 50 or so part timers now study the teachings of the Bible and the Torah; they may learn a few things about religions like Hinduism and Buddhism as well. All the while, they are sent searching for religious insights into everything from medicine to astronomy. Computers are taught as a religious tool; philosophy becomes a theological discipline." As Joanne Jacobs notes, "If your heart needs warming, read the whole thing."

WELCOME CARNIVAL OBSERVERS. Go to a faculty meeting, encounter lots of visits from Carnival No. 55. I trust the archives and permalinks are functioning properly. If not, and you were patient enough to open the main page, scroll down to the entries headed 6.10.03 for the entry titled LAYING DOWN HIS MARKER.

WHAT CAME FIRST? Suppose you regressed all past values of chicken production on egg production, and all past values of egg production on chicken production. Could you answer the question? All of that by way of introducing this year's Nobel laureates in Economics, econometricians Clive Granger and Robert Engle. The Superintendent thanks Marginal Revolution for providing the information, Atlantic Blog for the news and pre-announcement commentary, and Truck and Barter for linking to the announcement and Big Media coverage.

RUNNING EXTRA: Newmark's Door suggests it's a humorous lead-in, cites serious research that a colleague had mentioned to me long ago, way before it got into print.

DOUBLE NICKEL. Carnival of the Vanities No. 55 calls at Dancing with Dogs. Great effort, as ever. Thanks!

WELCOME EXTENSION 720 FANS. Thanks, Milt's File, for the endorsement. (Cub fans, there's some coverage of your team here. Both of the sentimental favorites are still playing in October.)

QUOTE OF THE DAY. Next up on the recreational reading list is Losing Bin Laden (details or compare prices.) Commentary later. For now, look at this, from page 12. "Finally, there is no evidence that the CIA ever paid bin Laden. No canceled checks. No contemporary news accounts published in English in any newspaper in the world. Indeed, the earliest article to mention bin Laden (or any variant spelling of his names) appears in a February 1992 edition of The Guardian -- and it does not mention CIA funding. Subsequent congressional and media investigations have turned up nothing. The charges of CIA funding came later -- and with no evidence attached.

"The claim that the CIA somehow supported bin Laden is mostly made by those who opposed President Reagan's support of guerrilla movements to roll back Soviet communism. They had warned that Reagan's strategy would inevitably cause 'blowback,' which they now claim is embodied by bin Laden. Perhaps they hope to use bin Laden to win an argument they lost long ago."

GET A GOOD START AND SAIL ON THE LIFTED TACK. What's better than a novel set in the Age of Sail? The reality. Let me recommend Flying Cloud (details or compare prices.) Great page-turner, even with an annoying cold making me tired. Flying Cloud set a speed record, New York to San Francisco around the Horn in less than 90 days, in 1851. The hook for the story is the partnership between Captain Josiah Perkins Creesy and his wife Eleanor Creesy, the navigator. (Something tells me I would probably learn a few things racing Lasers or M Scows against her.) The story also provides some insights into why Olympic and Titanic went to sail with only perfunctory sea trials. Flying Cloud's sea trial was her delivery passage from Boston via the Outer Route (east of Cape Cod and Long Island) and on her record-breaking passage her main and mizzen topgallant pole masts carried away in one blow, and her fore topgallant pole mast carried away in another. The crew was able to take the pieces on deck, effect repairs, continue the trip, and replace the spars without loss of any hands. The story also provides some insight into why the clipper ships carried a lot of extra sails for running, rather than using the light-air racing tactic of sailing wider angles to get your apparent wind forward. The act of gybing a ship requires all hands, and to carry out such maneuvers frequently might leave the skipper with a severely tired crew in the case of an emergency.

The reader will also learn a few of the work songs used to get the crew heaving in unison, there's no hand-over-hand or a Harken winch to singlehandedly hoist or trim a sail here. This site is a comprehensive collection of chanteys, and you'll find some of the more popular ones, with program notes, here.

DEFIES PARODY. The word "hate" is a proscribed word. I am not making this up. Number 2 Pencil has the details.

FATAL CONCEITS. Jonathan Rauch comments on the fallacies of hindsight biases. (Hat tip: Dynamist.)

