I look at this:
And this:
And ask myself…
Where is Holbein’s portrait of this extraordinary figure?
I mean…he’s even got a proper ruff!
I was going to write something about the latest in right wing ideology-laundering scam, the Bari Weiss-touted, usual-suspects-promoted University (sic) of Austin. But I’ve tweeted out plenty of snark on that one already, and I can’t bear dwelling on that craptastic paean to an academy safe for straight white men any more.
(I will note that the defenders of the idea seem to me to resemble Aaron Rodgers, not to his undoubted accomplishments on the field, but in his reflex to proclaim his independence by blaming mythical and anonymous lefty hordes for his fuck ups and ethical lapses.)
Better cats than time wasted on such folly.
Here’s a bonus feline moment:
This thread could not be more open.
Benw
So the point of this post is that you’re going to get a big dolla-sign bling collar for Tikka?
Baud
I am unaware of the latest scam but I like it that way.
sab
Champ looks utterly shameless and wanton. How dare you photograph her/him in mid-nap.
Tom Levenson
@sab: She is indeed shameless. Wanton? Post-op, not really.
She is she-who-must-be-obeyed.
But you knew that.
Tom Levenson
@Benw: Ermine.
But not real ermine. That’s cruel.
Omnes Omnibus
So I have decided that I do not plan to take part in any of the fights over what’s in BBB and whether or not it will pass for the next couple of weeks. We actually know fuck all and will just be projecting our hopes and fears. In other words, it will be useless, frustrating wankery.
geg6
These people realize that they have to be accredited, right? You can’t just say, hey! I’m going to start a university and then you can wallow in all that sweet, sweet Title IV and/or VA funding. And they do get that any degree they confer has to have value and it has none unless they accredited, don’t they. They get all this, right?
Burnspbesq
“If it’s good enough for Elon Musk and Joe Rogan, it’s good enough for us” is why these jackalopes have chosen to desecrate dozens of acres in our fair city?
OH. MY. GOD.
I guess UT doesn’t have a monopoly on hubris around here.
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/11/08/university-austin-launches-without-accreditation-physical-campus/6340353001/
Salty Sam
I just heard about “The University of Austin” today. As I’m living back in Austin now, I think I’ll go check out the campus, maybe pledge to a frat- I’ll bet the keggers will be epic!
Suzanne
I want a KIDS GOT THE SHOT thread — just got back from getting Spawn her shot! — and I want a Tikka sticker. He’s lovely.
germy
Cats of Yore is a great place to see history.
https://twitter.com/CatsOfYore
germy
Scout211
@Suzanne:
Congrats! It’s still up on the sidebar under do something.
gvg
I tried googling renaissance paintings of cats and got sidetracked by this non ren painting My Wife’s Lovers by Carl Kahler. 42 cats owned by a rich woman in the 1800. Her husband is said to have named the painting.
The first hit was 2 cats hiding under the table at the last supper by Alessandro Allori.
Apparently abstract artists did some cats. Not to my taste hobestly.
SiubhanDuinne
Tikka is supercilious.
Champ is super-silly.
Burnspbesq
@geg6:
I’m sure we’re about to hear how the very idea of accreditation is intellectually and morally bankrupt, and they are fully capable of deciding for themselves the standards to which they will adhere.
Kanelos’ involvement appears to be a tell.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/bari-weiss-university-of-austin-nothing-new.html
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus:
So a series of days ending in -y.
Suzanne
@Scout211: But I am specifically requesting that someone makes a sticker of THAT Tikka photo. He reminds me of my dearly departed Scout.
germy
dmsilev
@geg6:
They, or at least some of them, know that, but are relying on the fact that their marks don’t. See: University, Trump.
Scout211
I read about that new “university.” A for-profit university that has no degrees is really what we all need right now. ?
Major Major Major Major
As long as we’re sharing cat pics.
dmsilev
@Burnspbesq: The number of red flags in that story, it’s like a Moscow May Day parade:
debbie
Betty C’s post about red states’ COVID-19 death rates being three times higher than blue states would make even Thomas Cromwell crack a smile.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Nominated.
Scout211
@Suzanne:
Isn’t Maze Dancer the maker of the stickers? Maybe email WaterGirl for the request?
Our dearly departed Scout was a sweet, sweet black lab. My nym is for her.
debbie
@geg6:
They’re too exceptional to need any damn accreditation.
