supply and command

What the Common People Think About our Research

(taken by FJM on 12 December 2011)

Note: the above picture is an historic photograph. Meanwhile, this frank expression of the popular voice has been removed.

Homocidal Maniac Doing Fieldwork

The weirdest story I have ever read: Murder Most Academic.

Of Titles and Twats

Silvana Koch-Mehrin, until recently vice-president of the European Parliament, has joined Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg in losing a doctoral degree. The former German defence minister had his doctorate withdrawn after his Alma Mater, the University of Bamberg, noticed a few indefensible shortcomings in Guttenberg’s dissertation (the most blatant one: pretty much none of its 450 pages had been written by the alleged author). Now, Koch-Mehrin has met the same fate. Three days ago, the University of Heidelberg announced that her degree was to be scrapped. Investigators had found 120 instances of obvious plagiarism in her doctoral dissertation, which Koch-Mehrin had submitted to the university’s philosophical faculty in 1999.

Yet, while the two cases are similar, the two fraudsters could not have behaved more differently in the aftermath of their respective exposure. While Guttenberg eventually stepped down from all political functions, retired to his Franconian castle and even announced his intention to leave Germany, Koch-Mehrin has kept her seat in the European parliament. Worse, she has started a childish skirmish with her former university. In a press statement, she claims that Heidelberg knew about the weaknesses of her dissertation: “[They] were known to the University of Heidelberg for 11 years, for all these words can be found in the written assessment of my supervisor. His highly critical remarks were seconded explicitly by the second examiner. […] The board of examiners awarded my doctoral degree in full awareness of the obvious weaknesses of my work. Today the board sees this differently.”

One is tempted to say to the poor girl: “Shut up, you are making it worse”. It is mind-boggling to see a respected parliamentarian complaining about the decision of an independent academic commission while not displaying any awareness of having made fundamental mistakes. After years of studying and alleged independent research, Koch-Mehrin evidently does even not grasp the basics of good academic conduct. She does not seem to understand the difference between a poor dissertation – which her supervisors thought she had produced – and a plagiarised one – which she did submit.

Quote of the Month: High Returns despite low Blow Job Rates

"I see some [foreign investment funds] looking for returns of 20 or 25% at a time when fellatio is close to zero."

MEP Rachida Dati during a Canal Plus interview.

Property Rights in Italy

Help yourself with bathroom accessories!

Being Human #3: Dusty Historians

This is dedicated to a certain species of dusty old-fashioned historians, who spend years in archives only to produce narratives that are good for nothing apart from being literary descriptions of historical periods.

The Decider Leaves Office

The BBC kindly compiled this selection of quotes by the greatest comedian president of all times.

He will be missed.

[h/t TB]

Being Human #2: Dropout Artists

As a journalist, I often encounter artists of various backgrounds and intentions. Artists are folks who produce stuff in the hope that others will find it intellectually, sensually or sexually stimulating. Sometimes this may even be the case, and hence “artist” is a widely accepted profession rewarding a high social reputation. As a result, a great many people claim to be artists even though, in fact, they are not. There lies the root of the problem.

Art is of invaluable significance to our liberal societies, and I certainly do not intend to question this fundamental importance. However, in today’s de-tabooed world in which just any average Joe can be an artist (and, I know, I know, a lot of untalented guys want to be writers, don’t find publishers and are consequently forced to run blogs), the meaning of the word “artist” degenerates more and more, only to become something of a synonym for “dropout”. It is this sort of dropout artist I am concerned with here.

To some extent, modern-day dropout artists are the biblical prophets of the 21^st century. Not only do some of them look like Elijah, they also come up with concepts and ideas nobody cares about and most folks would consider completely unnecessary or even disturbing. For that, they are often met with complete bewilderment and lack of understanding, which in turn is necessary for them to be able to stick to their dropout identity. Just like Moses, Jeremiah and Jesus, they feel that they have

something to say. And they don’t even run the risk of being crucified or voted out of office or carried to heaven in inflammable horse-drawn wagons (besides, Jeremiah’s wagon is a lot more comfortable nowadays).

I was once obliged, for professional reasons, to engage in a conversation with a weird artist couple, both of them about 40 years of age and utterly boring. Neither the guy nor his girlfriend was capable of describing their motivations and intentions in a few transitive words. Instead, they both waffled something about love and peace and art as a social projective. Eventually, the guy broke the ice and indulged in a crazy sermon of logically inconsistent, diffuse conglomerates of fallacious phrasings in which he tried to portray himself as politically and conceptually untouchable. “He is the best”, his girlfriend yelled, clearly overwhelmed by such enormous intellectual greatness. “No, she is the best”, the guy said, placing his left hand on her arse. “We are both the best”, they finally concluded, looking at each other in self-righteous excitement. I chewed my gum, starred at them in fierce desperation, and thought: what a poor picture they give.

(written by a lunatic dropout writer)

(cartoon by Gerhard Haderer)

Being Human #1: Santorum and Local Politicians

If I had to choose the two most interesting characters one could possibly encounter in real life, I would pick the following folks: the cellphone engineer and the local politician. Why? Well, they both tend to embody certain hypocritical qualities; they both have a pretty smile; they are soulmates…

The cellphone engineer’s personal attitude is boring and averagely accurate; his job is to sell package deals to package-like customers in packed, pseudo-modern storehouses. Hence he is one of the few real-world characters suitable for package-like lump-sum judgments like the one above (during the past couple of years, I had to deal with an estimated 100 of them; in addition to that, I have known two of them personally; I know what I’m talking about).

Just last week, I thought time had come to end my contract with a well-known cellular radio company. Instead, I wished to make use of their pay-as-you-talk service, but I painfully had to learn of the impossibility of my demands. My number had already been deleted and there was no way to reactivate it. The cellphone engineers had made up their bloody minds, despite my desperate demands to give me back my old number. In a world of space shuttles, atomic bombs and 50 gigabyte laptops, it seemed to require unknown technological efforts to reactivate a cellphone number previously dumped by ignorant staff. (Having wasted three hours of my precious lifetime, I finally got it done by another store; same company, same engineers, considering they all look alike.)