SOUR GRAPES?

                   OLD MAIN.  PARTOF THE PROBLEM

Feel free to regard what follows as the ill-tempered mutterings of an obsolete academic whose attitudes were inherited from the 19^th century, if it pleases you.  Hell, I am so far from being “woke” that I had to ask Google what that word meant.  I guess I am, not actually woke, but rather more like drowsy.   I agree with most of the goals of you thoroughly woke people.  Not all, but most.  It’s about how to go about things that we tend to part company.

Take WWU, for instance.  I am not up to the minute on the details of current WWU policy, but what I do hear causes me to feel that my university has jumped the tracks.  Maybe I’m wrong, but I get the strong impression that our current administration regards combating social injustice as its primary goal.  I am all for fighting that sort of thing, but I think that a university is far from the best weapon for the purpose.  Social injustice, insofar as it results from inadequate education, should be confronted at the family and pre K through 12 levels, not at the university.  Universities have always been, and should continue to be regarded primarily as centers of scholarship, and their ruling ethos should be to strive to become ever more so.  They should be centers where knowledge is accumulated, debated, and disseminated.  Anything other activities have a tendency to get in the way.

 Here is an example.  In the 1970s and 1980s I think it would be fair to say that we (WWU) had the best geology department in the state.  We turned out well prepared B.S. and M.S. students who contributed mightily to society.  Many became college professors in their own right, and many more became engineers and other important cogs in the economy.  That’s because we took on our scholarly activities with dead seriousness.  (Our psychology department was similarly highly regarded.)  Now, I suspect, no WWU department stands nearly that high – at least partly because faculty tend to feel the need to continually glance over their shoulders at the cadre of social warriors recent administrations have deployed. Hiring the best, for instance, now (I surmise) will only work if that person also is somehow socially disadvantaged.  Don’t get me wrong; hire the disadvantaged candidate every time, all else being equal.  But be sure they are really equal

So, what I’m saying is something like this:  Let’s buy expensive lab stuff when needed, and maybe do without the long house on Sehome Hill.  Hire fewer vice provost/deans for diversity and such matters, and use the money to acquire the best young academics that come on the market.  Be the best damned university, in the traditional sense, that we can be.  Sure, always keep an eye out for top-notch scholars that happen to be under represented in academia, but don’t make that the preponderate deciding criterion.  Get the best, reward them, and turn them loose.  The future will thank us for it.

Anyway, that’s what I think.  Yeah, I know – I’m a crusty old crank.  So what:  I’ve earned it.

A BOOK REVIEW

                               Certainly you know who

Book tip:  I just finished reading William Manchester’s American Caesar, a biography of Douglas MacArthur. If you have several thousand hours to kill, I enthusiastically recommend that you tackle this book.  Apparently Manchester served under MacArthur (WAY under; he was a grunt).  This book confirms me in my view that MacArthur was our greatest general- perhaps the GOAT – but not a very good politician.  Also: a very peculiar person.  Revered in Japan and the Philippines, his reputation can only be described as iffy here in his home country, which is too bad.  Read this book and learn why.

DO NOT GET BROKEN!

 

I don’t want this to sound too churlish/whiny here; I am fully aware that taking care of sick and/or broken people is a difficult, thankless job, often poorly remunerated.  I have been told that they do it better in other “advanced” countries/  I can’t comment:  I have been in plenty such places, but was never sick or broken at the time.  I suspect we would be better off with a single-payer health system but, Lord knows, I am no authority.  The only advice I can dispense with confidence is:  DO NOT EVER, EVER NEED REHAB!

I just spent about two weeks in a local rehab center, one reputed to be one of only two such in town which rates 5 stars.  There are a half-dozen or so locally that rate two stars. Judging from my experiences I can’t imagine conditions in a two-star rehab center: is it that Medicare pays Uber to drop you off at the nearest homeless encampment under a convenient bridge?  I shudder to think.

So, my place had excellent PT and OT, ample meals that ranged in quality from mediocre to inedible, complicated adjustable beds guaranteed to shape you into a human pretzel by midnight, and night time attendants that spoke little or no English,  (Sure: they do unpleasant to disgusting work for, I’ll bet, next to nothing – but, still), call buttons that sometimes worked, and so forth, on and on.  Days were tolerable because you could sit in a chair and exercise your mind; nights were hideous, with nothing to think about but aches, pains, and how to get your adjustable bed to allow you to breath!

But, enough: I am beginning to sound like a querulous octogenarian, which I suppose I am.  So again: WHATEVER YOU DO, DO IT SO AS NEVER TO REQUIRE MEDICAL REPAIR!

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD TIME

 

How much does an alcoholic drink actually cost?

Well, you might reply, anywhere from $2.00 to $2000 depending on what it is and, more importantly, where you buy it.

But that[s just cost to YOU.  How about cost to society as a whole?  Well, I’m not about to get into a discussion of whether or not we would all be better if the stuff never had been invented.  We’d probably be healthier than we are right now, but perhaps a bit less content.  What I WILL do is illustrate the problem using a personal example:  two gin and tonics at a fancy local dive.

First drink:  Me. $8.50 (plus tip); Cost to Society, next to nothing.

Second drink:  Immediate cost to me $8.50; Cost to Society, maybe around $25,000!

You see – that second drink was probably enough to slightly perturb my already shaky sense of balance, causing me to fall –  right into some poor bloke’s nice dinner!  The eventual upshot was a slight concussion, a cracked femur – and five fun-filled weeks in the clutches of the US medical system (about which I will comment soon).  All paid for by Medicare, of  course

So, what did I learn?  Primarily that one is enough.  Also, that I’m not a kid anymore!