Category: Doc

Current Affairs, Doc, Education, Law/Justice, Twitter, Uncategorized4 Comments

Tenure: Thanks for fucking it up for everybody else

docphd

I’ve written before here about the fundamental misunderstanding most people have about tenure, including why it matters, how it works and what it’s supposed to provide. The simplest explanation is that tenure guarantees educators and scholars at institutions of higher education the right to fearlessly challenge convention within a field, seek scholarship in areas that might not jibe with social norms and conduct research in ways their expertise dictates is necessary and valuable. It’s not meant to protect you when you act like a dick. Unfortunately, the public seems to think that tenure does this, which is why they’re constantly … Continue reading Tenure: Thanks for fucking it up for everybody else

Big Damn Heroes, Current Affairs, Diary, Doc, Education, Sports, Uncategorized2 Comments

Good night, Jack Hamilton

docphd

(Posting a bit early because of a sad bit of news. Hope it’s acceptable. – Doc.) Of all the baubles and trinkets I’ve collected over the years that adorn my office, one of my favorite ones is a baseball signed by Jack Hamilton, who died earlier today. The reason I got it was that I taught one of his grandchildren during one of my many stops in journalism education. I still remember her approaching me during our introductory reporting course to ask for special dispensation when it came to her profile. “I know you said that we can’t do this … Continue reading Good night, Jack Hamilton

Current Affairs, Do Something, Doc, Education, Law/Justice, Uncategorized3 Comments

Parsing the Medill #MeToo Debacle

docphd

Yes, even at the Jesus H. Christ School of Journalism Gods, people can be total dipshits: Ten women released an open letter on Wednesday accusing Northwestern University Professor Alec Klein of persistent sexual harassment and bullying since he has been at the helm of the school’s “crown jewel” investigative journalism program. Calling it the storied journalism school’s “#MeToo Moment,” the eight former students and two former staffers of the Medill Justice Project wrote that Klein’s “controlling, discriminatory, emotionally and verbally abusive behavior has to end.” Klein, who has been at Northwestern for a decade and in charge of the Justice … Continue reading Parsing the Medill #MeToo Debacle

Current Affairs, Doc, Immoral Values, Law/Justice, Uncategorized3 Comments

The law and justice in the life of a parent in the Larry Nassar case

docphd

On occasion, the law doesn’t do what we want it to do. It’s a byproduct of our attempt to remain civilized in the face of uncivilized behavior. It’s a byproduct of being “the more powerful force” or “the better person” when we are forced to confront something truly horrific. Without this level of decorum and rule of law, we would be no better than animals and tyrants, we are told. And all of those things are right. All of those things are true. We can’t just attack people for what we perceive to be inappropriate or illegal actions that wrong … Continue reading The law and justice in the life of a parent in the Larry Nassar case

Big Damn Heroes, Current Affairs, Doc, Of Interest, Sports, Uncategorized2 Comments

Thome, my homie

docphd

Jim Thome made the Hall of Fame this week in the same way he began his career: As an afterthought. Baseball pundits flocked to Larry “Chipper” Jones, writing stories about him “headlining” this class of inductees. Or, as one writer noted about him, he “feels” like a Hall of Famer. Vladimir Guerrero had more votes, so he deserved more attention. Edgar Martinez didn’t get ENOUGH votes, so people were talking about him as well. Oh, and let’s not forget talking about the steroid guys who we are somehow either too soft or too hard on. Thome? Mmph. OK. For all … Continue reading Thome, my homie

Bigotry, Current Affairs, Doc, Education, Immoral Values, Uncategorized4 Comments

There are always people like this.

docphd

Somehow, she thought this was OK. Something, somewhere in her life convinced Harley Barber that it was OK to open her mouth and pour forth a river of vile, putrid, ignorant racism. Somehow, she figured she’d get away with it. Maybe it was her “finsta” profile, a fake Instagram account that she erroneously thought would provide her with the anonymity to act with impunity. Maybe it was alcohol or the invincibility that comes with youth that told her nothing bad would happen because nobody knew her or nobody took this stuff seriously. Maybe it was a life of privilege or … Continue reading There are always people like this.

