Curmie

Harvard, Grade Inflation, and the Very Special Snowflakes A recent article in the Harvard Crimson has generated substantially more buzz on the national scale than is common for college newspaper fa...

"You can't make this shit up, Gentle Reader."

On Regretting the Loss of Thoughtful Disagreement One of the saddest things about the current administration is that it has forced once-principled and intelligent conservatives to start spou...

"The Republican Party is now completely subservient to the petulance and vindictiveness of a delirious despot-wannabe, and they’ll say or do anything to prove their allegiance to him."

Reading between the Lines of the Censorship of "Between the Lines" Curmie isn’t sure whether the classic rock lyrics du jour should come from Stevie Nicks or Whitesnake, but it’s clear that the situation is...

"If you’re going to be a censorial asshat, at least be timely about it."

Three First Amendment Stories There are just too many things to write about right now.   Curmie doesn’t promise FOC Steve that a piece on the bombing of those Venezuelan ...

"Curmie can, as is his wont, bundle three different stories that emerged roughly simultaneously under the general heading of Censorial Asshatitude."

Credit Where It’s Due: President Trump The convoy of released Israeli hostages heads toward Jerusalem To say that Curmie has been unimpressed with the Trump presidency is to err m...

"If he’d stop whining about how he deserves a Nobel Prize for large illusory accomplishments, he might even deserve one for an actual success."

The Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education Is, Unsurprisingly, the Exact Opposite of What It Pretends to Be Baker Library at Dartmouth College This one is long, even by Curmie’s standards, Gentle Reader.  Buckle up. A few months ago, Curmie wrote...

"The Compact, as expected.... restricts freedom of speech even as it pretends to support it. It reveals a profound ignorance about the way higher education works and a contempt for scholarship, teaching, and learning."

It’s a Different World Out There Now, Dennis Masked ICE agent sprays Pastor David Black directly in the face. Photo by Ashlee Rezin of the Chicago Sun-Times There were, no doubt, severa...

“The establishment will irritate you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humor.”
--John Lennon (85 today)

STAND WITH YOUR SCHOOL: Trump attacks 9 universities. Sign the alumni petition now. Are you an alum from one of the 9 schools the federal government just attacked? Sign this alumni petition now to support your school, defend democracy, and build a grassroots movement for campus freed...

Are you an alum from one of the 9 schools the federal government just attacked? Sign this alumni petition now to support your school, defend democracy, and build a grassroots movement for campus freedom across America. alumni.standforcampusfreedom.org/petitions/tr...

Thoughts on Banned Books Week It is currently Banned Books Week, during which time we are encouraged to read… wait for it… banned books, i.e. , books that some censorial ...

"If you want to read a banned book, go for it. Don’t do so just because it was banned. But if that makes it just a little more intriguing, so be it. Enjoy, Gentle Reader."

On the (ahem) Acting Career of Tilly Norwood To say that Curmie is rather ignorant of popular culture is to err more on the side of understatement than of hyperbole.  That wasn’t always...

Tilly Norwood is being touted as the next Scarlett Johansson. That’s not gonna happen, at least as long as the real one draws movie-goers in large numbers. Tilly won’t do that, except perhaps very briefly as a variation on the theme of a freak show. But she is a helluva lot cheaper...

The Other UN Story The chances are, Gentle Reader, that you’re well aware of the recent visit of President Trump to the United Nations.   You’ve read about h...

"...disagreeing with the Israeli government doesn’t mean you’re antisemitic. But if you claim to be a diplomat, refusing to listen to the Israeli PM when you endured a harangue by Donald Trump pretty much means that you are."

Two Scams Involving Cars and Driving Curmie is trying desperately to think about something other than politics and variations on the theme: the Idiot-in-Chief, urged on by Sec...

"If it’s a scam, it’s difficult to see how the operation works. But if you’re not trying to fleece someone, why would you go out of your way to act like you are?"

Musings on the Shooting in Dallas... with a personal connection Curmie really wants to write about something other than the immorality and incompetence of the Trump administration and their minions in mor...

