High Education Hi-Jinks

We have professors pissing on other professors (well, just their office door, but close enough).

We also have students graduating with a Masters degree in Beatles music.

A Canadian woman has become the first person in the world to graduate with a Masters degree in Beatles Studies.

Former Miss Canada finalist, Mary-Lu Zahalan-Kennedy was one of the first 12 students to sign up for the Liverpool Hope University course on the Fab Four when it began in 2009 and was the first to graduate, the university said on Wednesday.

"Mary-Lu now joins an internationally recognized group of scholars of Popular Music Studies who are able to offer fresh and thought-provoking insights into the discipline of musicology."

"Internationally recognized group of scholars..." GMAFB. Fluff studies - the university equivalent of a toy store. At a time when universities - American and European, among others - are hemorrhaging red ink, they are still expending resources on topics like Beatles Studies. How does that help feed people, or cure cancer, or stop global warming climate change global weirdness? How does it even help Mary-Lu get a job? (Well, at least a productive job.) "Higher" education indeed.

With all this strangeness percolating through the academic world, is it any wonder that one teacher vented off a little steam?

School officials in a district near Philadelphia say a high school English teacher posted profanity-laced rants online that labeled her students "out of control" and "disengaged, lazy whiners."

Central Bucks School District suspended Natalie Munroe with pay Wednesday after parents complained about the posts, which also targeted co-workers and administrators.

District spokeswoman Carol Counihan tells the Bucks County Courier Times that Munroe admitting writing the posts. Superintendent Robert Laws says the posts should result in termination but the district is still investigating.

I don't understand what all the fuss is about. I don't doubt that her students, like so many today, are in fact "out of control, disengaged, lazy whiners." I also don't doubt that she works with idiots and assholes. They are plentiful in academia. Unless she identified people by name, she shouldn't be punished for speaking the truth.

Munroe posted her statements in a blog, which could mean trouble for yours truly. I might get fired if my bosses figure out my secret identity.

Did I mention that my name is Barack Obama and I teach law at the University of Chicago...?