Books, Current Affairs, Doc, Political Crack, Uncategorized3 Comments

A rep makes it hard to Wolff down this book

docphd

As much as I want to, I really don’t believe what Michael Wolff has written about President Donald Trump in the book “Fire and Fury.” The excerpt that has made its way around the internet is full of the kinds of things I traditionally believe about our president (or as one person referred to him “Dolt 45,” a term I’m planning to steal.) Examples include: Trump never really thought he would be president and now that he is, he has no idea on how to handle things. He has the temperament of a toddler and he is among other things, … Continue reading A rep makes it hard to Wolff down this book

Comedy, Current Affairs, Diary, Doc, Faith, LOL, On Wisconsin, Uncategorized3 Comments

If Jesus had been born in Wisconsin…

docphd

On this hallowed Christmas Eve, everyone in my house is pretty much asleep or trying to pretend to be in hopes of getting out of work in preparation for the Wigilla celebration tonight. As my wife and I kind of muttered our way awake, we ended up on a riff about traditions and food and Wisconsin and suddenly, we were into “What if Jesus were born here?” I did my best to document the answers (and augment with a few additional thoughts), so enjoy regardless of your faith, creed or lack thereof: If Jesus had been born in Wisconsin: He … Continue reading If Jesus had been born in Wisconsin…

Current Affairs, Diary, Doc, Education, Kids Today, On Wisconsin, Uncategorized1 Comment

Graduation Day

docphd

“Scars are souvenirs you never lose. The past is never far.” – Goo Goo Dolls, “Name” “My parents’ basement.” Those three words kept coming up this week as I met with student after student who planned to graduate Saturday. The phrase has become a metaphor that indicates success or failure, with fear driving 20-somethings desperately away from it. Am I going to find a job or will I have to live there? Will this job pay me enough or will I have to stay there? My dad keeps telling me I can’t move back in there, so I need to … Continue reading Graduation Day

Current Affairs, Doc, Fog Of History, Immoral Values, Law/Justice, Stupid Everything Tricks, Uncategorized2 Comments

We have no good way to talk about this and we never have

docphd

We have no good way to talk about this and we never have. As a good friend and feminist scholar told me when the Weinstein scandal broke, “This isn’t about sex. It’s about power. That’s why we can’t talk about it.” And yet it is the sex that draws the attention as we discuss the imbalance of power, so the two remain inextricably linked, creating problems as we continue to have these revelations of misconduct come to light. The latest name added to the list of groping, rubbing, jerking, fondling, grabbing and forcing is Sen. Al Franken. Leeann Tweeden came … Continue reading We have no good way to talk about this and we never have

Current Affairs, Doc, Elections, Political Crack, Stupid Republican Tricks, Uncategorized5 Comments

The Roy Moore Scandal: Just “unusual” love in Darwin’s Waiting Room

docphd

I often joke about my “First Rule of Holes” which is simply this: When you find yourself in one, stop digging. Apparently, no one ever told people in the Alabama state hierarchy that rule, given that Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler came to Roy Moore’s defense with an inspirational tale from the Bible: “Take the Bible. Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist,” Ziegler said choosing his words carefully before invoking Christ. “Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult … Continue reading The Roy Moore Scandal: Just “unusual” love in Darwin’s Waiting Room

Big Damn Heroes, Current Affairs, Diary, Doc, Education, Faith, Kids Today, Of Interest, Uncategorized1 Comment

My Hill

docphd

The plane touched down at O’Hare early Sunday morning, jolting me awake. I looked around to see other passengers in varying states of awareness. I flipped my phone off airplane mode and noticed I had no messages. I checked my email quickly. Same thing. Everything was quiet. What a difference two years makes. The last time I touched down on the first leg of a trip back from a college media convention in this metropolis, my life had gone from bad to worse. I had just traded some labor for airfare and a room so I could head to Austin, … Continue reading My Hill

Current Affairs, Diary, Doc, Uncategorized

A Slice of Time

docphd

  It was a fortuitous tweak of timing that landed us at Francisco’s restaurant Saturday night: A baseball card show that had me in Milwaukee. A phone call my mom got from an old friend. Another restaurant with a wait time that we all knew my father wouldn’t tolerate. The place had changed names over the years, but for us it would always be Francisco’s. And this might have been the last night we ever got to see it. Mom and Dad used to go there when they were first dating in the 1960s. It was about the width of … Continue reading A Slice of Time

Current Affairs, Do Something, Doc, Guns, Terrorism, Uncategorized2 Comments

What’s in a name and how many lives is it worth?

docphd

When we discuss the idea of “fame” as a newsvalue in my journalism classes, I make a point that famous people can actually be infamous. “How many of you have heard the name Jeffrey Dahmer?” I ask. Every hand goes up, even though he committed his crimes and died in prison before most of them were born. Dahmer is a name that remains as prominent now as it was in the early 1990s. A mass murder with an eating disorder, a TV show once quipped. I thought about the man, the name and the crime this week when I heard … Continue reading What’s in a name and how many lives is it worth?

