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"Canada will be a pariah globally if it goes through with this."

Says Green Party Leader Elizabeth May about this "very damaging act of sabotage" that "will reverberate around the world."

The era of Barney Frank...

... is over.

Law schools use search engines and Facebook to check out applicants.

According to a Kaplan Test Prep survey, 41% of law school admissions officers admit it.

Mathiew Le, director of admissions at the University of Washington School of Law, thinks the validity and reliability of information found on the Internet is questionable.

You think? But the information on law school applications might be a little questionable too (once you get past official transcripts and test scores).

The disgraced psychologist Diederik Stapel, whose findings people found so intriguing.

But they're only intriguing when you believe he really did a study producing the result.

According to [Tilburg University's] interim report, Stapel's typical modus operandi was to team up with a student or colleague to design a study to test one of the collaborator’s own hypotheses. He would then purport to carry out the study and process the data by himself or with an unknown assistant. He then provided the processed data file – which, in reality, was often entirely fabricated – to the collaborator for analysis.

One student who persistently requested access to the raw data was accused by the disgraced scholar of "calling his capacities and experience as a renowned professor into question." But collaborators typically regarded Stapel's processing as a "service," and the "close bonds" he often formed with them tended to minimize their suspicion. "The last thing that colleagues, staff and students would suspect is that, of all people, the department's scientific star, and faculty dean, would systematically betray that trust," the report says.

It's not enough that Stapel is disgraced. The collaborators are also to blame. And look at this effort to at explaining Stapel, from Stephen Reicher, a professor in the University of St. Andrews School of Psychology:

Stapel's "path to corruption" was partly a symptom of the "commodification" of the academy and the pressure to publish. "Publication becomes an end in itself. You don’t have to believe in what you found, you just have to get it out," [Reicher] said. "You become more Machiavellian in how you [do that]: it is a slippery slope."

It's nice that this psychologists have a hypothesis about the psychology of the corruption of psychologists. Maybe they could design a study to test it.

The art professor who photographs himself — with his students — "in various stages of undress, enacting sexually charged (and sometimes classical) scenes."

At Michigan State University, they're talking about Professor Danny Guthrie. Check out his photographs here. He says:

In the last couple of decades many female artists have investigated the personal landscape of their sexuality, as a means to seize control of their own representation within a culture milieu whose imaging of women has a long track record of idealization and exploitation. Taking my cue from this work, through direct and indirect references to classical painting and photography, my intent is to acknowledge these various traditions and debates, twisting and blurring the codes of classical aesthetics, contemporary rhetorically motivated art, and even erotica.

Ah! So he's riffing on those feminist artists. 

In particular, I want the viewer to know I am investigating a history and practice of representation where the roles of viewer and viewed, seducer and object of seduction, are examined and perturbed. In short, I hope to move beyond simplistic notions of viewer and victim, exploring the possibility of a complicated exchange of power that informs the way these pictures come about.

But then... to use students....

Such collaboration involves considerable risk-taking and trust. The images do not mean I have this or that fantasy about a particular individual or situation, but they do explore emotions that I -- and I assume most others -- have felt.

So... the controversy is part of the art. 

Despite unemployment, there is a shortage of applicants for skilled jobs.

The Wall Street Journal has an article about the problem of unfilled job openings:

Union Pacific struggles to find enough electricians who have worked with diesel engines. Manufacturers in many places can't find enough machinists. Oil companies must fight for a limited supply of drilling-rig workers.

"There's a tremendous shortage of skilled workers," said Craig Giffi, a vice chairman of the consulting firm Deloitte. A recent survey it did found that 83% of manufacturers reported a moderate or severe shortage of skilled production workers to hire.

The extent and significance of the skills gap is hotly debated in economics circles, in part because of its policy implications. If companies aren't hiring primarily because of limited demand for their products or services, the standard policy prescription offered is some form of stimulus, such as lower interest rates or taxes, or more spending. But to the extent that the problem is companies' inability to find the workers they need, the remedy might instead be training or other efforts to help workers get the skills.

