"About 10,000 stray dogs are planning to destroy the government in Bishkek."

A headline (via David Bernstein). Once the idea of revolution is in the air, who knows where it might spread? The question is, how do dogs plan? Do they use Twitter? Don't be too quick to say no. Remember: On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.

Firing a tenured law professor because he used the dean's name in hypotheticals?

It's hard to guess what the full story is here. (Via Taxprof.) The professor, Lawrence Connell, has, according to this report, authorized his lawyer, Thomas Neuberger, to talk to the press, and the school, Widener, has a confidentiality policy in personnel matters, so we're seeing Connell's version for the most part.

Lawprofs use hypotheticals all the time, and Connell put the name of the dean, Linda Ammons, in "at least 10" hypotheticals depicting her getting shot. Supposedly, "at least two students filed complaints with administrators, calling it violent, racist and sexist." Connell is white; Ammons is black. A letter from the vice dean refers to "an 'outgoing pattern' of misconduct,"* including "cursing and coarse behavior, 'racist and sexist statements' and 'violent, personal scenarios that demean and threaten your colleagues.'"

The linked article has this quote from Gregory F. Scholtz, associate secretary and director of the American Association of University Professors:

"Education is all about pushing the boundaries, and it's all about controversial ideas, but the question always is when does it cross the line... Given our modern culture and the violence that exists, you're really asking for trouble when you talk about killing people."

It looks like Scholtz is channeling some of the unscientific blather that surrounded the Tucson massacre: There's bad speech out there and then bad people do bad things and that's bad.

Look, if you're teaching criminal law, you use hypos that have people doing criminal things. Putting real names in the hypos might be funny or attention-getting or just stupid, but let's not get hysterical. Was the professor advocating that somebody shoot the dean? Obviously, not. Are the students so confused they don't get that? Impossible.

But I can understand how law school bureaucrats feel compelled to make a showing of caring deeply when students — even only 2 students — complain that a professor seems racist. I have seen that happen. It can be hard for the administration to negotiate its way through the maze of academic freedom and student opinion even when it is trying to do everything right and cares only about the appropriate values like intellectual excellence and a favorable "climate" for learning. But who knows what is really going on here? Are the students oversensitive, vindictive, or pursuing an ideological agenda? Is there some distorted notion that any criticism or making fun of the dean is a racial matter?

Neuberger said Kelly and Ammons offered to allow Connell to return to campus if he recanted statements students found offensive and underwent psychiatric evaluation.

That reminds me of the fallout over NPR's firing of Juan Williams — after he said something that made sensitive people feel he might be insufficiently tolerant. Maybe he should talk to his psychiatrist, NPR CEO Vivian Schiller said. It's a distancing move, undercutting serious inquiry into the statements that are being questioned. The statements are no longer anything to engage with, but evidence of the speaker's mental disorder. There are insiders and outsiders, and suddenly the speaker is the outsider, to be talked about, not talked with.

As for "recant[ing] statements students found offensive" — how do you recant a hypothetical? I know how I would recant a hypothetical: with great sarcasm. You know, these little stories I tell in class — vignettes, if you will — they are inventions — sheer flights of fancy. I like to call them hy-po-THET-ick-uhls... 

But Connell refused to recant, "believing it would amount to admitting racism, among other things." This is what happens. It's such a big deal to be accused of racism that it forces a hard-line denial. There's also a political angle here. Connell's lawyer is saying that Dean Ammons "wanted to get rid of a conservative professor." And now the story is out in the legal blogosphere. Instapundit says:

PROFESSOR MAY LOSE TENURE FOR “A pattern of inappropriate speech and behavior.” Wait, I thought that was what tenure was supposed to protect. Of course, it’s at Widener. But with tenure already under attack from education reformers, an object case that it doesn’t actually protect controversial speech would seem to be either valuable, or a dreadful mistake, depending on your perspective.

And now, we'll all talk about it. That link on "Widener" is important, as Glenn connects some dots and puts the school's larger reputation on the line. There aren't too many conservative law professors, but they've got very well-connected power on the internet. Deal fairly with them.

*ADDED: What's an "outgoing pattern"? I've heard of ongoing patterns. Was Connell perky and sociable and racist and sexist all at the same time?

At the Incense Café...

... please don't get angry.

The first official holy site in the United States is in Wisconsin.

The Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help, near Green Bay.

I love these graphical musical depictions.

Many more where that came from.