MOTIVE QUESTIONING? Compare and contrast motive-questioning and consequence-evaluation as debating techniques. In your answer, does the nature of the debate, i.e. to get elected, or to have your paper published, influence your technique. Read and understand Arnold Kling before preparing your answer.

TRADEOFFS. Rather than run a Second Section to Monday's mini-dissertation, I'll quote this (register using your Chicago Tribune codes), which Joanne Jacobs found. "Overall, the document finds, the admissions process at UC Berkeley 'might not be compatible with [the school's] goal of maintaining academic excellence.'" There's more to this sort of remediation than the tradeoff between access and standards, something which might lead universities to build waterparks as a cheaper alternative to building academic departments. Consider a mathematician, working on convergence of approximation algorithms in large-dimensional spaces. (That problem interests me. I don't know whether it interests mathematicians. If it's a bad guess, forgive me, but stay with me.) Suppose that mathematician's published and in progress research looks good to a serious mathematics department, such as Berkeley's. Now tell that mathematician that his duties include teaching entering students the algebra that they paid no attention to, or their middle-school teacher failed to teach them. Is that a career-enhancing development? The generalization of this problem to other disciplines and to other universities is left to the reader as an exercise.

WOODSTOCK NATION ALERT? Andrew Sullivan gets why the Schwarzenegger campaign frightens the traditionalists of the Left and the Right.

THE EASIEST DEGREE? Professor Blog has the details.

SPELLING OUT HIS LOSS FUNCTION. My nephew's father emails a further stipulation. "[H]is dad would not like to see him shipped off to fix a problem that was ignored 12 years earlier because our elected employees failed to do their job." Big Up to that.

FIRE PREVENTION WEEK. Congratulations to those visitors who did some research on the Peshtigo Fire (more here.) It occurred the same day as the more famous Great Chicago Fire, leading to the proclamation of the first week of October as Fire Prevention Week (more here -- the theme for this year is particularly on point, as many people have died returning to a burning building to retrive something -- and some classroom materials here.)

WHEN IT'S A TIE AT THE GRADE CROSSING, YOU LOSE.

Cold Spring Shops supports Operation Lifesaver.

It's no easier on the train crew if the fatality might not be accidental. We lose too many people attempting to beat the trains around here.

IMPOSSIBLE TO PROPITIATE THE RAIN GODS? Insufficient fossil fuels to provide sufficient greenhouse gases?

PANGLOSSIANS? Marginal Revolution contemplates differences in the conservative and liberal temperaments. Earlier musings here.

A CHINESE SOUSAPHONE? Truck and Barter evaluates asymmetries in the evaluation of employment of foreign nationals in Indiana or overseas.

LAYING DOWN HIS MARKER.

The editorial writers at The Northern Star are unimpressed with President John Peters's State of the University address. The kids have a point, or several: "During his speech, Peters barely mentioned, and failed to give solutions to, several problems the university is facing.

"In the wake of one of the most serious budget crises in university history, as we often are reminded, Peters failed to mention the current state of the university.

"Doesn’t he realize that faculty in some departments are unable to give handouts because they are trying to save money by not using paper?

"How about other professors who are only able to use their phones in emergencies or when students call?

"Peters also didn’t talk about faculty layoffs, which has been mentioned as a way to combat the budget problems. Job security is one of the main concerns faculty have, and many of them could have been looking to the president’s speech for answers.

"The opening of the Convocation Center and Barsema Hall were two major highlights for the university last year, but failed to get a mention this year. Does the university think their first year was successful? Did they make money or improve education like they expected?"

Spot on. Perhaps President Peters is laying down a marker for a future run at a flagship state university or research university presidency. The speech addresses the scope and nature of the comprehensive university, and what better time to make it than during a time when the football program is generating some buzz, the region remains vibrant and sufficiently leavened by red-state virtues to not emulate the coastal circus, and the faculty's efforts to suck it up and keep going have borne some fruits? Why not take advantage of the correlation of forces to make a statement that establishes you as a forward-thinking leader within the conclave of university presidents?

NO COMEBACKS. Deutschland 3, USA 0 in the other kind of footballl tournament.

BREAKING THE SOCIAL CONTRACT? A New Can of Worms comments on the upcoming Chicago schoolteacher contract negotiations: "Teachers have a hard job, but anymore they are pretty much well paid...and in later years they are very well paid. Yet, their results are totally lacking. They'd be wise not to push their luck." (Hat tip: Econo Pundit, coping with the Chicago area trash-haulers' strike.)

