Killer Research

Latest gem on the NYT comes from good ol' Alabama. Apparently some chick prof gets denied tenure, and then goes to shoot up the other faculty members. But the kicker is that when she was 18 or 19, she actually had popped a cap in her own brother, gave a thin excuse, and then got let off the hook by the cops out in Boston.

(mental note: do NOT apply to Alabama-Huntsville, EVER. Also, send thank you note to 2nd Amendment supporters.)

Now this isn't the first time some academic has decided to go postal on people. In fact, last spring, George Zinkhan III, one of my fellow marketing academics decided to take out some frustrations on his wife, and two other dudes who had the misfortune of being in Georgia community theater. What in the world is going on with academia in the southeast? I don't know, but now that I live in the southeast, I'm sort of jealous that I'm not nearly as cool as these other profs.

(mental note: make that 2 thank you notes to the gun advocates)

I wanted to do a posting last spring, but sort of lost it in the queue of things to do. Now, as I hunt around for info, I really regret not posting about this dude. After all, he seems to have discovered my philosophy of being a widower before becoming a divorcee, which I share with Drew Peterson, who has actually been successful in executing this strategy on multiple occasions (whereas I only operate on a theoretical level).

Unfortunately, it appears that this prof took himself out, rather than go out in a blaze of glory, Butch Cassidy style. But before he went, it seems that this dude was pretty awesome. It gets even better if you scroll down the comments. Boorish behavior isn't exactly uncommon from faculty members, who were generally the geeks who got picked on all throughout high school and college. One very notable exception is a prof at, oddly enough Houston, where George Zinkhan was before he went to Georgia. This dude was a #1 pick of the Expos, out of high school, whose father negotiated a contract where the Expos would pay for all of his education. He blows out his arm the next year, at 19, and then proceeds to do the whole college, grad school, PhD thing, all on the Expos tab - smart dad.

In any case, in my experiences at these academic conferences you see and hear all sorts of things regarding these old dudes w/ no game trolling after the chick doctoral students (who, with some exceptions, are "attractive" only by relative standards - much like being the gold medalist in the Special Olympics). And the sick part is that these chicks must like the attention of these older, douche bags, as well as the possibility of getting a job or getting their names attached to some research. So that basically makes these chicks whores, though probably from a longer-term perspective, and with a different currency than your normal streetwalkers. So, really, no one's innocent. But this Zinkhan dude seemed slimy, even in a slimy setting. Naturally, he's my new professional hero, replacing Jayson Blair.

(mental note: 1 - publish more research, 2 - go to more conferences, 3 - lower standards for attractiveness and/or value intelligence in women more...)

Now, I'm always intrigued when the authorities drop the ball on various issues. In both of these cases, you see where people who have been entrusted by the public have failed. The folks in Boston let a mass murderer go free. The folks at Houston never punished poor behavior, and didn't stand in the way when the folks at Georgia needed a new prof. Then the folks at Georgia turned a blind eye to slimy antics.

(mental note: if current job goes downhill, send resume to Houston and Georgia)

In each of these cases people selectively overlook important things, and you end up with a mess that hits other folks between the eyes. The thing is, we hear about these things because they become major events. But this also happens on an everyday basis with the choices that everyday people make when they're entrusted with the responsibility to serve the people around them. Power and greed are easily predictable outcomes when you simply allow human nature to go unreined and poor behavior unpunished. Especially among sociopaths w/ guns.

All I know is that I'm proud to be an academic.

-Chairman