It's Like Christmas on Thursday. In October. On Second Thought...

Okay, at the risk of doing some totally inappropriate girly gushing, I've gotta say thanks to all of you super-awesome folks who have volunteered to send a postcard.  It's really cool getting emails from readers from places I've never been, or only visited once in passing...yay!  Plus, since most folks read w/out commenting, it's nice to know that there's actual reading taking place.  So again, yay!

But that's not the only reason why it's like Christmas on Thursday in October.  Oh, no.  You see, today I picked up a copy of the Chronicle of Higher Ed, and guess what was on page B4 in the Review section?

A David Horowitz article slamming the AAUP.  For those of you who may have just fallen off a turnip truck, publishing Horowitz in the Chronicle criticizing the AAUP is kind of like tossing a hunk of pure sodium into a bucket of water.  Wheeee!  I'll be keeping a watch on the discussion boards over there just for my own amusement.

On a related note, another academic has published an op-ed in Inside Higher Ed arguing against professors inserting personal political viewpoints (or really much personal info at all) into the classroom.  In reading several such articles over the past weeks, and in the comments section to this one, I've come across more than one commenter quoting Kurt Vonnegut:

" I argued that it was a teacher's duty to speak frankly to students of college age about all sorts of concerns of humankind, not just the subject of a course as stated in the catalogue. "That's how we gain their trust, and encourage them to speak up...."- Kurt Vonnegut

and using it to argue equivalence between "offering information about all the different viewpoints on a particular subject" and "me, me, me, glorious me, fabulous me, here's what I think, me, me, me, let's have a rap session, man, because students totally can't learn unless a viewpoint is embodied."

I don't know if Vonnegut intended that quote as encouragement for those professors with egotistical leanings toward the cult of personality (cough, WARD CHURCHILL, cough), who feel the urge to cover students with wild-eyed rants about the fabulousness of themselves and their opinions, but in my experience the kinds of folks who sling Vonnegut quotes around to justify their harangues are also pretty overdeveloped in the self-esteem department.

I don't think you can draw any large conclusion about the "all me, all the time" culture of the 60's and 70's and the subsequent development of this mindset, but it is interesting.  Plus it gives me another excuse to blame the baby boomers for every evil thing that's ever happened, ever, so it's a win-win for me.