The Pretender

One of my little tics at college campuses, or at least at cool campuses, is to buy a jacket, sweatshirt or T-shirt. I've never done this at a college where I've attended or taught, though. I was shopping at a college bookstore the other day and looking through the offerings when a student of my acquaintance asked: "Do you want one of these lame 'parent of' sweatshirts or would you rather pretend you actually went here?" I opted for the latter of course.

I think this quirk started one cold summer day in Oxford when my wife and I were freezing our butts off. I bought my wife an "Oxford University" sweater, and we set off, slightly warmer, only to be accosted by a rather belligerant limey who demanded to know if she was in fact a student. We were a little embarrassed, but I was a lot bigger than he was, and he eventually wandered off, no doubt to curse Americans, the decline of real cider, and the loss of empire.

Uh oh - I guess I lied. I did buy a jacket from a school where I not only taught but took a few theater courses. Of course it was a jacket that was only supposed to be sold (or perhaps given) to those who had contributed generously to the athletic program (not me), so I guess it's OK.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anti-Libertarian: re-post

The most pointed critique of social security and liberalism in general is the libertarian critique. The problem with libertarians, for a liberal, is that we have too much in common. We both believe in individual rights, tolerance of individual differences, and dislike government prescription of religion. The basic difference, it seems to me, is the different answers we give to Cain's (with thanks to the Captain - my original version had the corpse asking the question!) famous question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That's not really my basic bitch against the libertarians though. My real complaint is the same as my complaint against most religion - its premise is a fraud. For those who can't stand to wait for the punchline, I believe that trying to implement libertarian principles leads to tyranny or social disintegration. Demonstrating that takes some historical (and pre-historical) context. For all but the last 15,000 or so of the 100,000 years the human spec
Read more

Uneasy Lies The Head

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ........... Shakespeare Henry IV, Part II. So it is with us and our slightly distant primate cousins , so it seems. A 9-year study of wild baboons in Kenya by Princeton University and the Institute of Primate Research may turn conventional assumptions of alphas males upside down. The study found that alpha males have high testosterone levels, which allows them to dominate other baboons, get access to more food, and attract better mates. This is expected. Surprisingly, though, the alpha males also have high levels of stress hormone glucocorticoid, which scientists measured from their feces samples. In fact, the stress of alpha baboons was on par with low-ranking baboons. The convention wisdom is that access to food and females provides life security and thus less stress for dominant males. Conversely, weak males who are constantly threatened by starvation and physical violence from stronger males are thought to be more stressed. The st
Read more

We Call it Soccer

The US played its best, and maybe only good game of World Cup, but lost thanks to brilliant goalkeeping by the Swedish keeper and the bizarre method soccer uses to settle ties when three US stars could not put the ball on frame from the 12 yard spot.  At the end it came down to a blocked shot that spun in by maybe a couple of centimeters. Well, that's football - too much like life.   Which brings me to a modest proposal.  Replace the thirty minute overtimes with as many 7-player 15 minute periods as needed to settle it.  Scoring should be much easier with fewer players.
Read more