It's really quite easy.

• If you are retired, you do not get to serve on search committees.
• If you know you are leaving the university, you do not get to serve on search committees.
• If you are retired or leaving the university, you do not get a vote in hiring decisions.
  
• You cannot inflict someone on the rest of us if you will not suffer the consequences along with the rest of us.
  

In which everyone's time is wasted.

The Committee on Divine Retribution meets for one of only two reasons.

1) A student with borderline personality disorder who has cheated at nearly everything she has ever attempted believes she can slime her way through an academic misconduct hearing with some obviously concocted "evidence" that proves her innocence.

2) The course instructor is a dick who believes a student's failure to follow (or creative interpretation of) course instructions warrants dismissal from the university.

I estimate that the last several hearings, all of Type 2, resulted in monetary loss on the order of $10,000, considering the number of deans, department heads, faculty, students and full-time staff required to convene a hearing. I would like to be able to support my fellow faculty, but they have to give me something -- anything! -- to work with.

Rest in peace, William.

Today I learned a friend has gone.

How brief the distance between life and death! In fact there is none. Life is but death's vestibule, and our pilgrimage on earth is but a journey to the grave. The pulse that preserves our being beats our death march, and the blood which circulates our life is floating it onward to the deeps of death. To-day we see our friends in health, to-morrow we hear of their decease. We clasped the hand of the strong man but yesterday, and to-day we close his eyes. We rode in the chariot of comfort but an hour ago, and in a few more hours the last black chariot must convey us to the home of all living. Oh, how closely allied is death to life!

From the Reverend C. H. Spurgeon's "The Good Man's Life and Death."

It's all over.

Don't panic, but my mother is now on Facebook. This means that the internet as we know it has only a few more weeks before complete collapse. Few of us will survive this apocalypse, but those of us who do will take the following precautions:

• After Mom friends you, deactivate your Facebook account.
• Remove the Facebook app from your iPhone and delete all Facebook bookmarks from your browser.
• In preparation for the downfall of society, stockpile fresh water, canned goods, and toilet paper.

I have purchased a small homestead in Wyoming and my car is packed with axes, guns and enough ammunition to see me through 2025. I'll see (some of) you on the other side.

The end of a bad day.

Tuesdays are tough here at the Angry Castle. The Angry Kid gets up at 6:30 a.m. and doesn't stop until 8:00 p.m. because of gymnastics and homework. Because she is unwilling to not do her homework, and she is too tired to think straight after gymnastics, we have the Tuesday night shitstorms followed by the Tuesday night meltdowns.

After all the tears and the ruckus come hugs and snuggling and bedtime stories. When she's deflated she always wants me to read the same thing -- "The Highwayman." This is not a particularly soothing tale, and I can't explain why it might be comforting to her, except perhaps because the repetitious verses and strong meter are somewhat hypnotic. Tonight it didn't take her all the way down; she also wanted "Shameful Death" and "Lochinvar."

She wants only poetry when she feels sad.