Some Watches ...

Adams Watch: The Raleigh News & Observer has a good profile of UNC, Wilmington's conservative gadfly, Mike Adams. I often disagree with him, but I like his attitude.

Surprisingly, at least to those who think all conservatives have a bugaboo about liberal bias on campus, Adams doesn't care about political leanings."People say, 'We need to fight against bias,'" he says."Well, everybody's biased. I don't want to protect [students] against discomfort. Bias is just an annoyance. It's the fly in your barbecue sauce, not the bear in your tent."
That's why Adams sometimes declines to strap on his armor and gallop off to other campuses to do battle. He gets requests for help on a daily basis,"but a lot of them are stupid," he says.
Your professor's a liberal? So what? As Adams likes to say, the Constitution doesn't protect you from other people's disturbing opinions.

Adams might sometimes be a pain in the ass as a faculty colleague, but read that as a"the fly in your barbecue sauce, not the bear in your tent." Neither the Constitution nor a good education guarantees you won't have a pain in your ass. Make it a growing pain. Thanks to Erin O'Connor and Inside Higher Ed for the tip.

Benedict Watch: There are suggestions here and there that Benedict is a misnomer – that Ratzinger has become Palpatine I. Do not be surprised if left feminists and premillenialist evangelicals reach a consensus on this issue. Christabel Pankhurst, anyone?
Update: On the implications of Ratzinger's election for higher education, see: Scott Jaschik's"The New Pope" at Inside Higher Ed.

Berlin Watch: At The Valve, Jonathan Goodwin recommends David B. Hart's"The Laughter of Philosophers," First Things, January 2005, and I do too. Yet, right in the middle of his erudite essay is a contemptuous dismissal of Isaiah Berlin. Hart refers to Berlin's book about the 19th century German philosopher, Johann Georg Hamann, as"a ghastly, feeble, and imbecile squib by one of the twentieth century's most indefatigably fraudulent intellectuals, Isaiah Berlin." Could someone explain to me why Hart would have such contempt for Berlin?

Court Watch: David Garrow's got an article in Legal Affairs that claims that, especially in Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun's later years, he was much too dependent on his clerks' research assistance. Unfortunately, the article isn't on-line, but it is causing considerable discussion at The Volokh Conspiracy. See: David Bernstein, Jim Lindgren (with some excerpts), and Eugene Volokh. Ironically, just as Garrow raises this issue, the House of Representatives' scholar in residence, Tom DeLay, accuses Justice Anthony Kennedy of doing his own research on-line. Oh, the shame of it!

McLemee Watch:"Write On" is Scott McLemee's latest column for Inside Higher Ed and it reminds me that I've got to finish peer reviewing an article. I need a nice way of saying that the piece needs to be cut by about two-thirds – figure out where the gold is in all that dross, strike every sentence that does not advance the argument, cut out every quotation from routine office memos – self edit, self edit, self edit and don't inflict first drafts on other people.

Smile Watch: Sepoy asks Why do Americans smile so much? Why do Pakistanis smile so little?