CAN YOU ANSWER THIS? Late in the 19th Century, a tragic fire occurred in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, in which more than 1,500 lives were lost. Yet this event was journalistically overshadowed by a simultaneous tragedy in which only 300 lives were lost. Where did this latter tragedy occur, and why is this question on the website today?

BLOCK PARTY. Knowledge Problem is enjoying the end of the season for the Team Formerly Known as the Milwaukee Braves.

NO HOMECOMING. Packers 35, Seahawks 13. Former Packer coaches Mike Holmgren and Ray Rhodes, and reserve quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, no longer undefeated. Badger Band providing the Fifth Quarter! Life is good.

GAINS FROM TRADE. Facts on the ground consistent with this theory of immigration amnesties: "Yet despite the new era of the Patriot Act and its threats of deportation, real and perceived, most illegal immigrants remain convinced that the chance for a better life here is worth the risk. What gives them hope in part is the proliferation of small gestures on local and state levels that are making big differences in their lives.

"These gestures are tacit recognition of the presence of illegal immigrants and their needs and contributions to society. They appeal to a community's sense of justice, and, little by little, they nudge along a federal system playing catch-up with the rest of the nation," writes Marcela Sanchez (registration required. Hat tip: Milt's File.) The policy puzzle: how best to manage migration, such that future contributors to society get in, while future criminals stay out, without devoting inefficiently many resources to border enforcement?

PLEADING POVERTY, BUILDING JACUZZIS? (A down payment on the commentary on the State of the University?). Northern Illinois University President John Peters told us, referring to the expected bulge in applicants (which is easy enough to observe, just ask the middle schools,) "Demand has outstripped supply." If that's the case, why are college recruiters competing to build health spas? (Registration required, and thanks to Newmark's Door for pointing to the article.) Remind me not to play poker with any university administrators. It takes incredible self-discipline to go to the legislature and, with a straight face, ask for more subsidies to the middle class and to rich people, when taxpayers, including people poorer or less book-smart than university students and faculty, are being asked to dig down for water parks, indoor recreation centers, masseurs, and orgy-sized Jacuzzis.

President Peters laments a change in the social contract between the state universities and their state governments. I have more, much more, to comment on, and intend to do so once this cold passes. For now, I suggest that the state universities are not blameless in this change, and contend that the first failure is a failure of giving too much (not just recreation centers, consider as well coreless curricula and lax admission standards (but see Number 2 Pencil for some encouraging developments)) and asking too little (for now, I'll mention on asking professors to cover more classes, adding more students to classes, and calling for more information about how students are performing.)

SECOND SECTION: Invisible Adjunct is not pleased with these developments. "Do these examples represent isolated instances? Or do they rather illustrate a new trend? In either case, I think it's time we asked some tough questions about educational priorities and the allocation of scarce resources." She points to The Salt Box, who sees the consequences of the wrong business model: "The 'arms race' in student services (the metaphor is from the article) arises predictably from the fallacy of thinking about students as consumers." The confusion in collegiate thinking has been a long time in coming. The research universities might have the strongest claims to inheriting the monastic tradition. Once you introduce the "agricultural and practical arts" of the land grant colleges, the teacher preparation of the normal schools, and the vocational and technical components of the community colleges, you have a mixing of traditions. And when normal schools and land grant colleges begin thinking of themselves as comprehensive universities, with no regard to whether that is the right environment for all students, and when the mid-1990s mentality of preserving enrollments at all costs hasn't evaporated, particularly to provide fee money for expense-preference behaviors in the upper administration, stuff like the water parks happens.

DISSIPATED IN RENT SEEKING? Faint praise for further federally-funded research on extending Metra service Kenosha to Milwaukee.

COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE. "After beating three teams from BCS conferences to open the season, Northern Illinois coach Joe Novak was worried about a letdown in the conference opener against the Bobcats, whose only win was a 17-3 victory over Division I-AA Southeast Missouri State.

"It looked as if that would happen until Fleck came through at the end." Northern Illinois 30, Ohio 23, in overtime. At the not-so-Happy Valley, the Joe Paterno Retirement Watch returns, the offensive line continues its stop us if you can ways, and the Badgers match last year's Big Ten victory production.

