My hometown is Manson, Iowa (no relation to Charles or Marilyn), population 1800 or so. This morning in my inbox:
Dear Jeremy,Another Manson-born academic ([name], at the University of Iowa) sent me (a Manson-born academic at the National University of [exotic foreign country]) the URL of your website, which I greatly enjoyed. Congratulations on that: delightfully, and affectionately, irreverent — and helped me to remember why, from the age of about 12, my life goal was to be somewhere else.
Best wishes,
[name]
I had no idea that there were other people in academia from my hometown. My own life goal of being somewhere else did not crystallize until age 13, with an incident that involved me watching a couple guys who worked on a rendering truck.
(Don’t get me wrong: I love Iowa. And remember, if it wasn’t for Iowa, Barack Obama would not be the Democratic nominee. He better not double-cross us on ethanol.)
I earned star 67 this morning on my plan to exercise 200 days in 2008. Remember, I’ve committed to giving $25 to the George W. Bush Presidential Library for every day I fall short. I am currently slightly behind: if I continue at this pace, I will be donating $300 or so, which is enough to ensure that I will have my name on right-wing mailing lists for life. Plus, it will be all the more evidence at my trial the year ASA has “Who shall we purge?” as its theme.
5 Comments
Oh, man, I can’t wait for the purgings. That’ll be a great conference. I think we can keep you around though, Jeremy.
Perhaps the “Whom Shall We Purge?” list will be topped by those who make grammar errors on blogs.
when we eventually have a purge i think the official theme that year will be something like “purifying the discipline,” “dismissing the deviationists,” or “another world is mandatory.” look for mobs in front of the conference hotel chanting “death to the little satan of journal sociology! death to the great satan of economics!”
seriously though, if we do have purges i think it will come under the rubric of “professional ethics” as that’s how it seems to work in anthropology.
You nailed it, GR. I hereby nominate you for the ASA Special Award for Achievements in Sociological Humor.
GR/Andrewska: Hilarious!
Tina: I cannot believe the trouble I have with Who/Whom at the beginning of a sentence. More generally, I can’t believe how my grammatical sense seems to be deteriorating as I muddle through my thirties.