In Tenure Veritas: Libations From The Ivory Tower

 You have probably never heard of Ray Wylie Hubbard.  Fifty years ago, you might have known the song, "Up Against The Wall, Redneck Mother," but erroneously attributed it to Jerry Jeff Walker, who also went by three names and made a minor hit of the song.  Ray Wylie Hubbard is cooler, and he wrote the song.  One might examine themes of violence in that song, but I actually intend to begin with a bit of stage banter from a live Hubbard album, in which he noted that "in music, Ralph Stanley has killed more people than Ice-T."  As the saying goes, the best jokes need to be explained.  I'm pretty sure I have that right, so here goes.  Ralph Stanley was one of the first bluegrass artists, initially with his brother in... The Stanley Brothers, and then as a solo artist, and he received some late fame for an unaccompanied rendition of "O Death" in the O Brother, Where Art Thou  soundtrack.  Ice-T was a rapper whose most public notoriety came from "Cop Ki

 Once upon a time, I had the courage to use a thing called "math," and to use the process I have been describing throughout this series on any and all issues.  That process involves using both numerators and denominators to assess how well calibrated your fears are, and whether or not they are being stoked in a particular manner.  Then, a thing happened.  You may recall what happened to Neil deGrasse Tyson when he did what I recommend.  Neil calculated some probabilities on school shootings, as a clear-headed mathematician would be wont to do, and backlash ensued.  Since he is a public figure, he caved, even though his math was right.  I know exactly why he caved.  I have said nothing about this topic for many years, but silence and cowardice are tiring.  At this point, I return to my Socrates.  Hemlock before bullshit.  My purpose is to debunk.  My purpose is to apply scrutiny to claims that cannot withstand scrutiny, and should those who accuse me of putting high things low

 Phil Hartman.  Chris Rock.  Sting, as Billy Idol.  And... Jan Hooks as Sinead O'Connor.  The talent on this stage is incalculable.

 I considered an attempt at a pithy title, but I am not pithy.  The same can be said for wit.  I can easily manage snark, but amid so much headache-inducing noise, what I will say by way of long-winded introduction is that I actually read the guidelines from Florida's Department of Education on Social Studies and African-American history.  Most in my position-- professors-- are strangely reluctant to read for themselves.  Granted, they have their own readings, self-assigned, yet one must always remember that we can refrain from the fight and take no position.  Some readings-- science and medicine-- require specialized knowledge which most lack.  Yet if you have the requisite knowledge to read and choose not to do so, then refrain from taking a side.  Or read.  Do not simply take a side because it is your  side.  So it often is with Ron DeSantis and any of his culture war-related policies.  In academia, we are told to despise him and everything he does because blah-blah red versus b

 Consider the following attempt at a syllogism.  Mouse is a syllable.  A mouse eats cheese.  Therefore, a syllable eats cheese.  Stop banging your head on the table, it will be OK, I promise.  Also, do not blame me.  I did not write it.  This little nugget of nonsense comes to us from Lucius Seneca, from his letters to Lucilius.  He wrote it about two thousand years ago, and he did so in order to denigrate the depths to which his beloved discipline of philosophy had sunk.  Seneca believed that there was and is one discipline superior to and valuable over all others.  Gender studies , I mean, philosophy.  The goal of philosophy, according to Seneca, was to show you how to be a good person, and lead a tranquil life.  According to Seneca, those are one and the same.  Unfortunately, those who would call themselves philosophers are easily distracted by stupid and pointless word games which do nothing to help you lead a good/tranquil life.  This is not a new trend.  It was obvious, and troub

