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THE QUOTE
“Those who, in principle, oppose birth control are either incapable of arithmetic or else in favor of war, pestilence, and famine as permanent features of human life.” — Bertrand Russell
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KINKY STUDENTS
Student academic fraud is on the upswing, according to a piece in the IDS this morning.
We’re talking cheating on a test or hiring a ringer to write a paper, that sort of thing. Some 366 cases of such enhanced achievement misconduct were adjudicated last year. This year the number of cheaters already is approaching that total, according to the article, even though the spring semester isn’t even half over.
Giraffing
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Using last year’s figure, let’s just assume the actual number of cheaters was three times the official number. That gives us a shade under 1100 future Wall Street icons…, er…, I mean, cheaters. That’s a pretty heartening number, no?
When you consider that some 95,000 aspiring scholars attended classes at the seven Indiana University campuses, you realize that only .0038 percent of students are kinky, to use an old alley cop term for lawbreakers.
“So, Cheating On Your Semester Finals, Eh?”
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Not bad, eh? The pressure on college students to succeed, especially in this Great Recession era, is enormous. When only one in approximately 261 students spits on the academic code, in my hypothetical scenario, I think we can safely say IU crammers by and large are honest souls.
The whole subject reminds me of that great Woody Allen line: “I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me.”
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PRIVATES PARTY
Miles Craig, Crystal Johnson, and Mike Cagle all posted this funny pic on their Facebook pages.
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If the GOP anti-sex league wasn’t so scary, it’d be funny.
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WHAT A PIECE OF WORK IS WOMAN
Bloomington author Joy Shayne Laughter paid her respects at Soma Coffee‘s unofficial Big Mike Table this morning when she came in for her daily IV drip. Joy was all agog over an essay she read by a writer named Andrea Balt on the web journal Elephant.
Balt tries to explain women. Don’t get me wrong, I love Joy to pieces, but now, after reading the essay, I’m more confused than ever about those folks who possess different plumbing than I do.
Then again, perhaps my confusion means I really get it now.
Women are like quantum mechanics. As Richard Feynman reportedly said, “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.”
Particle Paths Illustrating Quantum Mechanics Probabilities
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SCHOOL DAYS
Was there ever a cooler girl group than the Runaways?
Joan Jett and Lita Ford are underappreciated among rock ‘n roll experts only because they carried the wrong set of chromosomes in their cells.
And, by the way, doesn’t it look as though Joan Jett is chewing gum in this video? Maybe it’s my imagination, but if she is, it’s the perfect touch.
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Hey, Mikey! I love you to pieces, too.
I’m glad Balt’s work is being linked, whatever people think of her essay. The fact that several voices have expressed bewilderment or irritation at this particular post leads me to reflect that maybe the problem really isn’t what one person says.
Maybe the obstacle to our enjoyment of one another is that people tend to think (and are encouraged to think) that relating to the opposite gender is a “problem to be fixed,” rather than an experience to be relished.