Roger Moore
You seem to be missing image credits for the paintings.
eclare
@Omnes Omnibus: Same here. I am also avoiding shows like Morning Joe, which I sometimes watch depending on the guests.
As I said before, I trust that Nancy, Chuck, and Joe will do their best. Not much more I can do, my rep will vote for whatever Nancy proposes, and no amount of calls will move my two senators.
tom
Regarding the University [sic] of Austin, I thought Hillsdale College had that market cornered, but evidently not.
Gravenstone
@Roger Moore: Perhaps it’s just me, but the topmost image looks passably like Putin.
Sister Golden Bear
GQP going full-on Radio Ruwanda now.
Paul Gosar Tweets Anime Video Of Himself Killing AOC
and
NC Lt Gov: Conservatives Must Get “Warlike” Because Your Enemies Are Ready To “Cut Your Throats”
More projection than a multiplex IMAX theater.
eclare
@Burnspbesq: Sounds like Trump U writ large (everything is bigger in TX, I guess).
Burnspbesq
@dmsilev:
This is Texas; you can’t treat athletics as “extraneous.” At a minimum, UA will have to have a bad Division 3 football team that will be trampled by the likes of Mary Hardin Baylor and Sul Ross State.
dmsilev
@debbie: Maybe, like Rand Paul, they could set up their own accreditation agency.
Baud
@Sister Golden Bear:
But don’t call them deplorable.
debbie
@Sister Golden Bear:
I hope AOC responds and gets him censured. Asshole.
Burnspbesq
@tom:
There will always be those who aren’t up for Michigan winters.
eclare
@Salty Sam: You can stand around the keg, discuss Ayn Rand, and wistfully dream of destroying Medicare/Medicaid. Just like Paul Ryan did in college.
Like normal college guys do.
Almost Retired
On the other hand, many of those whose portraits were painted by Holbein were ultimately beheaded. I think the cats would have sensed that, and refused to pose.
ETA: Seeing the Holbein exhibit at the Getty this weekend.
Gravenstone
@tom: I’m always reminded that my last HS English teacher was a newly minted Hillsdale College grad when she started at our school. I don’t think they had gone fully wingnut 40 years ago.
Joe Falco
So I follow a YouTube series, Tasting History by Max Miller. I watched his most recent video on making parkin from a 1915 recipe. Parkin is an English gingerbread treat traditionally made for Bonfire Night (Nov 5), but I made mine today because I could not find the necessary ingredients in time (I found a store in Norcross, GA that sells imported British items). Parkin is supposed to sit for a few days to achieve the stickiness it’s meant to be. We will see how it turns out then!
Link to video: https://youtu.be/oQVCBWZSdnY
Baud
@dmsilev:
If history is any guide, many students will be kicked out for having views that are heretical to conservatives.
Gravenstone
@debbie: Fuck censure. A straight up death threat is grounds for expulsion, accompanied with a criminal complaint.
West of the Rockies
Yes, indeed, Paul Gosar Tweeted an anime clip of him killing AOC.
I’d love to see the news story that begins, “Sad news out of Arizona where Covid 19 has contracted Paul Gosar…”
Omnes Omnibus
@eclare: Miami Delts could not have been the prestige house on campus.
Kay
@Burnspbesq:
The test will be whether any of their own children go there, or whether this is just for the too-woke masses. It’s a fair test.
eclare
@tom: Hillsdale has a degree in accounting under social sciences????
Baud
@Kay:
Their kids go to the Ivies.
tom
@Gravenstone:
A good friend of mine went to Hillsdale years ago, and she, and many of her classmates, are appalled at what it has become.
Kay
@Baud:
Their arrogance about public schools is offensive. It’s hard to run a solid public school. There’s a lot of competing interests and a LOT that is out of the control of the school. It’s fun for substack essayists to cherrypick things that make all the people who do that work look stupid, like they’re idiots, but it’s mean spirited and unfair. The worst part about the internet is how everyone believes they can not only easily do someone else’s job, but do it better.
Bari Weiss can go try to run a high poverty public school district. Try it during two years of an unprecedented worldwide pandemic where you’re responsible for not only students, but whether your decisions infect their entire family, and get back to me.
They don’t respect the work that other people do. That’s what “experience” is- it’s the work people did. She doesn’t have any.
tom
@eclare:
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: Ask and you shall receive.
Baud
@Kay:
They know if they can tear things down, it will take a long time to build them up again.
TxTiger
I wonder if they will teach critical race theory in that case? It’s forbidden here in Texas.
zhena gogolia
@TxTiger: It’s so infuriating!