Via Jaltcoh, who's finding fault with an article about "the neuroscience of music."

"I am the mother of a 13-year-old boy, which is like living with the single-cell protozoa version of a husband."

"Here's what my son wants out of life: macaroni and cheese, a video game, and Kim Kardashian. Have you ever seen Kim Kardashian angry? I didn't think so. You've seen Kim Kardashian smile, wiggle, and make a sex tape. Female anger terrifies men. I know it seems unfair that you have to work around a man's fear and insecurity in order to get married -- but actually, it's perfect, since working around a man's fear and insecurity is big part of what you'll be doing as a wife."

From a weirdly hateful HuffPo piece called "Why You're Not Married," by TV writer Tracy McMillan, who "lives in Los Angeles with her 13-year-old son." You know, get a life, so you don't have to talk about your teenage son. Or just shut up. He's not your husband or anything like a husband, and if you think he is, just shut up.

"The last stunt like this was when another IBM supercomputer called Deep Blue beat Russian grandmaster Garry Kasparov at chess."

"Has anyone talked about chess since then?"

What happened to Serene Branson?

Watch the clip. Did she suffer as stroke?

ADDED: If it's just a flub, it's hilarious — "Well, a very, very heavy burtation tonight" —but it's not funny at all until we know that. 

Tiger Woods, expelling bodily fluids in the wrong place again.

This time, it's spit.

What everyone wore at the Grammys, beginning with a man in shorts...

... tight gold plastic short shorts — panties really, almost Spanx, don't you think? He's carrying Lady Gaga inside a prop left over from "This Is Spinal Tap."

More tight shiny men's pants at #25 (Ricky Martin). Justin Bieber also models the comically male, spoofing adulthood, I think, doing bagginess instead of tightness, at #36. Katy Perry, at #40, seems to be spoofing the old mishap of unwittingly dragging toilet paper with you out of the bathroom. Rihanna, at #47, seems to have collected all that toilet paper and crimped it into millions of tiny ruffles to band around her body in stripes — alternating with — apparently! —nakedness.

It's the Grammys. It's perfectly apt to dress as a joke.

Obama's $3.7 trillion budget.

"Senior administration officials cast the document as a responsible alternative to the deep spending cuts that Republicans will urge in a vote this week on the House floor."

Let's get responsible!

The coming days of protest over Gov. Scott Walker's "effort to break the back of the state's public employee unions."

Isthmus columnist Bill Lueders is trying to figure out how his newspaper should cover the events:

Of course we have to do so, as these are major news events; but my feeling is that these rallies are a colossal waste of everybody's time, and exactly the reaction Gov. Walker hopes to inspire.

There's a Valentine's Day delivery of cutesy messages (“I ♥ UW: Governor Walker, Don't Break my ♥”) on Monday, and larger protests on Tuesday and Wednesday. They are expected to draw thousands of people to the state Capitol, for rallies, speeches and words of bitter dissent. And they will give the governor the dramatic and momentary confrontation he craves, to buff up his national image as a formidable dude, one who's willing to stand up to workers who have had it too good for too long....

Protests are exactly what Walker wants, because they can only lead to two outcomes: Either they are peaceful and accomplish nothing; or they turn violent and create a massive backlash against the unions and their members. Either way, Walker wins.

Wow. When did Madison lefties become so cynical about protests?

Cokie Roberts and Renee Montagne talking about Republicans on NPR.

The tone and inflection as they hit key words like "Gingrich" couldn't be more sarcastic and contemptuous. I mean, if they amped it up any more, the regular NPR listeners might start to find it inappropriate.

Today, at the Wisconsin Capitol square, a protest against Governor Scott Walker's plan to fix the budget.

The plan hits unions hard, and this is what we saw today...

Kids, perched on a rapidly melting mound of snow, hold signs saying "Hands Off Our Unions," "Save My Future," and "Save My School":



It was a very low key crowd. Note the sign that says: "Bullying Is NOT the Answer! Fix if the Plan Needed!" I'm not really sure what that means. Is Scott Walker a bully? Okay. I understand that feeling but are you saying that if the plan is needed... what? It should still be fixed or are you conceding that we'll need to do it if it's necessary?



That's me in the white jacket, posing with with the crowd:



You can see that it wasn't a very big crowd. There was an effort to get cars to honk, and when they honked, the honkees went "Wooo!"

