A minimalist approach to essential, transparent, accountable, flat, adaptable, responsive, solution-based government, rooted in virtuous individual autonomy, traditional values and free markets, with a bias towards reduction of government functionality, cost and scope
Madonna, "American Pie". Madonna opened the new millennium with a rare remake, a rather bizarre take on the McLean 70's classic hit (in fact I only heard it for the first time writing this post). The video seems very dark and (at least to me) to fixate on Madonna's breasts. It barely hit Top 30, although it hit #1 in at least 7 other countries.
Quote of the Day One day in retrospect the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful. Sigmund Freud
The Democrats' Smear of Kavanaugh
Serena Williams Owes Us An Apology
Reason Debate:Can the Markets Cure Poverty?
I side with Easterly.
On a side note, the familiar reader may know that Bowling Green (Ohio) State University extended my first academic job offer, the proverbial road not taken. I loved BGSU and came close to accepting the offer (and almost certainly would have been tenured there). The deciding issue was UWM gave me an opportunity to teach graduate school classes and had an MIS PhD program. I knew almost instantly I made the wrong decision. My very first semester the (informal department chair--technically the business school wasn't departmentalized, at least while I was there) threatened my own tenure process when I privately criticized one of his students' incompetent dissertation proposals. There were other things that happened at UWM, but DH's threat was an unthinkable breach of professional ethics. (The student's (DM) proposal was a mess; he had hoped to use DH's contacts at nearby Wisconsin Bell to do an experimental test with employees (something I knew would never happen) and he had a backup plan of using student subjects. He had some vacuous hypotheses that improved information would result in better decisions, but almost nothing was spelled out: specifics on how the study would be operationalized, statistical power, etc. I personally liked the doctoral candidate, but I urged him to withdraw his underdeveloped proposal, because I knew it would be shredded by a competent faculty. He declined, pointing out that he wanted to job hunt in academia and nobody would taken him seriously without a defended proposal.)
DH had arranged for a dog-and-pony show at WB (not related to the thesis); since I was new to the area, an MIS grad student CK (not yet doctoral candidate--and there's an entirely different corrupt incident involving him) offered me a ride. Somehow we ended up in different groups with his tour preceding mine, and when my group finished, he was gone. DH offered me a ride home. I lived in an apartment within a mile or so (walking distance) from campus. Within 5 miles or so of my apartment, DH abruptly mentioned that he knew I had had a discussion with DM about his dissertation proposal. He paid lip service to DM needing to address my valid criticisms of the proposal. And then he said, and these words are burned into my memory, "You know, you have no vote in your own tenure process."
He then went on to say that he had recruited PN, a well-known organizational behavior professor I had not met in person, onto DM's dissertation committee, and PN had been marching orders to take me out if I dared to open up my mouth at DM's dissertation defense. I had no idea if DH was making this shit up, if he was just trying to intimidate me.
This had shaken me to my core. This was naked power politics against a rookie professor, a breach of ethics I had never even heard of or imagined earning 4 degrees at 3 different universities. Now I may not have checked out DM's proposal when it was frozen, except for some reason, DM had repeatedly refused, apparently under DH's orders, to discuss or see a draft of his proposal. I never had a clue the proposal was worse than anything I could imagine; what it did do is provoke my curiosity over what DH was trying to hide. But there would be a day of reckoning--the freeze period when DH couldn't infringe on my rights to check out a copy.
Now, to be frank, I was a cocky young professor and researcher. There had been some rumors of adversaries of troublemakers showing up at my dissertation defense, and my response was, "Bring it on!" I was not intimidated by the threat of PN being DH's attack dog and trying to make me, rather DM's fetid proposal, the issue. I would have questioned how PN, sitting on DM's committee, had failed to critique that steaming pile of cow patties, a breach of professional responsibilities.
The problem was that PN and other professors would also have votes on my own tenure, not to mention if DH decided to oppose my tenure, I would almost certainly be denied.
The fact of the matter is that I had no power in the situation; I wouldn't be on the PhD faculty for another semester (I was one of the first, if not only rookie professor to achieve that, and I'm almost certain that resulted in a policy change that automatically gave that status, earned or unearned, to faculty after their first year). All DM had to do was get the committee's sign-offs. Perhaps the best I could have hoped for was to embarrass the student and committee enough to postpone accepting the proposal. But I was convinced that if I had done so, it would have been interpreted as some sort of personal vendetta against the student. I attended the defense but didn't see a need to repeat my criticisms; I had already made my points. If the committee signed off on it, they alone bore responsibility. I would not have.