 After the Wagner rebellion, I mentioned that I would revisit Fyodor Dostoevsky, and beyond Prighozin's aborted coup attempt, there was another story that some may have missed.  An author named Elizabeth Gilbert (best seller, unknown to me) recently wrote a novel set in the Soviet Union, with the Soviet government as the villains, and with the lunacy of left-wing censoriousness, she was told not to publish it because nothing can ever be set in Russia anymore, because Ukraine.  I am as much on Ukraine's side as anyone, and as critical of Putin as anyone, but the no-Russian-art response is beyond stupid.  So let's go back to Dostoevsky, the paragon of literary moralism.  I wrote several posts a while back, in a very disjointed fashion, on his best book, The Brothers Karamazov , but I will try to be more coherent this time.  The Brothers Karamazov  is sprawling and complex, with so many insights that trying to write a few blog posts on it was not really practical anyway.  I wo

 I shall take a sabbatical from my Phobia Indoctrination series this morning to write about the latest and most interesting dust-up in academia.  Let's delve into the dangerous world of gender.  Consider, if you will, the story of one, Professor J. Michael Bailey.  For those who do not follow retractions in scholarly research, the name of J. Michael Bailey may be an unfamiliar one.  I teach about science, pseudo-science and the problems in peer review, so these matters are on my radar, and no topic is more dangerous than gender because no one has more power in academia than gender activists.  There.  I said it.  Go through this blog, and anything I have written.  I was ahead of the curve, and I stood against the hypocritical, left-wing gender activists when they went after Isabel Fall because I stand on principle, not bullshit.  I stood against them when they bullied a trans woman to the point that she self-institutionalized for suicidal ideation, all because their self-righteous d

 If one were to scour the verbose blatherings contained in this pointless and obscure corner of the internet (hi, CWRU attorneys!) one would find hardly a mention of one, Mr. Hunter Biden.  Why not?  A cool name is as insufficient to bait my click as one's lineage.  How many fucks must fly for me to care about him?  That's an angels on a pinhead question, but as I count mine, the number of my counting is zero.  I am as interested in Hunter Biden as I am in Eric and Don Jr. 's role in the tax fraud committed by the Trump Organization, which is to say, not at all.  What would it take for me to be interested in Hunter Biden?  I dunno.  Learning that he ghost-wrote one of my favorite books, moonlights at Birdland playing some seriously badass fretless bass, or somehow stole nuclear secrets and kept them in an unused ballroom in a Florida golf resort.  I care as much about that fuckwit as any of the other 300,000,000+ fuckwits in this wit-fucked country.  BOR-RING. Amid the bor

 I have stated, repeatedly, that I did not believe Garland would indict Trump on any 2020-related charges, but it looks as though Jack Smith wants to do so, and while Garland could stop him, the thing that Merrick Garland most wants to do is known, in colloquial terms, as "nothing."  With Jack Smith there, doing nothing means deferring to Jack Smith, which means more Trump indictments.  Will Trump be convicted?  The basic jury processes remain the same.  The clarity of the facts and the law make it remotely possible that even Republican jurors would vote to convict on the Mar-a-Lago Papers case, but a conviction on 2020 election matters?  Republican jurors are going to vote to convict him on that?  Not going to happen.  I am uninterested in what legal analysts have to say on the matter.  Jurors cannot  separate that question from their partisan beliefs.  They cannot .  No matter what they say, no matter what they tell the judge during jury selection, no matter what law school

 I do not like Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA).  Since I recoil from modern leftism, this is hardly surprising, yet there are several minor and interesting points regarding her latest teapot tornado.  Realistically, one should cast this teapot into orbit and wonder if it falls endlessly alongside Bertrand's, or better yet, waste an equal amount of time, but amid deadly heatwaves presaging even worse to come, continuing uncertainty regarding what Putin will do, the formal reveal of Trump's unitary executive plans for his post-2024 term and Manchin's hints that he will hand the White House back to Trump on a silver platter, I feel like wasting some time this morning on something silly and trivial.  Like Pramila Jayapal, a person best described as silly and trivial. For those too busy with real life to notice what Jayapal did , said, a) good for you, you done good, and b) here's the executive summary.  (No unitary executives here.  Yet.)  She used one of the left's two ins