WildBill wrote:The Annoyed Man wrote:This guy Krause is small cheese. He is a minor professor in a second tier university—no offense meant to anyone who went to school there... but it ain't Harvard Law. Academics, by nature of the same sheltered environment that is supposed to support and nurture their work by insulating them from the realities of the economy and job marketplace, know little or nothing about how the real world works—my parents included. I reserve an exception for engineers, who often seem to do creative and useful things in real life.
Of course there are many exceptions to this example. One of the best professors that I ever had earned his PhD from a Tier One University. He could have been on the facility of any university in world, but he decided to teach at a state college. Why? Because he wanted to teach rather than do research and turn out useless journal articles.
He did have one good book in him. It is the best selling book on the subject of analytical chemistry that has ever been written. It is a standard textbook used in just about every college and university in the world. It has been in print since 1971 and translated into at least 20 languages.
And he should be applauded and recognized for that. But I was
raised in academia, and I have a very jaundiced eye toward it, not because I don't see the value of a good education, but because I have been more than casually involved in the lives of outwardly great people who turned out to be internally and fecklessly flawed human beings. Consequently, I no longer
assume their greatness. They have to
prove it,
just like everybody else has to. I learned a long time ago that a tenured position in the sheltered confines of academia does not automatically confer wisdom upon its holder. I have heard as much wisdom from the mouths of janitors sweeping the Caltech floors as I have from the faculty holding forth in its classrooms. And as much foolishness too.
Hence my reaction to Professor Krauss (or Krause, or however you spell his name). He spouted inanities which are legal fiction (which is his first amendment right), and stamped his little cosseted feet because there is a strong possibility that his state's government may pass a law approved of by the majority of its citizens. What's he going to do next? Hold his breath until his face turns blue? It is
my first amendment right to point out his foolishness.
Bill, I have no doubt that your professor was a sterling character and a fine teacher, deserving of your admiration. Did he use his position to spout foolishness? My guess is, probably not or your memories of him would be less fond. Krause's threat to ban CHLers from his classrooms has no more teeth in it than Alec Baldwin's threat to leave the country if Bush got elected, and it sounds just as stupid.
Sadly, you can't fix stupid, and so here we are at the TexasCHLforum, having a discussion about whether or it is wrong or disrespectful to label stupidity in another state as stupid.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
― G. Michael Hopf, "Those Who Remain"
#TINVOWOOT
