The Fora: A Higher Education Community

Good morning!

Got the pangram and dragged myself to genius.  Yesterday we needed bee buddy for cheetah, emcee.  I needed husband help for enhance(ment).  Ugh!

No luck on LB again.

Looks like his thyroid is a little off, so we'll see what the other blood tests show.  Thanks again for the good wishes!

Cathwen, did your daughter and her wife get back okay? How's their car? I guess that all might still be in process.

Happy solving!

I had never heard of Unfrosted! It does sound fun.  I will put it on the list, thanks!

This past weekend we needed some levity so picked Game Night (2018), Joy Ride (2023).  Both were a lot of fun and outrageous in their own ways.  I think I preferred Game Night just a wee bit more.  That one is about a murder mystery game night gone awry and is a dark comedy.  My husband preferred Joy Ride a little more.  That one is about four women who travel to China to find one's birth mother and of course have a bunch of adventures along the way.  That is a pretty raunchy drama comedy.  They both had us laughing and served their purposes well.  I think we gave them both 7/10.

Quote from: secundem_artem on May 06, 2024, 07:34:54 PM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 06, 2024, 05:23:19 PMAbsolutely loved Unfrosted.  Cannot understand why the critics, or anybody for that matter, don't like it.

Agreed.  I thought it was an absolute hoot.  Seeing Hugh Grant as Tony the Tiger but shirtless and wearing face paint and viking horns and leading a protest.....  The allusion wasn't very subtle but I thought it was hilarious. 

But then again, I thought the 3 Stooges and the Marx Brothers were high art. 

And for those of you north of the 49th parallel and old enough to remember, I absolutely loved Wayne & Shuster back in the day. Some sample W&S humor:

"That's not Ojibway writing saying Ma Day in Oh Sha Wa.  It says Made in Oshawa." 

Also -

A Roman centurion walks into a bar.  "I'll have a martinus."

"Don't you mean martini?" asks the barkeep.

Says the Centurion "When I want 2, I'll ask for 2.  What's the matter don't you speak plain Latin???"

Still cracks me up

Both Stooges & Marx Bros were brilliant, as were Laurel and Hardy.

Quote from: spork on Today at 01:54:54 AMNice to see MIT formally abandoning this meaningless fad. Its institutional practices -- e.g., no legacy admits, no sports scholarships -- already did far more for diversity than anything done by Ivy League universities.

Right--requirements for diversity statements are really about saying the right things, making the right gestures, nodding one's head at the right time--the sort of thing that goes under the term "virtue signaling."  Like so much of what has come to be identified with DEI, it creates strife and confusion and makes people feel threatened, without appearing to do much practical good in the process.  The institutional practices that actually show results are where the emphasis needs to be.

To put it another way--a candidate who doesn't much care about diversity, or about treating others right in general, but has a mastery of the stereotyped jargon expected in a diversity statement, can cynically say the expected things and check that box.  A candidate who actually has the strong sense of ethics and fairness that DEI is supposed to be all about in principle, but who isn't familiar with or comfortable with the jargon, can end up being written off as somebody who can't be trusted in diversity matters.

The New York Times Sunday Magazine has a good article on a Palestinian man who is trying to use non-violent resistance (~ Ghandi or MLK).  Suffice to say with limited success.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/magazine/issa-amro-palestinian-nonviolent-activist.html

By the time I was an undergrad, I was no longer vacationing with my parents.  Seems like a lot of kids are not willing to fledge and leave the nest.

DEI in today's comics.

Good morning!

QB. Didn't get back to the bee yesterday.

Happy solving!

Nice to see MIT formally abandoning this meaningless fad. Its institutional practices -- e.g., no legacy admits, no sports scholarships -- already did far more for diversity than anything done by Ivy League universities.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 06, 2024, 05:23:19 PMAbsolutely loved Unfrosted.  Cannot understand why the critics, or anybody for that matter, don't like it.

Agreed.  I thought it was an absolute hoot.  Seeing Hugh Grant as Tony the Tiger but shirtless and wearing face paint and viking horns and leading a protest.....  The allusion wasn't very subtle but I thought it was hilarious. 

But then again, I thought the 3 Stooges and the Marx Brothers were high art. 

And for those of you north of the 49th parallel and old enough to remember, I absolutely loved Wayne & Shuster back in the day. Some sample W&S humor:

"That's not Ojibway writing saying Ma Day in Oh Sha Wa.  It says Made in Oshawa." 

Also -

A Roman centurion walks into a bar.  "I'll have a martinus."

"Don't you mean martini?" asks the barkeep.

Says the Centurion "When I want 2, I'll ask for 2.  What's the matter don't you speak plain Latin???"

Still cracks me up