Unqualified Offerings

Looking Sideways at Your World Since October 2001

Archive for August 28th, 2008

Thursday, August 28th, 2008

Academic hiring: What if people started to support and even like 2-body hires?

By Thoreau
Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of online discussions of academic hiring. One issue is the “2 body problem”: A lot of academics are married to other academics, and if you want to recruit one of them, you’re more likely to succeed if you also hire the other person. Now, there [...]

Thursday, August 28th, 2008

Not by the color of his skin but the arugula-laden contents of his recycled Whole Foods grocery bags

By Thoreau
The Onion’s latest video makes an interesting point: Is it not a weird sign of unexpected progress when an African-American candidate is portrayed as an overly-intellectual member of the elite class? We’ve reached the point where instead of fearing that the black guy will mug you, you now fear that he’ll solicit [...]

Thursday, August 28th, 2008

Unstable country promises not to try explosive fission (of the nuclear kind, anyway)

By Thoreau
Mission accomplished!  Iraq promises to not test nuclear weapons.  Truly, a diplomatic feat worth every ounce of blood and treasure.
Still no word on whether Iraq will disavow social or political fission.