In case you haven’t noticed, I have been away for three quiet and lovely weeks in northern New Hampshire. Nothing like hiking, swimming, kayaking, and reading those books you have wanted to get to since last summer to restore the soul and body.

Since it had been completely dry in central New Jersey, when we arrived in Hanover en route to our vacation place we were surprised to be told that northern New England had experienced six solid weeks of rain. We were lucky, however, for we experienced nothing but clear and lovely weather thereafter.

But we all know what the elements can do. Gustav was not nearly so bad as Katrina. Hanna and Ike and whoever are hovering in the wings. Katrina taught us what devastation extreme weather can inflict on colleges.

Still, even though I saw the horrifying pictures of the spring flooding in Iowa City, I had not realized just how awful the situation...

Look what they started.

On September 26, 1960, Sen. John F. Kennedy debated Vice President Richard M. Nixon on national television. It was the first debate ever between two presidential candidates, and the most-watched political event in human history up to that time. The debate took place in a Chicago television studio.

On September 26, 2008, the first debate in this year’s contest between Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama will take place, not in a studio but on the campus of the University of Mississippi.

The first on-campus presidential debate — the one between President Gerald Ford and Gov. Jimmy Carter at William and Mary — was in 1976. It didn’t start an immediate trend: In 1980 and 1984, debates were held, just not in academic settings. But in 1988 the newly-formed Commission on Presidential Debates, a bipartisan group headed by the Republican and Democratic...

(Opinion crossposted at Campaign U. … contains links to material some readers may find objectionable … )

Turns out that Jo Anne Worley from Laugh-In is Sarah Palin’s body double:

This is Palin’s performance in the McCain campaign so far.

This is my favorite line from Elayne Boosler:

“You ever notice that the same people who are against abortion are for capital punishment? Typical fisherman’s attitude, throw ‘em back when they’re small and kill ‘em when they’re bigger. … Conservatives are against sex education in the schools because they think there is a connection between promiscuity and sex education, meaning that kids do it because they learn about it in class. No way. I had four years of algebra and I never do math. These are the folks who say they’re against abortion because birth is a miracle. Hey, popcorn is a miracle, too, if you don’t know how it’s done.”

And a...

I’m tired of seeing pundits support their particular political party the way rabid fans root for sports franchises — or even worse, the way players themselves sometimes engage in such sporting events, with a kind of ruthless amorality. Truth and falsehood don’t matter. Only the bottom line. The win.

This is a mentality that seems to plague many of our athletes, even if the stakes are much lower. Think of those scrappy basketball players who inadvertently knock loose balls out of bounds and instinctively — misleadingly — blame nearby opponents for the infraction. Anything to get the ball back. Anything for the victory.

The Democratic and Republican talking points exemplify this same sensibility: victory at all costs, even if the price is the truth, or when it comes at the expense of an even-handed reading of contemporary political debates.

These folks must think we’re stupid. ...

It’s reassuring to learn that some major institutions of higher education are getting their budget priorities right. Support for this conclusion comes in an article in the August 29 Wall Street Journal, headlined “A Saner Approach to College Football.”

The salute to mental health derives from the relatively modest salaries paid to the football coaches at Brigham Young University and the University of Utah, though both are what is known as gridiron powerhouses. BYU’s Bronco Mendenhall, the Journal reports, “earned no more than $1-million” last year, while compiling an 11-2 record and a No. 14 ranking. His counterpart at Utah, Kyle Whittingham, did not fare as well in wins and losses, which perhaps accounts for his lesser recompense, “about $680,000.”

For the hired help in the classrooms and labs at these and other universities, the coaches’ pay is beyond munificent. In...

(Mild obscenity alert for easily offended readers)

cross-posted from howtheuniversityworks.com

In honor of Labor Day, very interesting posts by Brainstorm comrades Bauerlein (part one and part two) and Barreca. The posts and ensuing conversations are very much worth a look.

Above, Professors Take the Long Course in Poverty by Melanie Hubbard, St. Petersburg Times, January 6, 2008

In a post last week on the responsibility of professors to combat “adjunct-ization,” two commenters weighed in and pinpointed key issues facing tenured faculty in departments that use lots of part-timers.

Joseph Foster (#26) doubted that secure faculty can do much to change the situation. When it comes to hires of all kinds, he stated, “Even dept heads have relatively little control over that. A dept doesn’t simply get a lump sum budget to allocate as its head and senior faculty please. Tenure track lines belong to deans and often even not to deans but to provosts or the equivalent. When a TT line is vacated through resignation, retirement, or whatever, the department often has to fight to keep that line. And fight tooth and nail though it may, the answer may be ‘no.’ In fact, departments often have no re...