Weekend Links!

Seeing nonsense about the humanities as a luxury again. The humanities are a cheap profit center that subsidize other university operations.

— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) May 21, 2015

* If I weren’t going to DC on June 4th, I’d be going to this in Madison: Undercommoning the University: A Workshop.

* How writers of endangered languages are embracing sci-fi.

* Yeah Ireland.

Ireland hasn't just said "Yes"… Ireland has said: "F❤️CK YEAAHHHH"

— Aodhán Ó Ríordáin TD (@AodhanORiordain) May 23, 2015

* With the recession over, are states investing in higher ed? Oh, honey.

* This Is What Happens When You Slash Funding for Public Universities.

lol at this article that completely erases liberals' active participation in slashing budgets for public higher ed: http://t.co/nhkCib0RNS

— reclaim UC (@reclaimuc) May 23, 2015

* A local-interest explainer: Assata Shakur was convicted of murder. Is she a terrorist?

* New York University’s labor record epitomizes everything wrong with the neoliberal university.

* Report Blasts ‘Fantasy World’ of Presidential Benefits.

* Enter Rand Paul (again).

Stuff like the Rand Paul filibusters scrambles the usual moralism of Republicans vs Democrats so deliciously. I wish it happened every day.

— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) May 23, 2015

P.A.T.R.I.O.T. ACT F.R.E.E.D.O.M. ACT T.H.I.S. D.E.M.O.C.R.A.C.Y. I.S. A. S.H.A.M. ACT P.U.P.P.I.E.S. ACT I.C.E. C.R.E.A.M. ACT

— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) May 23, 2015

* FBI admits no major cases cracked with Patriot Act snooping powers.

* TIE Fighter and American Exceptionalism.

* The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.

I have to believe that in 30 years all these "Centers for Innovation" on campuses will be thought of like we think of Cold War bomb shelters

— John Pat Leary (@JohnPatLeary) May 23, 2015

ie, like 1950s bomb shelters "innovation centers" are ostensibly practical, obviously ideological, & indices of the anxieties of their age

— John Pat Leary (@JohnPatLeary) May 23, 2015

* While 45 percent of the roughly 1,000 respondents said they feel “somewhat prepared” to begin a career after college, slightly more than half said they did not learn how to write a résumé. And 56 percent did learn how to conduct themselves in a job interview.

* Theses on Postpartum.

* The Myth of the Garbage Patch.

* Up to 90 per cent of the world’s electronic waste, worth nearly US $19 billion, is illegally traded or dumped each year, according to a report released today by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

* 7 in 10 schools now have shooting drills, needlessly traumatizing huge numbers of children.

* North Carolina receives NCAA notice of allegations in academic fraud case.

* New Study on Suicide Among College Athletes.

* Medieval culture and rape.

* BREAKING: Being competent is bad for you.

* io9 says the Supergirl pilot isn’t as bad as you’re expecting.

* This 85-Year-Old Nun Just Spent Two Years In Prison For Protesting Nuclear Weapons.

* Does Mike Huckabee Know Where the Ark of the Covenant Is Buried?

* A Handful Of Bronze-Age Men Could Have Fathered Two-Thirds Of Europeans.

* Home, the latest animated kid flick, is actually about colonialism. No, really.

* Can Racism Be Stopped in the Third Grade?

* Modernism is back, baby! A Plea for Culinary Modernism.

* Friends from grad school still tease me about the day I basically went off on this rant in a seminar day discussing Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals.

* #abolishmen: Men get into fatal car crashes twice as often as women.

* And another round of gender-swapped Disney characters.

Gotta Help Obama Keep the Devil Way Down in the Hole

But those planes really did hit those buildings.  And that bomb did indeed blow up at the finish line of the Boston marathon.  And we really are in a continuing, low-intensity, high-risk conflict with a diffuse, committed and ideologically-motivated enemy.  And for a moment, just imagine how much bloviating would be wafting across our political spectrum if, in the wake of an incident of domestic terrorism, an American president and his administration had failed to take full advantage of the existing telephonic data to do what is possible to find those needles in the haystacks.  After all, we as a people, through our elected representatives, drafted and passed FISA and the Patriot Act and what has been done here, with Verizon and assuredly with other carriers, is possible under that legislation.  Indeed, one Republican author of the law, who was quoted as saying he didn’t think the Patriot Act would be so used, has, in this frantic little moment of national overstatement, revealed himself to be either a political coward or an incompetent legislator.  He asked for this.  We asked for this.  We did so because we measured the reach and possible overreach of law enforcement against the risks of terrorism and made a conscious choice.

Oh, David Simon, not you too! I’m so surprised to see him on the other side of this. Maybe he should rewatch his own show.

‘Patriot Act Search Warrants Overwhelmingly Used for Drugs’

No one could have predicted! Via Boing Boing.