But I knew I was done; the question wasn't whether if I would leave UWM, but when. I don't know if I ever checked back with BGSU, but they never touched back after I passed on their offer. (I think they attributed my decision to a scheduling issue that almost resulted in my missing the last flight out which would get me in Houston via connections. Nope, but it didn't help that my escort had to gas up on the way. I literally had to run to the gate, and the door was closed.) I was now willing to set aside my preference for a research university; I wanted a refuge from university politics.
I had a 3-year contract with UWM. If I had had another offer during that period, I would have left earlier. The only positive thing was I did get to teach graduate classes, but my favorite was teaching human factors in IT during my last year in academia (visiting professor, ISU). I took an offer from UTEP, which was a mistake: they desperately wanted my resume in their AACSB (accreditation) application. I had the (non-MIS) department chair from hell. Once they won accreditation (and I don't claim credit for that, but I was only the second MIS professor with a publication record), I was so miserable there, I went on a campus visit (job interview) to northern Louisiana (no offer) during final exam week my first semester (not my choice).
The UTEP MIS faculty, outside me (recall I had initial intentions to enter the celibate priesthood),was colorful The other research professor (MM) was rumored to have engaged in plagiarism in his last appointment and bragged about having sex with a well-known female MIS professor while they were grad students at Texas Tech (he literally joked about it: he said, "What else is there to do in Lubbock?") [he brought up the topic; I knew who the woman was, but I didn't knew they attended college together], and the rumor going around about our Latino colleague was the university was trying to reach him one day, and a coed answered the phone at his hotel room.
Quote of the Day The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true. They are the worst conceivable, they are no keepers at all; they can neither judge, act, think, or will, as a political body. John Adams
My Greatest Hits: Sept. 15
My readership numbers continue to erode. One of the unusual things this month is I've been
If you've followed my daily posts and tweets, you know that I've particularly been scornful of the Trumpkin Fox & Friends hosts and of course Trump's prime-time apologist, Sean Hannity. There is nothing "conservative" about a President who has already departed from GOP conservative orthodoxy in terms of downsizing the federal government, spending cuts, entitlement reform, trade and immigration. (Yes, I'm very familiar that Harding and Coolidge initiated the unconscionable immigration restrictions in the aftermath of WWI.)
I have painfully bitten my tongue as Hannity engages in his hero worship of the populist, unprincipled Trump; he has pretended to be a "Reagan conservative", but Reagan was no populist. How soon does he forget/forgive Trump's "Chuck and Nancy" budget deal which undercut the GOP leadership's attempt to win budget concessions? Not to mention he's not touching entitlements which are 70% of the federal budget. Or that Trump has already added $1T to the national debt?
Trump has openly threatened American companies like Harley Davidson whose planned international expansion did not dovetail for his wishes for manufacturing expansion. Trump constantly vacillates in political positioning, which he spins as flexibility and unpredictability, which he perceives as success factors in negotiating. He makes irrational threats like vetoing a budget deal to get more funding for his Southern wall (yeah, the same one he promised his minions Mexico would pay for).
This is a guy who routinely acts outside of expected norms, insulting allies, even threatening to assassinate foreign leaders (Assad). He has routinely intervened bashed judges and certain suspects who have not even had their day in court. He is impulsive and reckless; his totally unprovoked tariffs/trade wars have led to economy-crippling uncertainty. He has constantly threatened the Mueller probe despite its strong bipartisan support, a political death wish.
Trump tries to take credit for the economy but he's actually had very little to do with it. If he actually believes that spin that this is the greatest economy in American history, he is either (1) woefully uninformed in US economic history or (2) seriously mentally ill.
I didn't intend to go on another Trump rant, but it was Fox's late-night xenophobe newbie host, Laura Ingraham, who tested my patience. Among other things, she's trying to claim that Trump's trade wars are brilliant winning tactics against China, Canada, and Mexico. This is sheer idiocy maybe only exceeded by Trump's neo-Bush-like "I have had to go outside free trade to restore free trade."
But she also went on a rant against H1B's, a topic with which I'm specifically familiar; one of my best friends on the West Coast is a naturalized US citizen from India. When we met, he was working towards his green card. And he endured some hardships along the way, including reneged bonuses, pay cuts, etc. But Laura Ingraham's caricature of Disney's outsourcing deal is little more than labor protectionism as usually, typically seen from leftists and their union allies. The fact is that we have a shortage of IT professionals in the high tech industry, and immigrants are disproportionately entrepreneurial and among the developers of productivity-increasing technology, directly related to worker compensation.
Quote of the Day The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself. George Bernard Shaw
Why Your Rent Is Too Damn High
Ron Paul On Abortion
Huber: Switzerland And a Code For Bottom-Up Economics
Madonna, "Frozen". This hit went #2 in the middle of a #1 gap from 1994 to 2000. Ironically, it was the only Madonna single in my personal collection. I love the arrangement; it would also be one of her most controversial hits from intellectual property allegations.
