I was especially taken with this:
Second, the Republicans seem remarkably fragile. A professor writing a blog post gives them the shivers. It’s a good thing they chose politics, and not the kind of career where the going can really get rough. Professors, for example, teach their hearts out to surly adolescents who call them boring in course evaluations and write their hearts out for colleagues who trash their books in snarky reviews. These Wisconsin Republicans may never have survived ordeals like that. Happily, Cronon has been toughened by decades of academic life. He’ll be blogging—and teaching and writing—long after Wisconsin voters have sent these Republicans back to obscurity.
Its McCarthyism all over again. I think history is going to look back at this period with disgust. At least untill the Republicans delete that section from the history books.
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Intrinsic Value
ROFLMAO. In fairness, not all of the students are surly, and not all of our reviews are snarky, but the basic message is right. We work in an environment of criticism, of having our ideas beat up, and with very, very, very few bits of praise from anybody. Nobody even offered to take me out to lunch after tenure! We all so busy all the time we have little time to give each other high-fives. It's a hard an lonely job sometimes in terms of social feedback.
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