When a college discovers that its online databases have been broken into, officials typically rush to e-mail students whose personal information may have been exposed. But is anyone really getting the message?
At Ohio University, which has recently experienced a spate of high-profile hackings, many students say they haven’t read e-mail warnings about the incidents because they are used to getting unimportant e-mail messages from campus administrators. And other students say they are only dimly aware of the university’s recent network-security struggles.
All of which poses a problem for college officials: If they can’t reliably reach students by e-mail, how do they get urgent messages across? (The Athens News)
For more on the Ohio University break-ins, see an article from The Chronicle by Andrea L. Foster.
12 Responses to Students Aren’t Getting the Message in Ohio
historiann - March 29, 2012 at 2:47 pm
Worse than dog–or even human poop–is stepping in a gum wad. At least you can hose the $hit off the soles, whereas gum is a much messier thing to get rid of, and just as disgusting in my view.
I like the interesting comparisons you make bewteen children and dogs, and their owners’ combination of both anxiety and denial about both dependents’ intimacies with their own $hit, and that of other children and dogs. Here’s another connection for you: like the little girl who ended up in the emergency room, dogs are coprophages too–except it seems that their digestive systems are better suited to the practice.
Historically, humans have been much more comfortable with dogs as coprophages than we appear to be now–in fact, there is anthropological and historical evidence that this is one of the reasons that humans initially kept dogs. Dogs eat garbage, and they eat all kinds of poop too. That’s a kind of community service.
zenith_student - March 29, 2012 at 4:54 pm
So sorry to hear about Breezy! That dog was the best.
Tenured_Radical - March 29, 2012 at 5:23 pm
Thank you so much: she loved coming to school and hanging with you guys. Just so you know — she died suddenly, and in her sleep.
physioprof - March 29, 2012 at 10:34 pm
Give the fucken dogges and humanS some motherfucken apizza!!!
cmorpork - March 29, 2012 at 11:11 pm
The lesson I took from this excellent post is twofold. First, a nice zen reminder: poop happens. Second, never underestimate the ability of people to focus on minutiae when things are at their worst. I think dire situations – crumbling infrastructure, endless economic crises, military buildup, cutting social services, massive corruption – make people feel helpless and powerless. And so they cling desperately to the little things in their life over which they feel they have some measure of control. Lost your health care? Son or daughter sacrificed in some pointless war overseas? House in foreclosure? Not enough money for college? Politicians putting all the blame on you for not working hard enough? Well, at least we closed down that goddamn park!
I hope the child gets better soon and that the parents will have a funny story to tell some day. And once again, not wanting to sound like a brown noser, but nice post.
flaviafescue - March 29, 2012 at 11:40 pm
Have I mentioned recently that I love you? Because I do. Love you.
Tenured_Radical - March 30, 2012 at 8:08 am
And have I ever mentioned that you *and* Milton are my favorite writers? Oh yeah — and Historiann! XO
historiann - March 30, 2012 at 7:41 pm
HA! You said brown-noser.
loumac - March 31, 2012 at 3:11 pm
It’s often the vocal idiot minority that prevails, because they see things with the kind of binary vision that is depressingly effective in the public sphere. Want to exercise your dog? You must hate kids. Want a dog park? You probably sacrifice babies. The rest of us live in a more complicated, intersected world where most dog owners also have kids, most kids actually like dogs, and well-exercised dogs are better-behaved in general and less likely to do things like, you know, bite kids.
The “think of the children” thing is particularly pernicious because it not only shuts down dialogue (you can’t dialogue with people who are convinced they have the moral high ground, a ground they claim by appropriating The Child), but it’s also uttered mostly by people who aren’t really thinking of the children at all. I always think of that character in the Simpsons who, whenever anything happens whatsoever, screams “won’t somebody think of the children?!” In this case, thinking of the children would involve thinking about the fact that they live in the same imperfect poopy world as adults, that they will hopefully one day become adults capable of navigating real and metaphorical poop piles, and that many of them also enjoy taking their pup to the park to play and, like adult dog owners, may be sad to see the park declared off-limits.
Katrina Gulliver - April 2, 2012 at 8:42 am
If the parents pursue some kind of lawsuit, then that will be a matter of public record. That girl’s name will be associated with this incident, and I can only imagine what it would be like in a few years when her school friends (armed with internet search) find out she is “the girl who ate poo”. THAT is going to be humiliating.
Tenured_Radical - April 2, 2012 at 4:45 pm
It’s like being the Underwear Bomber when you thought you were going to be a holy martyr. Sheesh.
Beatrix Dang - April 2, 2012 at 7:05 pm
First off, i got a dog. dog poops. i pick it up, but yer always going to miss one, somewhere, cuz yo, dogs poop a LOT for a species that usually doesn’t eat much bran. second: i run around barefoot all the time. i have stepped in dog poop, barefoot even, more times than i can remember. y’know what? i don’t think i’ve ever even contracted a decent case of tapeworm. hose it off and you’ll be just fine. “teach your child not to eat poop” sounds like at least as reasonable a request as “pick up after your dog.”
one of the main places i run around barefoot is on those sorts of farms that grow the Local CSA produce that the suburbanite yuppies with small children love so well. Ours enjoys regular visits from deer, various flocking birds, rabbits and coyotes. and i know this primarily from observing scat left around the fields.so whenever i read about a mass freakout like this, i take a certain satisfaction knowing that the $5.00 bunch of kale that the yuppies are feeding to junior down in in their immaculate, lysol-on-every-surface kitchen in fairfield county was grown in dirt and shit, sure as it was watered by the rain and fed by the sun. ain’t no such thing as clean.