RAILWAY ARCHAEOLOGY. Milwaukee streetcars weren't just for schlepping groceries home. The car department at the East Troy Railroad has been working on the Milwaukee streetcar that illustrates these pages, and they discovered these (you might have to register with Yahoo Groups to view them.) It transpires that sometimes people schlepped pork chops home (this looks good, here's Kassler Rippchen, and more prosaic uses are possible) and sometimes people ate them on the car, and didn't clean up after themselves.

SPELLING OUT MY LOSS FUNCTION. Posting has been light or nonexistent the past couple of days owing to a cold that is slow to go away, and a bit of boredom with the big stories of the day, and a few fun things going on elsewhere. Plame? Precursor chemicals? Limbaugh? The Common Carriers are all over it. Go there. They don't hang valve gear or take derivatives. I do. California recall? Big Up to this. Does an absence of post on such things mean I don't care? Hardly. But there's no point linking the Common Carriers who are doing such a good job linking and commenting on each other. Where do I stand? Let's say that I don't want to explain to my nephew why he now has to pray with his nose pointed in the general direction of Cudahy, and his butt in the air, and his aunt has to cover her face, just because some people wanted evidence far beyond a reasonable doubt of some bad guys' capabilities. Raising Sand offers a somewhat more global perspective. (Last via Jay Solo's Verbosity.)

SECOND SECTION: One of the mad Ba'athist paymasters may be off the street.

THIRD SECTION: Shot in the Dark is thinking along similar lines, complete with an on-point from Day By Day.

NO NEED TO PROPITIATE THE RAIN GODS? Skepticism of man-made climate change, from unusual quarters. More here. (Hat tip: Insta Pundit.)

MISAPPROPRIATING RESOURCES. Photon Courier is unimpressed with Stanley Fish's pleas of poverty in the state universities. Go there. It'll hold you over until I get the time to respond to the State of the University here.

OPERATION GIVE. Photon Courier discovers that A Small Victory's Michele has set up a web site for Chief Wiggles's toy drive.

It's worth checking the Chief's site for updates on the toy drive (including school supplies, toothbrushes and toothpaste) and the campaign to free the generals. The first platoons of the new Iraqi Army are completing basic training (or is it retraining into the ways of civil society?) One thing my parents' generation learned in World War II is that the help of Germans, including influential Germans, who weren't mad Nazis was helpful in getting Germany up and running again. Isn't the same thing true for influential Iraqis who weren't mad Ba'athists?

SECOND SECTION: Be sure to read and understand the Service Bulletins at Dean's World. Coverage of both the toy drive and the Generals.

THIRD SECTION. More on both stories at Winds of Change.

THE REAL REALLY USEFUL ENGINES.

All the toddler-related posts invoking Thomas the Tank Engine and friends inspire the following links. Here is the Awdry Family web site (the stories originated as Awdry bedtime stories) and here the real lives of Thomas and most of the other engines.

How big is Thomas to the railroad preservation effort? A "Day Out with Thomas" brings as many visitors to the Illinois Railway Museum in two weekends as visit some museums all year.

BREACH OF FAITH? The State of the University speech by Northern Illinois University President John Peters ventures into the broader topics of The University and The Public. Not enough time to react to it at the moment, but perhaps over the weekend...

FOURTH TURNING ALERT? A call for libertarians to migrate to New Hampshire.

LOTS OF GREEN BAY FUND RAISERS? Check out the "updated" tags here.

GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM. Let's see, if China exports goods to the United States, doesn't somebody have to handle the sales efforts?

NOTICE OF DISRUPTION OF SERVICE. Invisible Adjunct is busy with a book project. Good on ya.

SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE? Lookee what's the news from Europe and the implications thereof.

CALL FOR PAPERS. The latest Carnival is Carnival of the Capitalists. Unclear whether this is a touring carnival or a fixed site. More information at Jay Solo's Verbosity.

CAR 54 WHERE ARE YOU? Carnival of the Vanities calls at Dodgeblogium. (Just the facts, ma'am.)

