Just as many textbooks are written by writing teams–at least the producers of the Simpsons acknowledge the show has multiple authors–some well-known ‘authors’ don’t write their own novels either. But that doesn’t prevent them from showing up at book signings. Think that best selling author is
author?
Think Again

You won’t talk to a professor or have your work graded by one, but you can get the syllabus and contents to 1800 M.I.T. courses for free at

< a href=”http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm”</a>.

And so why hide the html when you know it’s there somewhere. My contribution to transparency.

The corridors of the MLA convention and the gaggle of undergrad and grad students showing off their hermeneutic decodings need not be restricted to the children of hard working parents who have gotten bilked by their kids as they shell out 30 to 35 grand to send the budding deconstructionists off to learn how to use such words as subaltern or phrases like “the presence of absence” in order to satisfy narcissistic cravings for a sense of superiority. The National Endowment for the Humanities has recently instituted a grant program that is available to community college faculty and staff to develop humanities projects for student populations often associated with trades and vocations. These matching grants are due by May 1, 2008, so hurry!!! And to assist you, here is a direct link to the application page. Yes, I am a community college faculty/staff member who would like to provide greater exposure in the humanities to my students. That’s why I’m going to click this. http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/challenge.html

It may be difficult to swallow the fact that there may well be a link between the fact that Cho Seug-Hui murdered 32 students & teachers at Virginia Tech because he was an English major and was brainwashed by left-wing extremist English professors!!!! At least that’s what erudite author Phyllis Schlafly has written in the highly respected on-line news and information source the Christian Worldview Network online. Yes, so evil and nefarious are English professors nowadays–who would rather teach courses in anti-American rhetoric (disguised as literature) than Shakespeare–that they may have brainwashed Cho Seung-Hui to such a degree that he took it upon himself to commit what he may have thought was an act of goodness and sacrifice when he went on his killing rampage. Why this informed opinion would be propagated within the virtual pages of a Christian organization is hard to discern, but thank goodness we have God-fearing, thoughtful Christians who see the true decadence and menace alive and well on college campuses in the United States. Perhaps after reading the entire article, you, dear reader, will understand why it is your Christian and patriotic duty to rail against college English departments, their faculty, and the misguided and impressionable English majors among you. Here for your edification is the complete article explaining the problem of the Nefarious Practices of College English Department

And you thought Christian Conservatives were moronic for rejecting the facts about evolution! I hope after reading this avatar of noetic abilities, you will reconsider.

Like the unreasonable folks at reason.com which appears to be a blog offshoot of Reason Magazine who think it’s a non-issue. I’m trying to figure out why they go by the moniker “reason.” Read this and see if you can figure it out Reason.com thinks high college textbook prices are nothing for the government to get involved with.

Unfortunately, the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis, while not seemingly considered a principle by its very appellation, seems to implicate itself in the current race (no pun intended) to see who will be the Democratic presidential candidate, and, if Obama is chosen, will no doubt be a powerful inflluence in voting patterns in the election in November. The infrequently used concept–albeit it is probably implicitly understood by many in the field of communications–basically states that the structure of a culture’s (or individual’s) language influences the way that culture or person sees the world. Tibetan, for example, has no word to signify “insecure.” Hmmm.

Well, it would do everyone well, and would be more accurate even, if Obama were called a bi-racial candidate, which he seems to be the first ever. Whether you’ve read his memoir or not (I have), it is fairly common knowledge that Obama’s mother is Caucasian while is father is Black: It would be pedantic to delve further and see whether one could parse his (or anyone else’s heritage) into even smaller slices, but 50/50 should be sufficient for anyone to acknowlege he is as white as he is black. Did he grow up in a black culture? Well, his many years living in Hawaii and Indonesia would suggest not. Is there any cultural or religious dictate that ascribes one’s race to either the mother or father’s? Judaism considers someone Jewish so long as his or her mother is Jewish; Chinese culture dictates that a child is Chinese if his father is. Of course, this doesn’t give the one born much of a say, and some might not take too kindly to being prescribed a race by another, particularly when one has–at least theoretically, some say in the matter. Or, worse, if one’s father is Chinese and one’s mother is Jewish, we could have a real debacle on our hands. This isn’t a fantasy because I knew a man with this exact confluence of progenitors. He said he told both of them to go screw themselves. Maybe about the smartest thing he could have done.

Now, back to Obama, why can’t we be real here and call him the first bi-racial candidate? Why need we even call him the first anything? Owing to the media and by the public obsessions (both being one and the same at this point), it will be another (and a major one at that) meaningless variable that will be used by those for or against the candidate to praise or bury him.