"This, alas, is the true face of ICE: paranoid, cowardly, and mendacious."

More Censorial Hijinks in the Kirk Shooting Aftermath Darren Michael Regular readers of this blog will understand that Curmie is likely to take the side of theatre professors against The Man unl...

"There is no such thing as free speech if a state employee can be fired for saying something someone in power finds distasteful."

On the Dilemma of House Bill 719 Politicians are, in general, an unsavory lot.   They’re more about winning than about doing the right thing, and winning is often defined no...

"It is possible to regard Charlie Kirk as a horrible person and still condemn his murder and his murderer."

Hypersensitivity, But the Right Result at Michigan State Roy Horovitz You can’t tell the players without a scorecard, but Curmie’s best guess is that this particular attempted suppression of free s...

"The reason to oppose this bill is that it’s stupid, not that it’s in any way threatening."

"Lola" and the Week's Headlines Curmie was 14 when the Kinks released their classic song, “Lola.”  It was the perfect age at which to revel in the delicious naughtiness, ce...

Oh, and an administration so openly venal is going to be a lot more amenable to proposed mergers and such-like if you, ABC, suck up appropriately. Not all bribes are monetary; some just censor alternative voices. As the singer in “Lola” says, “I got down on my knees…”

About Those Course Evaluations... Curmie was tempted to write a follow-up to his post about the reactions to the murder of Charlie Kirk, but realizes that there is little to ...

"But the real problem is that lazy and feckless administrators don’t have a clue how to process the information they have available to them."

Absolutely psychopathic.

This Guardian quote from an anonymous person who said he knew Robinson in high school years ago, but hasn’t spoke to him in several years, who said he was supposedly a leftist, has been retracted. This single anonymous quote has been posted by thousands of right-wing accounts.

Ok: #AcademicSky is there a Kantorowicz there as of now?

Reacting to the Reactions about Charlie Kirk's Assassination A few quotations from the Dear Departed Curmie was going to write about the assassination of Charlie Kirk as part of a larger discussion abo...

"Demonizing political opponents is, of course, Trump’s stock in trade, to the extent that when someone else does it, we’re surprised he doesn’t sue them for copyright infringement."

Charlie Kirk hated empathy, calling it "a made-up new age term" that "does a lot of damage." So is it honoring his legacy or disparaging it to feel sorry for his wife and kids?

FIRE's Failure and Curmie's Happiness in Retirement One of the more troubling survey results.  Probably. If FIRE, the Federation for Individual Rights and Expression is known for anything by...

"...the proverbial elephant in the room. That’s a particularly apt expression, since the elephant is the symbol of the Republican Party, which, at least in states like Florida and Texas (there are others, no doubt), is the greatest threat to free speech on university campuses."

Columbia v. Columbia This story has been around for over a month, and Curmie got most of this essay written weeks ago, but couldn’t quite push it over the fini...

"When someone like Curmie is even tempted to side with a big corporation against an Ivy League school, well…"

Boy, Is This Not Greatness Mitchell Hall, where (presumably) Boy My Greatness was to have been performed A grad school friend of Curmie’s now lives a few miles from th...

"But if the laws themselves are problematic, the idea that staging a play in which gay (or curious) characters exist is somehow endorsing DEI is ample evidence that, to borrow a felicitous phrase from Ken White of Popehat, universities should cease hiring legal counsel from the back of a bait shop."

Will the Release of the Epstein Files Matter? Sort of. Maybe. The top stories of the last few days all revolve around the “Epstein files.”  Well, them and the myriad frenzied attempts by 47 and his mini...

Will the courageous and patriotic survivors of Epstein, Maxwell, and Trump who addressed the world this week save the country? They just might. Unfortunately, they could be our only chance.

Luigi Pirandello and the Mad King of Trumpistan Luigi Pirandello, 1867-1936 Over the years, Curmie has called upon his knowledge of dramatic literature on several occasions to address to...

Pirandello would certainly understand that seemingly contradictory ideas can co-exist. He might even write a play about it.

Oh, wait. He did.