Current Affairs, Diary, Doc, Education, Uncategorized

How trying to make free speech free can really not do that

docphd

The state of Wisconsin is in the process of considering a bill that would allow for higher levels of punishment against UW folk who “disrupt” the free speech of others. On its face, the idea seems good: Everyone has a right to speak, so let’s make sure that we let all voices be heard. Naturally, that’s not the point of this, as previous writers have pointed out. Republicans who supported this bill (all but one of them voted for it; naturally all the Democrats opposed it) believe college campuses are filled with weed-smoking hippies who hate anyone conservative enough to … Continue reading How trying to make free speech free can really not do that

Current Affairs, Diary, Do Something, Doc, Faith, Uncategorized

Memento Mori

docphd

I was sitting in my basement early this week, sorting through the dozens of things I had to do when my wife came down to add one more: “Do you have anything you’re doing this weekend?” she asked. I tried not to flinch as I tried to answer in a vague way that would allow me somehow get out of whatever she was about to ask me to build, fix, move or buy while still not admitting I wanted a free weekend. “I’m not sure right now. Why?” “There’s that benefit at the park for Jacob…” Jacob is a 9-year-old … Continue reading Memento Mori

Current Affairs, Diary, Doc, Sports, Uncategorized5 Comments

My Tribe: 22 and counting

docphd

I didn’t know they sucked so bad when I fell in love with them. Given my life-long love of the underdog, I might have picked the Cleveland Indians as my team anyway. I was about 10 or 11 years old, I think, when my dad bought into a season-ticket package with a bunch of guys who had four front-row seats at Milwaukee’s old County Stadium. The seats were along the tarp, between third base and the outfield wall, giving us the visitor’s view of the field. When you’re a kid, you have certain magical ideas about what can happen when … Continue reading My Tribe: 22 and counting

Current Affairs, Doc, Economy, Education, Of Interest, On Wisconsin, Stupid Republican Tricks, Uncategorized2 Comments

An open letter to the Wisconsin JFC in support of counting professors’ hours and trimming waste

docphd

Dear Sen. Darling, Rep. Nygren and other members of the Joint Finance Committee, News reports have indicated that your group has included in its most recent version of the state budget some “controversial language” that would “require the University of Wisconsin System to monitor the teaching workload of every professor and adjunct instructor on campuses.” As a faculty member of one of these institutions, I can assure you that this is definitely an important measure and a valuable first step in eliminating governmental waste and employee sloth. As many of you know, having received degrees from some of these state … Continue reading An open letter to the Wisconsin JFC in support of counting professors’ hours and trimming waste

Big Damn Heroes, Congress, Current Affairs, Do Something, Doc, Hurricane Harvey, Nature is Scary, Uncategorized5 Comments

When people are devastated, we shouldn’t care if Ted Cruz was an asshole

docphd

As the stories of neighbors helping neighbors begin to recede like Harvey’s floodwaters, the rush of stories on which politician is being an asshole is heading full steam toward us. Most of the stories are about the downside of humanity, in which people find ways to remind us that basic, common human decency isn’t common or basic for some people. While some reporters are trying to help people figure out where damage is or where their loved ones are, you have this asshole tweeting a fake shark photo and this ABC reporter ratting out “looters” to the cops and bragging … Continue reading When people are devastated, we shouldn’t care if Ted Cruz was an asshole

Current Affairs, Do Something, Doc, Faith, Sports, Uncategorized

One more wedge play for Jerry Kramer

docphd

He had been screamed at by a relentless tyrant in front of his peers. All it did was make his mistakes multiply in hot August sun that burned brightly above the training camp field. The NFL was not a place for the weak back then, and coaches were gods among men, the deities who controlled the future of these mortals. This man in particular, Vince Lombardi, had gained near mythic status as he used a domineering style to reshape the failing Green Bay Packers into a winning machine. The player had jumped off sides during one drill and missed a … Continue reading One more wedge play for Jerry Kramer

Current Affairs, Do Something, Doc, Immoral Values, Political Crack, Stupid Republican Tricks, The Darnold, Uncategorized3 Comments

Fuck You Nation: “No, NEVER!” edition

docphd

  (NO NEVER! Hardly ever? FUCK YOU!) I coined the term “Fuck You Nation” a few years back in looking at how people treat one another in the age of Donald Trump. So many people are less about being able to formulate something they favor, but they’re very clear about the “hey, fuck you” mentality they possess. In other words, people were less “pro” something and more “fuck you” toward people they saw as “the opposition.” At the core of the argument was a general sense of self-righteousness, absolute certainty and an overwhelming sense of anger and bile. This week, … Continue reading Fuck You Nation: “No, NEVER!” edition