Most research suggests the sluggish economy is the biggest reason for the weak labor market. Data show the skills gap doesn't exist in whole industries but in specific jobs, including certain heavy-duty blue-collar ones.

This reminds me of the revelation — in Ron Suskind's book "Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President" — that, back in 2007, Obama and his advisers talked about emphasizing jobs that would reinforce masculine pride. (That led them to the rebuilding infrastructure proposal.)

According to the Wall Street Journal article, large numbers of skilled laborers are retiring these days and it's difficult to replace them in part because of the lack of high-school level vocational training. Consider all the money dumped into college tuition; young people could be getting free training in high school for "secure, well-paying jobs with good benefits... don't require a college degree."

"I believe in what I’m doing wholeheartedly, passionately, and what’s more, I simply go about my business. I suppose such a thing can be annoying to some people."

Thank you, Ken Russell, for that insight, and for committing passionately to your business. Carrying on without the great filmmaker — dead now at 84 — maybe we can can go about our business, with a little more passion and a little less attention to how annoying we are to some people.

For many years — through the 1980s and 1980s — I had a fixed list of 5 films that were my personal favorites. 2 were Ken Russell films: "Mahler" and "The Devils."*

His 1971 film “The Devils,” based on real events that had inspired a play by John Whiting and a book by Aldous Huxley, tells the grotesque story of demonic possession at a French convent, complete with exorcism rituals and blasphemous orgies. Mr. Russell, who converted to Catholicism in the 1950s, saw the film as an attack on the corrupt union of church and state.

The American funders and the British censors called for cuts. The Catholic Church condemned the movie when it was screened at the Venice Film Festival. Even in its edited version, the film was banned by several local authorities in Britain; it was further trimmed in the United States to avoid an X-rating....

Reviewing “The Devils” in The New York Times, Vincent Canby called Mr. Russell “a hobbyist determined to reproduce ‘The Last Supper’ in bottle tops.” Pauline Kael called him a “shrill, screaming gossip.”

Mr. Russell was not above fighting back. Appearing on live television shortly after the release of “The Devils” with the British critic Alexander Walker, who had denounced the film as “monstrously indecent,” Mr. Russell hit him on the head with a rolled-up newspaper.

I don't think there's a decent "Devils" DVD, or I'd order it right now. Wikipedia — with "citation needed" — says: "The British Film Institute have announced they will release the UK-theatrical Version (111 minutes) on DVD in March 2012."

I wish, when a great director dies, HBO (or some other TV channel) would put all his movies up on Video on Demand. I hesitate to link to the trailer for the movie because it's such a pathetic trailer.

I can't even find the rolled-up-newspaper incident on YouTube.
_________________________________

* The other 3 were: "Aguirre the Wrath of God," "My Dinner with Andre," and "City of Women."

At the Question Mark Café...

... I wonder what you can talk about.

Censored political slogan: "Tired of vegetables? Vote for [APPLE]."

The Moscow Times reports:

The head of the Moscow metro ordered election ads for the opposition party Yabloko [Russian for "apple"] to be removed...

"I understand the resentment of Mr. Besedin who was offended by the fact that a category of organisms, to which he belongs, is featured as something people are fed up with," Yabloko leader Sergei Mitrokhin said...

"What If Our Daughters Don't Want to Work?"

Writes Dorothy Pomerantz (in Forbes), whose 7-year-old daughter said to her "When I’m a mom I’m not going to get a job. I’m just going to look after my children." Asked why, the daughter — at age 7 — showed a dramatically astute understanding of economics: She's going to marry a guy who wants to work full time, and if she works too, they'll have to hire a babysitter for their children.

At this point, you'd think the mother would praise the young girl for thinking on such a sophisticated level. Instead, she frets first about whether the daughter has perceived the mother's inadequacies and failed to learn that a woman "can work and be fulfilled professionally and have children."  Then she goes on about the importance of changing the workplace "so that both parents will be recognized as equal caregivers and employees will be encouraged to find balance and have lives outside of the office."

