Being a heterosexual white male is like playing a video game on “Easy”.

I so wish I could take credit for that observation but it is, in fact, the work of sci-fi author John Scalzi. He doesn’t just mention it as a one-liner, though, but instead takes the whole notion to its logical conclusion:

You know the old saying…

“A real man shoots his own physicist”:

you don’t even want to think about what they do to contractions

Dear Students, I realize that we’re approaching the end of the semester and I, like all of you, am very tired. Indeed, I feel like a dehydrated man crawling painfully through a desert lusting after the cool, refreshing waters of yon oasis. Granted, yon oasis is, in my case, a mirage since the end of […]

on the other hand, at least they don’t use the term, “problematize”.

From xkcd comes another illustration straight from my sub-conscious:

someone at the asa has a sense of humor

I found this earlier today while browsing the program for this year’s ASA Annual Meeting: Right there on page 190: Special Session. Post-Racial America?- CANCELLED Well done, conference organizers. Well done, indeed.

envy

I just got the table of contents for the June issue of the American Sociological Review and, all of a sudden, it hit me: Magnus Thor Torfason: Coolest academic name ever. I mean, just, wow. That’s more awesome than my plan to rename myself “Otto von Deathstrike” once I have my Ph.D.! And the paper […]

first cart, then horse

Quick tip for aspiring journal contributors: generally speaking, “Theory” and “Hypotheses” should not be sub-headings in the section titled “Methods.” Just one of those things.

ATL confidential

Okay, so, here’s the thing: we’re going to Atlanta for the ASAs this year. We all know that. And, as with any ASA, there are all kinds of reasons either to go or not to go. I get that. Heck, I often look for good excuses to skip the ASAs. The thing is, though, why […]

perspective.

Sometimes, xkcd really does put my professional life into perspective. And, as I’m sure you’ve all noticed, my response to this perspective is to use said metal rectangle of lights to tell other people about the metal rectangle of lights. I’m fairly sure there’s a definition of insanity in there somewhere.

a bold look for a bold journal

So, like many of you, I recently received the latest issue of the American Sociological Review. This is evidently the first issue to ship from the new editorship and I’m pleased to see that a number of interesting-looking articles are in it. At the same time, I was somewhat surprised by the new look: That’s […]

a thing of beauty

We’ve all had them: those annoying students who arrive to class late, leave early, fall asleep during lectures, and step out of tests so that they can get a big gulp from the local 7-11.* We put up with this bad behavior largely because it comes with the academic territory. Sometimes, though, our less than […]

it’s a trap!

“You know, no matter how many votes he garners, Admiral Ackbar is never going to be the mascot.” “Because it’s Mississippi and it sounds like he’s Arab?” “No, because of a little thing called ‘copyright.’ There’s no way Lucasfilm would agree to grant the rights.” “Well, maybe George Lucas will be nice. But then there’d […]

i think this is what my parents hear when i tell them about my research.

Seriously, I think I want this guy to write my next grant proposal.

ask a scatterbrain: when to give up?

I hate to post another ask a scatterbrain so soon after Andrew’s rather solid example, but I have a related issue. When my students prepare for their final exams I often tabulate how well each would have to do on the final in order to get an A, B, C, or D for the course […]

non-sequitur

So researchers have recently advanced the claim that one reason why males in many societies have shorter life spans than females is because males have genes that kill us off quicker. And you always thought it was our love of chili fries! The basic outline seems to be that males are evolved to expend more […]