Current Affairs, Diary, Doc, Education, Uncategorized

Only the kids have aged…

docphd

I spent the past week at our annual journalism conference, taking the chance to eat a lot of good food on my publisher’s dime and catching up with old friends. The funny thing? None of us seemed to age a bit. I caught up with what was left of my doctoral cohort. Tracy, Andrea and I were among 17  Ph.D.-hopefuls who spent a chunk of our lives in a basement office loving dubbed “The Pit.” The place was so subterranean that you had to climb on somebody’s desk to open a grass-level window. The joke always was that they put … Continue reading Only the kids have aged…

Current Affairs, Diary, Doc, Kids Today, Uncategorized5 Comments

I got defriended by a “nice young lady in a blue shirt.”

docphd

The buzz about Stephen Miller’s “cosmopolitan” comment to Jim Acosta had me thinking about the reason he can actually get away with something like that. It’s the same reason why Gov. Scott Walker gets away with ripping the University System and it’s the same reason I usually tell people I “work at the U” in hopes that they think I’m a janitor. We have far too many people who get excised about perceived slights and publicly draw attention to things that so many others would just look at and say, “Really?” This week, I was trying to dodge summer grading … Continue reading I got defriended by a “nice young lady in a blue shirt.”

Current Affairs, Diary, Doc, Kids Today, Uncategorized

An Eagle’s Eye View on Trump and the Jamboree

docphd

The media firestorm over Donald Trump’s address to the National Boy Scout Jamboree had me digging deep into the back of both my mind and my storage closet this week. In 1989, I was one of 32,717 scouts who poured into Ft. A.P. Hill, Virginia for a week of camping and camaraderie. I was the only representative from my school, which meant I was stuck with another troop from Wisconsin for the duration of the event. I was one of four outsiders who didn’t come from this Evangelical school of overly sensitive kids two or three years my junior. Three … Continue reading An Eagle’s Eye View on Trump and the Jamboree

Current Affairs, Doc, Law/Justice, Sports, Uncategorized

No, OJ, No…

docphd

I remember exactly where I was on Oct. 3, 1995 when the jury found O.J. Simpson not guilty of the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. A bunch of J-majors were stuffed into the broadcast lab, which was the only place that had a TV with cable in those pre-real-Internet days of news. Back then, we all wanted to know, RIGHT NOW, what was going to happen with this guy. The verdict was stunning but, for us, not in the way you saw portrayed in retro shows where people were screaming and fighting and … Continue reading No, OJ, No…

Big Damn Heroes, Current Affairs, Diary, Doc, Sports, Uncategorized2 Comments

“I had to eat.”

docphd

Three elderly men sat at an 8-foot plastic table outside the ballroom of the Red Carpet bowling center in Milwaukee. Among them, they possessed five NFL championships, three NBA titles, one World Series ring and the most famous home run ever hit in the annals of baseball. It was the summer of 1987, still the height of the nation’s sports card craze. The card show was packed with people just inside the door behind this makeshift shrine to sports immortality. As was the case during that era, older athletes who lived near these shows would gladly pocket a few hundred … Continue reading “I had to eat.”

Current Affairs, Diary, Do Something, Doc, Education, Uncategorized5 Comments

It’s Blog, It’s Blog! Help me not to suck…

docphd

I’m asking for help from the hivemind, given the wide array of experience you have in writing for blogs, reading blogs and probably eviscerating shitty blogs. I was on the phone with my publisher the other day when she made an obvious statement that had previously had no answer other than, “No shit.” “The problem most of your reviewers had was that by the time the book comes out, the examples you list for the students are dated,” she noted. “That’s a problem with this book that we need to address…” My answer was the more professional version of “No … Continue reading It’s Blog, It’s Blog! Help me not to suck…

Congress, Current Affairs, Do Something, Doc, Immoral Values, Of Interest, Uncategorized

A Deaf Frog

docphd

One of the best jokes about jumping to the wrong conclusion is that of the scientist and the frog. The scientist tells the frog to jump and the frog does so. The scientist then cuts off one of the frog’s legs and repeats the command. The frog continues to jump until the scientist has removed all four legs, at which point, the frog remains still. The scientist then makes this entry in his notes: “After removing all four legs, frog goes deaf.” An equally disgusting and yet not nearly as funny series of answers emerged this week in regard to … Continue reading A Deaf Frog

Big Damn Heroes, Current Affairs, Diary, Doc, Faith, Of Interest, Uncategorized2 Comments

A Golden Anniversary Explained

docphd

Fifty years ago tomorrow, two scared 20-somethings gathered with family and friends in a cathedral-esque church on the south side of Milwaukee to pledge their lives to one another. Her father thought the man wasn’t good enough for his daughter. His father thought the woman was far too strident and interested in a career to be a good wife. Nobody, least of all these two kids, knew if they’d make it, if they’d be OK. Still, there they were in front of a three story slab of pink and white marble with a giant crucifix, saying they would live together … Continue reading A Golden Anniversary Explained