Comments on: Parents and children

By: Ranting Nerd

Ranting Nerd — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 20:37:17 +0000

I was reading this post, and when you made reference to a Bourdieu Chart. I wasn’t familiar with that term, and went and google’d it—and the first thing that came up was … this post.

Perhaps Google should replace one or both of its “o”s with ourobouroses. (Ouroubouri? Ourobouropodes?)

By: Michael Mouse

Michael Mouse — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 15:39:24 +0000

Russell was right when he wrote:

Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.

But things have moved on: there are now many crap service jobs that do not involve the alteration of the position of matter but are nonetheless pretty unpleasant and ill paid.

I still find academia pleasant and highly paid – relative to the general population at least.

By: Michael Bérubé

Michael Bérubé — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 01:48:05 +0000

How many Throgs were killed to get their necks to make the Throgs neck Bridge? Legend has it that over four hundred thousand throgs were killed over a three-year period. But that's nothing compared to the number of goethals buried in the foundation of Staten Island's infamous Goethals Bridge. is this why Throgs aren’t around anymore? Yes, that plus the fact that three-legged frogs were considered a delicacy by seventeenth-century French explorers.

By: 99

99 — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 01:31:12 +0000

It’s so darn soothing to read your posts—few as there have been lately—because the seriousness with which you take teaching is so blaringly apparent, abounding even your most humorous digressions. Thanks for working so hard on our kids.

By: Yellow Dog

Yellow Dog — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 00:16:09 +0000

[...] brings me to Michael Bérubé’s recent post at Crooked Timber (Why was I reading Crooked Timber?). Bérubé narrates a tale familiar to [...]

By: BillCinSD

BillCinSD — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 00:11:42 +0000

ABD is another of those academic things.

How many Throgs were killed to get their necks to make the Throgs neck Bridge? is this why Throgs aren’t around anymore?

By: Michael Bérubé

Michael Bérubé — Thu, 31 May 2007 23:33:23 +0000

I agree, digging a couple of holes for rose bushes is easier than reading a student paper. But have you tried digging holes for 8, or maybe 9, hours a day?

I’ve had some pretty lousy jobs, from foot messengerin’ to garment-district haulin’ to pizza deliverin’, but so far I have managed to avoid digging holes all day. In fact, I signed up for graduate school after hearing that famous Rose Royce funk/disco hit in which we are told that in academe, “you might not ever get rich / but lemme tell you it’s better than diggin’ a ditch.” And that’s why, to this day, no matter how busy a semester gets, I always tell myself it beats workin’.

the institution has managed to get along fine with no provost ever since

How can that be? Every staff needs a crook!

By: Adrian

Adrian — Thu, 31 May 2007 21:26:25 +0000

My parents know what a provost is, and have graduate degrees of their own. It’s just a cultural difference between us that they don’t respect reading, and define it as infinitely interruptible. (When I was in grad school, the new president of the university told a gathering of faculty, “I think of myself as the shepherd of this little flock, and the provost is the crook on my staff.” There was a reorganization shortly thereafter, and the institution has managed to get along fine with no provost ever since.)

By: Bill Phillips

Bill Phillips — Thu, 31 May 2007 20:45:06 +0000

I agree, digging a couple of holes for rose bushes is easier than reading a student paper. But have you tried digging holes for 8, or maybe 9, hours a day? I’m an academic and my working class mother-in-law’s attitude is the same: reading is not working. But I’ve worked on the buildings and in factories too and I think my mother-in-law has a point.

By: Michael Bérubé

Michael Bérubé — Thu, 31 May 2007 20:10:05 +0000

Comments 36-43-47 . . . do you two know each other?

It’s hard to explain that it’s not just screwing around on the Internet: it’s, uh, using the Internet to make fun of crazed, passive-aggressive law professors in Wisconsin.

Well, Thers, I hope your mom realizes that the Internet is in fact the world’s most powerful and revolutionary tool for making fun of crazed, passive-aggressive law professors in Wisconsin. (And, of course, for advancing theories about academic bullies!) Why, before we had the Internet, we had to resort to Morse Code in order to make fun of crazed, passive-aggressive law professors in Wisconsin, and that wasn’t very effective. Or very entertaining, either!

By: thag

thag — Thu, 31 May 2007 19:28:39 +0000

oh c’mon, thers.
feed your mother whatever line you need to, but don’t try to feed it to us.

we all know: blogging is, just screwing around on the internet.

i mean—that’s on its most productive days. it’s only downhill from there.

and as for commenting on blogs, of christ, what a waste….

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Thu, 31 May 2007 18:56:32 +0000

Lucky for you I’m lazy, poor and single.

I’ll talk to you later!

By: Thers

Thers — Thu, 31 May 2007 17:52:51 +0000

My mom was always pretty good with the “reading = work” thing. It’s the blogging that she can’t figure out. It’s hard to explain that it’s not just screwing around on the Internet: it’s, uh, using the Internet to make fun of crazed, passive-aggressive law professors in Wisconsin. You know, lofty purposes like that.

By: Michael Bérubé

Michael Bérubé — Thu, 31 May 2007 17:34:11 +0000

Luther, in one of the essays in Rhetorical Occasions I mention a friend of mine in Charlottesville—a neonatal intensive care nurse, actually—who used to tweak me regularly by asking me how my “book report” was going.

By: Luther Blissett

Luther Blissett — Thu, 31 May 2007 12:37:38 +0000

My parents ask me every now and then, “How’s your paper going?” By “paper,” they mean “my dissertation.”

And yes, when I first explained to them that my wife was busy “working on her book,” they wanted to know what the story was about.

At the time, I just thought, “Silly parents.” Now, I realize they were completely right. The dissertation is merely a long paper, and it shouldn’t be treated as anything more than that. And a book without some sort of story is a really really bad book.