Cameron
@Omnes Omnibus: Beware, all ye who wank, for ye shall have wanked in vain.
Kay
@TxTiger:
They don’t mention the state speech bans, so not so open after all. That’s apparently forbidden. Probably donor influence.
Keith P.
@Salty Sam: Just make sure you go to Austin and not Boston. Crazy shit happens when you do that.
HypersphericalCow
This thread is as open as that cat’s belly.
persistentillusion
@tom: One of my best friends growing up audited a class at Hillsdale for yuks and succeeded in scandalizing real students by wearing a Mr Pib watch.
Tiny-brained little fundies all, she reported.
Yet Another Haldane
Words to live by, and applicable across many follies.
Montanareddog
@Cameron:
Speaking of which, I saw tonight that Jeffrey Toobin has returned as on-air “talent” on CNN. We watched carefully and, fortunately, he kept both hands in shot during his segment.
trollhattan
@Sister Golden Bear:
Wait, what?
A seated congressman published a simulation of himself killing another seated congressman? Are there no rules about this sort of thing? N.B. I am not asking if he’s ashamed of himself. We all know the answer.
Adam L Silverman
@Kay: None of the professors with tenure at accredited universities involved with this scam have resigned their positions at those accredited universities. That tells you everything you need to know.
Adam L Silverman
@trollhattan: And attacking the President.
Tom Levenson
@Adam L Silverman: But, but, but Jonathan Haidt said he wished his kids could go there!
Wank.
Wanker.
Wankest!
NotMax
Just for general informational purposes, The Most Exclusive US College that You’ve Probably Never Heard Of.
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: You’re no fun.
Cheers,
Scott.
Dan B
@trollhattan: And the video ends with his flying at Biden while flashing two swords. Dude needs a Secret Service visit. And a trip with them in a vehicle with bars.
Tom Levenson
@NotMax: Deep Springs is an amazing place. I’ve got a couple of friends who went there.
My son laughed at me when I suggested he look into it.
But yeah: intensive great-books-and-experiental learning is not a new idea.
The U of Austin folks are asshole bozos. Or bozo assholes.
Kay
@Adam L Silverman:
He does not agree with their big grandiose statement and reason for existing.
What AMAZING arrogance. A blanket statement that tens of thousands of people are “no longer seeking the truth”
Who raises these fucking people, to be like this?
tom
@Kay: Ah, yes, Gordon “Golly” Gee, former president of THE Ohio State University, who said after yet another football scandal, “I’m just hoping the coach [Jim Tressel] doesn’t dismiss me”.
Adam L Silverman
@Kay: I’m pretty sure they’re grown in labs and decanted.
Bari Weiss is a severely narcissistic sociopath. The others are all as bad as their reputations indicate.
I walked away from academia for a number of reasons. I felt like I could never do enough for the students that really need my help and I could never make more time because of the students that didn’t, but were coasting. I also refused to go along with my over controlling department chair’s pay for play masters degree scheme and his orders to fix students’ grades, including student athletes. His racism, anti-Semitism despite being Jewish, Islamophobia, and xenophobia were also contributing factors. But the reality is that universities aren’t indoctrination centers and the only faculty I knew who were intolerant of either students’ views, their colleagues, or both were either politically, socially, and/or religiously conservatives.
The real problem in student-faculty interaction when it happens, which is often the same real problem in faculty interaction with people that aren’t faculty members themselves, is that the faculty spend all their time with students. Students who aren’t fully formed adults, who aren’t fully formed researchers or scholars, or fully formed anything else. And when you do that, at the end of each day, it is easy to come away with delusions of intellectual superiority. The best faculty don’t succumb to this. The worst always do. You’ll notice that Bari Weiss, Niall Ferguson, and the others involved with Weiss’s new scam all have demonstrated this problem repeatedly.
Another Scott
@Kay:
Cheers,
Scott.
Shana
@persistentillusion: OK, you’re going to have to explain the Mr. Pibb thing. I’m completely at sea about it.
Ol'Froth
I graduated from the same high school Bari Weiss did. I wish they’d rescind her diploma.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Roger Moore: They are both by Hans Holbein, which I think Tom referred to (as Holbien lacking a painting of a cat). The first one is Thomas Cromwell, the second is Thomas More.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Almost Retired:Oooh, I hadn’t heard about that. We’re going down to LA for Thanksgiving with family. Maybe I can sneak out and see it!