Posts by richard
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I teach at a private university in the United States – although many students US subsidize their studies with loans and grants from the Federal Government, so the “public good” issues still apply here.
Like many places in the US, undergraduates face “distribution requirements”: everyone takes a language, everyone has to take some classes in the humanities, and everyone has to take a couple of genuinely quantitative courses. There are soft options (“gut” classes in the local parlance), but I have seen English majors in my first years physics class, and when I made a reference to Anna Karenina to illustrate a point in a cosmology lecture today, several of the students knew what I was talking about…
For my part, I enrolled in a BA conjointly with my New Zealand BSc because I was feeling a bit stifled on a diet that consisted purely of physics and maths. But the funny thing is that the philosophy papers I took made me a better scientist, and the English papers I took made me a better writer (and if you think that scientists don’t need to write, think again – my “collected works” make for a decent stack when printed out). Consequently, it always strikes me that when people want to draw a distinction between the “useful” and the “useless” subjects, they always have a remarkably narrow view of what it takes to be really good at the topics they deem to be “useful”.
But I read Middlemarch for fun.
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Busytown: A new (old) sensation, in reply to Fergus Barrowman,
I’m finding this thread somewhat disheartening. I thought being disappointed sometimes was just what happened if you weren’t completely safe in your reading choices. We’ve had a very open publishing environment for the last 20 or so years: publisher hunger for new writers has seen an awful lot of them into print, but it’s as if none of them have made an impression.
Surely the really important thing is that they buy it? :-)
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I must admit I am uncomfortable seeing people minimize theft from a damaged house, whether it is light fittings or anything else. Any sort of theft in these circumstances is hard to countenance, at least when committed by someone who is otherwise mentally competent, and not motivated by truly pressing and immediate need.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Russell Brown,
No. I’m simply at a loss for any other explanation.
Logically, it is possible he was caught and beaten by residents, or roughed up by fellow prisoners -- which may not may not have required a blind eye from the people with the keys. Probably best not to jump to conclusions. (Like the 22 people supposedly under the rubble of the Cathedral)
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I saw the cellmate comment in the Herald – and was duly shocked at the prospect of the Minister of Police tacitly condoning prison rape, but I suspect we have had all had other things to think about…
It is probably human nature to see some lowlife (oh, Clayton Weatherston, to chose a random example) get sent down and to feel relatively sanguine at the prospect of him serving particularly hard time. However, rationally we don’t want prisons to be places where violence – sexual or otherwise – is perpetrated by muscular scuzzballs on less robust scuzzballs, and we particularly don’t want our Minister of Police winkingly condoning this sort of behavior.
I hope that Collins is called to account for these remarks – in a week where headline writers had less pressing concerns, it is not impossible a comment like this could land a politician in very hot water – “Police Minister Calls for Rape”.
While we are at it, Bronwlee and Key seem remarkably enthusiastic about bulldozing large chunks of Christchurch without waiting for expert opinions about alternatives.
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Am watching too. This is awful. Cathedral spire gone, but it’s the looks on people’s faces that are doing my head in.
Hope everything is fine at Haywood-upon-Avon. And hoping to hear similar news from other friends.
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Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Danyl Mclauchlan,
This might come as an amazing shock to some PAS commentators but waking up, feeling frisky and trying to initiate sex with your partner is standard behaviour amongst sexually active adults.
Followed by a romantic breakfast for two at the police station.
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OnPoint: Pay Attention, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
Graeme -- just to be very clear, the blog whose author I was comparing to Weatherston was Assange's, not Danyl's. Possibly my sarcasm detector is off today, but just wanted to be sure there was no misunderstanding.
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OnPoint: Pay Attention, in reply to Danyl Mclauchlan,
Your argument has the same tone behind it as the Baatan Death March
Heh. I will admit to being provocative, but I was able to back my position with data – namely a slew of narcissistic and (in places) misogynist comments on his blog. (Ironically enough, preserved for posterity by the internet archive – information wants to be free and all that.)
And, yes, yes even though his blog makes him look like a jackass, it does not mean he is a sexual predator. But forgive me if I do not shake my head in dismay, exclaiming “Julian Assange – of all the people in the world, I can’t think of a single person less likely to commit such a crime. Clearly the poor man has been stitched up by Evil Forces [TM] bent on preventing him from Telling the Truth”
And the Bataan Death March reference, while no doubt heartfelt, is as puzzling as your earlier cry of “generalization” – how exactly??
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OnPoint: Pay Attention, in reply to Danyl Mclauchlan,
I am not sure that was a generalization. It is a very specific comment about a guy whose blog reads as if it could have been written by Clayton Weatherston’s somewhat smarter brother.