Tuesday Misc.

by Cliopatria

My Brooklyn colleague Andy Meyer takes both sides to task in the Iraq war debate.

The Univ. of Michigan considers extending the tenure clock, to better accomodate untenured faculty who are raising children. This interested me for several reasons, not least of which is the fact the CUNY's faculty union has bitterly fought the administration's attempts to extend the tenure clock at CUNY from its current five years to seven. The union contends that this move would unfairly raise expectations of scholarly production.

William Stuntz analyzes Larry Summers' departure through an organizational rather than ideological or pedagogical lens, but nonetheless reaches a depressing conclusion about its effects.

Katherine Harris trails by 21 points in the latest Florida Senate poll--taken before revelations yesterday that she is one of two House members whose fundraising has been linked to the Duke Cunningham bribery scandal.

Cliopatriarchs in New York City are invited to a rally of solidarity with Denmark, Friday at noon at the Danish consultate in the city.

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Ralph E. Luker - 3/9/2006

Brother Stepp, We'll need a little more than this, if we're to understand what you mean to help us learn.

William J. Stepp - 3/9/2006

to enter a hyperlink text to highlight

http://www.antiwar.com/page.htm

Barry DeCicco - 3/1/2006

Ray, it's probably due to powerlessness. The majority of Americans disapprove of the war, but can't affect it that much. Many of the war supporters are laying low (I suspect) due to the facts on the ground being so biased against them. And they are probably feeling dispair, as well.

Ray Mikell - 3/1/2006

Yes. I was kind of joking about the NY pieces. Since the made the online op-ed pieces are mostly of the pay-to-read variety, that's changed things. But I've visited some sites that used to have discussions about Iraq quite frequently that don't anymore. I'd love to see a study showing how much people keep up with news from over there. I know I used to talk about it with friends more, but now rarely do, nor do they bring it up to me (anecdotal, of course; I'd love to hear what others say).

I do think the author here might be wrongly assumes there's a purely dual split on the insurgency and its causes, regardless. Then again, maybe he puts "right" and "left" in quotations for a good reason?

Thanks for fixing the link.

Jonathan Dresner - 3/1/2006

I've fixed the link to Meyer's excellent piece. He also has a short followup which is interesting. Trust me, he's not taking the view that there's anything positive to say about our position in (or on) Iraq.

I think the NYTimes e-mailed stories list is a terrible metric of public interest. Most of those stories are not basic news; people get those from lots of places, and rarely forward them, and NYT hasn't been doing much interesting reporting from or on Iraq. The forwarded stories are usually feature pieces, unique to NYT, cultural curiousities or social controversies rather than political pieces.

Ray Mikell - 3/1/2006

The Iraq link goes back to Cliopatria. And what's this about? What Iraq debate, and what two sides? As depressing as things are this week, I don't see how much good one can say about the invasion. And I don't see how you can feel good about being right that it likely would never have been successful. Look at the NY Times and check out which articles are the most popular on a day to day basis. It's never an Iraq story. No one wants to think about how horrible this could all get, for to think about it is too depressing, for anyone. It's better to dwell in media la-la land, and read odd, largely insignificant lifestyle stories about elderly communes and the state of pscyhotherapy. Or maybe one would rather engage in quaint, polite discussions about the resignation of the president of America's most well-known elite school and what this means for the academic big picture. ANYTHING but Iraq!