What's so bad about division of labor, with one parent out in the world making the money, competing vigorously, and the other home-based, controlling and avoiding expenses? Especially if you consider the tax consequences — which the 7-year-old probably hasn't analyzed yet — it's much more efficient for the husband and the wife to adopt different roles. Either the husband or the wife can be the home-based spouse.

And note how Pomerantz assumes that careers are fulfilling. Often, they are not. And anything you do consumes your time and energy. If you do one fulfilling thing, you're doing less of something else that might be fulfilling. I should think many women — and men — would get great satisfaction out of avoiding a life of money-making and concentrating on conserving the money the career-spouse brings home, raising lovely children, cooking delicious meals, developing the couple's social connections, and so forth. The benefits to the working spouse in that arrangement are obvious.

Politico's most sycophantic headline ever?

"Obama's toughest critic: Obama."

"Bush would be regarded as a lefty today."

From Crack Skull Bob, documenting this morning's talking heads:



Brilliant, as always. I love the Jon Huntsman:



See and read the whole thing.

The recall Scott Walker election will cost the state $650,000 — "with potentially millions of dollars more in costs for local governments."

They don't have the signatures yet to force the election, and the question of the cost of the election has probably just about zero effect on whether anyone signs the petition:

Top Republicans say they're assuming recall organizers will get the signatures they need and are putting their energies into winning the recall election that would follow. They said Walker and Republican lawmakers solved a $3 billion budget gap over two years without relying on tax increases and shouldn't lose their offices to a "baseless partisan power-grab."

The linked article (in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) describes the signature effort, which includes a "group of about 80 volunteers... working in shifts of six to eight people to collect signatures on a series of high-traffic Madison streets that are wide enough to let a steady stream of cars pull over." They pull in an average of 400 signatures a day, we're told. My arithmetic says that "steady stream" is 1 car every 10 minutes... not counting the cars that stop but don't sign. Apparently, some pro-Walker drivers stop to waste the volunteers' time, yell at them, and even — in one case — rip up a petition. (Ripping up a petition is criminal, and the volunteers take down the license plate number and report the crime to the police.)

Meanwhile, some anti-Walkerites are worried the signature drive will fall short.

I fear the recall is going to fall short. People are not outside in public areas in cold months. People stay home, or they drive to grocery stores, theaters and shopping malls. The problem is that this is private property, controlled by generally pro-Walker business owners.

Maybe a door-to-door effort will be necessary. But that is unpleasant, hard work.

Unpleasant, hard work? Why?

The best hope, as I see it, is door-to-door. But that takes great courage, this is a volatile issue. People in smaller cities will be reluctant to rock the local boat. There are violent threats in seemingly safe public spaces, better bring some security door-to-door.

Bring some security?! Over at the link — at the Isthmus — Meade writes:

Security? What?!! You mean like you're going to show up at my door with two big bruisers standing behind you? Wait. Believe me - that will not get you invited in.

Look: just ring my doorbell politely. I'll ask you to come in. We'll sit down by the fire and I'll brew a big pot of tea. I'll bring you your nice cup of tea - Red Zinger, Sleepytime, whatever you choose - and then I'll listen very politely as you answer each and every one of my questions.

Of course, it's the Isthmus, Madison's weekly tabloid, where the assumption is that anyone not on the left is stupid, so Meade's humor goes undetected:

You can hardly expect a group of people to spend time with you, they have to keep moving. Try Dane County Social Services if you require a case worker.

Meade:

I know, I know - time is money.

*sigh*

Back in my day, we took the time to dialog with people. And share feelings. That was back when we got Clean For Gene. I know - a long long time ago.

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"Joe Kapp and Angelo Mosca get into a fight on stage at the 2011 CFL Alumni Legends Luncheon in Vancouver."

"It appears there is still some Bad blood between these two after a controversial hit on the field nearly 48 years ago."

Who starts it? Kapp, who hands Mosca flowers, or Mosca, who replies "Stick it up your ass"? Kapp, who re-offers the flowers, right in the face, or Mosca, who clobbers him? I blame Kapp, because those are insultingly scraggly flowers.