The prez is he-who-must not be named in my house, so I just call him The Monster there. Powerful people in the US, including most of SCOTUS, have limited life experiences, having grown up with wealth and privilege, never directly experiencing racism, poverty or sexual assault (as a victim).

I can fly to almost any major European city directly from Philadelphia, but I can’t fly to any place in New Mexico, where my family lives, without changing planes.

Great post. My younger son served in the Navy. I’m glad he’s not there now.

If tenure-density gets much lower at Temple U, the whole place might start to levitate.

I’ve been living with this music for almost 50 years and still learned a lot. I was lucky enough to hear Neumann work in Vienna and Prague a number of times during the mid 1980s.

I watch his videos on youtube when we’re planning on a trip someplace new. And ones by others, but he’s a pretty reliable starting point.

This is what happens when politicians quietly choose the filing deadline to retire, allowing only a member of their staff to file for election, no matter how unqualified they are. Abetted by the most complacent urban electorate in the US. I pray that his constituents are awake next election cycle.

Or, in my department’s case, their enrollments collapse because their “dean” removes 1/3 of their FTE despite being one of only 4 departments to improve their numbers after COVID. When you’re not one of the preselected winners there’s nothing you can do

Stand By Me is very underrated

Which means we can watch the Bills’ game 😏

Yup movie references for older people. Youngsters have no appreciation for our b-list sci-fi movie heritage 🤓

In the lived reality of my students, Medusa is a feminist icon. I have female students with Medusa tattoos, which they’ve explained to me, sometimes in private. I’ve been so startled by her popularity in my myth course that I’ve reduced the Perseus component of one class meeting to focus on her.

One part of this situation that is not being told is that cuts to the humanities at American universities are making it difficult to study Christianity in any kind of historical or objective form. It’s now impossible at my urban state-related institution

I’m 2 years younger than you. We’d just immigrated from England and I’ve been told I watched the Bernstein memorial concert on my father’s lap. But Bobby’s death is still pretty vivid in my memory, and I’ve come to think *his* death was the single most important death of my lifetime.

That’s truly bonkers. What did you ask to get that reply?

Don’t underestimate the wild card of referees (if an edited volume has them–a number don’t). The academic publishing industry has had severe problems since covid, especially with getting anyone to agree to read anything. Some ghost the editors after they agree. It’s driving editors nuts.

And he’s over 70, so that’s physically quite taxing, he doubtless doesn’t need the money, and so one imagines he thinks it’s really important to try to continue to mentor certain people. Here’s yet another example of why a retirement age for academics would be useful

East coast media bias