There were no speakers and no chants. There was one man — I have video but I'm not posting it — who seemed a bit disoriented, who did something that is comically easy to do in a low-key protest. He started speaking, haranguing, like he was the leader. The group of nice, tolerant people did nothing to shoo him away. It was rather touching, even as it underlined the ineffectiveness of the protest.

It was a beautiful, unseasonably warm Sunday, and our new governor has just dropped a shocking union-busting proposal that our newly Republican legislature is likely to step up and pass. This is the push-back from the unions?



Impeach Walker? I don't think so.

Some questions about the possible sexism of the way the NYT portrays Judy Clarke, the public defender in the Tucson massacre case.

Jared Loughner's lawyer has an "unassuming, almost motherly way," the NYT informs us. Judy Clarke, we're told, achieved an "essential act[] of lawyering... when she patted Mr. Loughner on the back in court last month, leaned in close and whispered in his ear."

Let's talk about the degree to which it's currently considered acceptable to ascribe lawyerly skills to gender.

Is the NYT being sexist? Is it okay because it's kind of subtle?  Is it okay because if there's a special goodness in femininity, it lends momentum to the progressive trend of including more and more women in the legal profession?

If the answer to the last question is yes, imagine a similar statement made about a male lawyer, suggesting that his maleness brought extra value to his lawyering: Would that not be okay? If not, is that because you can say (in so many words) that it's better to be female, but it's retrograde to say (subtly as well as unsubtly) that it's better to be male?

If you've bought into the notion that it is acceptable to say (with some subtlety) that it's better to be female, because that seems progressive, why is it progressive to promote women using the traditional stereotype of women as maternal and nurturing? Why isn't that precisely what is sexist?

Do you think, in the long run, it is helpful to the success of women in the legal profession to portray them as good at mothering and being sensitive to other people's feelings?

Why do some people presume the best of the Egyptian protesters and the worst of the Tea Party protesters?

This is something I've been mulling over especially after I heard Rush Limbaugh tie up a long monologue like this:

I find Obama's respect for protests funny.  He hates the Tea Party, he hates their rallies, he accuses them of being all kinds of things, but the protesters in Egypt, why, they are great, Muslim Brotherhood, secular, they're not interested in violence. Obama loves these people in Egypt all the while he is in violation of a federal judge.  This man is so concerned about the law in Egypt, he's got his own health care bill declared unconstitutional, and he acts like the court has never ruled.  So all this talk about democracy and the rule of law, give me a break, he's flipping Judge Vinson the bird.

He may claim to love democracy in Egypt.  He knows what that group is.  He's a community organizer.  He knows exactly what that group is.  That's why he's such a big supporter of that.  He knows that group's just a bunch of agitators.  But to sit around and start talking about, "Oh, we love democracy, and whenever we see it bubbling up, we're gonna support it out there."  Yeah, except when the judge says your health care bill's unconstitutional, we're gonna ignore that.  He loves democracy in action except when it's the Tea Party.  Then all of a sudden they become a bunch of tea baggers, as far as he's concerned.  Yeah.  I'm not kidding.  The American Tea Party, they're responsible for shooting people, they're responsible for all the violence. I mean, who's worked this crowd up into a fevered pitch?  I don't know that my program's on the air there.  And if it were -- he-he-he-he-he-he-he -- they wouldn't like me much.

There's a lot of stuff in there. I'm focused on the question I put in the title. Obviously, I'm also interested in the health care case. He wove that into the discussion — awkwardly... or elegantly?

Meanwhile, the NYT reports:

The Egyptian military, complying with most of the principal demands of the opposition, said Sunday that it had dissolved the country’s parliament, suspended its constitution and called for elections in six months, according to a statement by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces read on state television. It also said it would honor all of Egypt’s international agreements, including the peace treaty with Israel.

The military did not address a third major opposition demand to lift emergency rule. In previous statements, the council had promised to take that step once the security situation improved.

So, at this point, it's pretty much a military coup, making references to an entity called "the opposition," dissolving parliament, and suspending the constitution. I'm just trying to understand what's going on and why we should feel so much confidence about it.

Or is it political theater? Perhaps Obama et al. are only acting as though they have full confidence that the outcome will be democratic and free, because it is a way to state our expectations, make that outcome more likely, and position us to pressure the military government if that doesn't happen.

Have I stumbled into the answer to my original question up there in the post title? If it's "political theater," then a completely different set of gestures with respect to the Tea Party makes perfect sense.