FOURTH TURNING ALERT. Not good times ahead for free spirits, suggests Reason's Julian Sanchez, who links to this article (English language in a Swedish Journal) that inter alia provides an explanation for acceptance of the homeland security measures. Although many high schools in tough neighborhoods have been run much like prisons for a long time, since the Columbine shootings, which prior to 9/11 were much on the minds of entering classes, that has been true of high schools in more prosperous parts as well. And the level of security, and the acceptance thereof, might increase further, if this story (at Number 2 Pencil, celebrating a birthday) ceases to be newsworthy simply because it is common.

GREAT PAGE-TURNER. One reason for the somewhat light posting of the past few days is the arrival of Frederick Forsyth's Avenger (details or compare prices.) Great read, and no sign of the recycling of content that has been plaguing Tom Clancy (or shall we say the school of Tom Clancy lately.) Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Osama, the usual Forsyth coincidences, and some political philosophy: "The hatred of your country is not because it attacks theirs; it is because it keeps theirs safe. Never seek popularity. You can have supremacy or be loved but never both. What is felt toward you is ten percent genuine disagreement and ninety percent envy."

Probably the Literary Establishment (motto: we don't want you to understand it) will sniff at Forsyth, if they have time to sniff while shuttling from Community College A to Vocational School B, if what Joanne Jacobs has found is true. (Pretty ineffective full employment scheme, if you ask me.)

SOUND AND FURY? "And the idea that Bush is a liar must seem counterintuitive to ordinary, nonpartisan Americans. After all, he is a pol who generally does what he says he's going to do: He said he'd cut taxes, and he did; he said he'd liberate Afghanistan and Iraq, and they're liberated. On the really important matters, Bush has to be reckoned one of today's more honest politicians." That's Best of the Web, seeking and claiming to find anger on the Angry Left.

MAKING FUN OF ACADEMICS FOR A YEAR. Go visit Tightly Wound. (All of the recent references around the Interchange Track to Thomas the Tank Engine suggest that it's time to put up some information about the real Thomas and his friends.)

BEER AND CIRCUSES. The cover of the fall Directory of Classes at Northern Illinois University featured pictures from on and around the football field. The football team has been playing well thus far. Alas, some of the fans have been behaving like, well, Illinois sports fans. [Associate Athletic Director Robert] "Collins went on to say NIU has received complaints about its fans dating back to the Toledo and Bowling Green football games last year, and more recently this year with the Maryland and Iowa State games."

BACK TO POLITICS. Fox News reporting that Rush Limbaugh has resigned his football post at ESPN, presumably to restrict his opinions of affirmative action to his call-in show.

VANGUARDISM, AND TRADEOFFS. Atlantic Blog notes the difficulty of an advocate presuming to speak for all members of the class the advocate presumes to speak for, and notes the tradeoffs open trade brings. The opportunity for a seller to sell at a higher world price, absent tariff barriers implies the obligation for a buyer to buy at the higher world price, which means a loss to a buyer. The general equilibrium effect is frequently, however, the opportunity for the buyer to buy something else from somewhere else at a lower world price, suggesting a benefit to consumers from trade liberalization, but a benefit different from the one claimed here.

QUOTE OF THE DAY. "What you get here -- as with any blog -- is my idiosyncratic selection of things that interest me, as I have time to note them, with my own idiosyncratic comments." That's Insta Pundit. Those are House Rules here, too.

FIGURE AND GROUND. The latest from the SCSU Scholars suggests a very differing view of university administrators from the view upon which I base this post and my preceding posts linked therein. Evidently there is more of the evolution of the normal schools to research universities than meets the eye. A dean with no home department? That's a new one to me ... Northern Illinois University deans have home departments, and external hires come with presumptive tenure in those departments. A "professional administrator" with no collegiate experience? Involved with curriculum? Rare around here. Sounds like there would be fewer administrators at St. Cloud to send back to the classroom in lieu of hiring more adjuncts from Minnetonka or to efficiently term-limit them.

WAYNE'S WORLD ON THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI. No, not a new joint venture of Paramount with Cedar Fair. Rather, it's a Fisking of the latest course proposals from the Blob. I trust that someone on the university curriculum committee is checking that "pro-active strategies for change" includes teaching the times tables and notes that any formulation including the words "x + issues" signals a content-free zone. (It's probably expecting too much now for anybody to point out that "masculinity" evolved over five thousand years of trial and error, and to "redefine" it in light of the past twenty or thirty years of fashionable thinking is presumptuous.)