Ginny

Update: An informative op ed by Campos of Colorado notes the problems of academic hiring. (Thanks to Instapundit, of course.)

Some of you have expressed curiosity about academic life. Anecdote time: My eldest two and their significant others will be interviewing for academic jobs soon. Some of their friends and colleagues are applicants this year. One was recently wined and dined and interviewed by a university. He didn’t get the job. He asked the bearer of bad news why, hoping to learn for the next time. The response was that the women on the hiring committee had a problem with him (He was afraid some rumors of his behavior – not always model – had reached them.) But instead, the problem seems insurmountable: he was, they said, an alpha male and that made them uncomfortable. The other two making the final round were women. His specialty has a large proportion of women; I suspect that has to do with verbal skills, although saying so might make my male readers faint or vomit. So, we get a feel for the ambience of such departments.

This isn’t surprising. Objections I’ve heard from hiring committee faculty have been that an applicant was too “masculine.” Another was blackballed because the women felt he established more eye contact with the male than the female interviewers.

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Update: Did this late Friday and got carried away: I realize that I should claim no certainty that Jordan’s comments were lies. We don’t know that they are because we know neither what he said nor the situations to which he was referring. I assume, I’ll admit, that unsupported comments accusing our troops of murder–targetted and by policy–are not true. This position is not, I gather, much different from Barney Frank’s. The left surely is still populated mainly by people like him, sane people who do not see such slanders as a partisan platform or an appropriate speculation before a friendly audience

Back to Friday night:
Incognito describes bravery and altruism, sympathy for others and generosity of self. It is at such men that Eason Jordan’s series of stories have been directed. And their courage diminishes the petty and bloodless skirmishes on the home front.

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On C-Span 1, Brian Lamb’s Q&A will be with Governor Mike Huckabee, Republican of Arkansas. (8 & 11 Sunday everning).

C-Span 2’s Booktv this weekend offers its usual variety. On After Words Tom Gjelten (NPR) interviews Natan Sharansky whose The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror has been read by the Bushies. “In it, [Sharansky] argues that promoting and supporting democratic governments is essential to global security and stability.” He is “a former Soviet dissident who spent nine years a political prisoner. He lives in Jerusalem and serves as the Minister for Jerusalem Social and Diaspora Affairs for the Israeli government.” After Words airs at 6 & 9 Sunday night. A different perspective is given by Alan Dershowitz’s Rights from Wrongs: The Origin of Human Rights in the Experience of Injustice. Sunday morning (7:15 am)

Booktv’s Schedule. Sessions related to Chicagoboyz topics below.

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The predictably and sometimes quite bitterly witty The Diplomad is closing down after a mere seven months. The perspective of the “far abroad” from a beseiged (if a bit curmudgeonly) Republican at State will be missed.