I'm trying to decide if I'm too much of a pacifist to be a professor at West Point.

Happy birthday, Hil!

You've had quite a week, Scrappy. I like the shoes, but the thing I'm envious of is seeing TMBG. I lurves Flood. You should hear Isaac singing "Particle Man."

I'm trying to decide if I'm too much of a pacifist to be a professor at West Point.

Wow. I would personally find that really, really tough. My first girlfriend was a West Pointer and I heard lots of stories about being a cadet. (eta particularly being a female cadet, and a closeted gay one)

I saw TMBG in, umm, 1994? It's one of those bands that I periodically think, "Hmm, I should get some of their music" but then I forget.

I know someone who's a professor at the Naval War College, and I believe he's also a pacifist (although I could be wrong on that--he is an acknowledged liberal and has jokingly called himself a "pinko leftist").

It's a great job, but I'm still thinking about whether I want to apply. Need to figure out whether the pros outweigh the cons or not. (My officemate, by the way, said that the only reason that he could think of not to apply would be that being that close to Sing-Sing might not be safe. Because prisoners are going to escape from Sing-Sing and travel 20 miles north to terrorize people at West Point?)

Your officemate is a documented freak, but sometimes he's an amusing freak.

Your officemate is a documented freak, but sometimes he's an amusing freak.

Yes.

I got a somewhat confusing email from Southern Polytechnic that I think might mean they want to interview me. (The email was clearly written by someone who does not speak very good English, and I couldn't really tell if it was saying that they wanted to interview me or if it was an email sent out to everyone who applied saying that they'd be deciding on interviews soon. But the part that I did understand said that there would be another email soon with more information, so I figure I'll wait for that one.)

Happy Birthday, Hil!

My officemate, by the way, said that the only reason that he could think of not to apply would be that being that close to Sing-Sing might not be safe.

OTOH, West Point would be far, far away from your officemate.

This officemate has gotten more toward amusing and less annoying lately. But that might just be in comparison with the new officemate, who is obnoxious.

For what it is worth:

Noam Chomsky works at MIT which gets a lot of military funding. He has spoken about the issue.

Some of the best work on why we should be spending less on our military comes out of military colleges. Not just eliminating "waste" but questioning whether we need so much military capability.