Of Mansions and Marriages

When it comes to finance, I could hardly be called an expert; my financial acumen is roughly the equivalent of Homer Simpson’s. But I came across some rather interesting articles in Slate that some numbers people might find interesting.

In his article entitled Haunted Mansion, Daniel Gross reports that according to a working paper titled “Where are the Shareholders’ Mansions?” David Yermack of New York University and Crocker Liu of Arizona State argue that the bigger the CEO’s mansion, the worse their companies’ stocks perform.

Gross writes:

Yermack and Liu insist there’s a solid academic reason to look through the keyholes. They want to figure out if a mansion purchase signals commitment or cashing out. A CEO who buys a 12,000-square-foot mansion could be showing his intent to stay for the long haul and to bust his butt so that he’ll have the cash to pay off the huge mortgage. In which case, you’d expect stocks of the companies where the CEO just bought an obscenely large house to thrive. Buy!

Or the purchase of an absurdly large house could signal entrenchment: The CEO is too comfortable with his position and his personal finances. He has made so much money that he can’t really be bothered with running the company. And the willingness to spend gazillions on a house—not to mention the furnishings, artwork, and baubles to fill it—betokens a general inattentiveness to costs. In which case, you’d expect stocks of the companies where the CEO just bought an obscenely large house to fare poorly. Sell!

Then, there’s the relatively obscure William McAdoo, the man that Daniel Gross (again!) terms as The Unknown Financial Superhero. The most interesting part of this article deals with the convergence of skill, determination, and, for the lack of a better word, luck, which allowed McAdoo to well, do what he did:

Why did McAdoo triumph? Silber argues that it’s because the former railroad executive, who had no formal economics education, thought like a businessman. He acted quickly and decisively, and focused on an exit strategy. Of course, McAdoo could not have succeeded without the support of President Woodrow Wilson, who happened to be his father-in-law. In March 1914, McAdoo had made one of the smartest career moves any executive can make: He got engaged to the boss’s daughter.

Picture of Homer Simpson comes courtesy of Zapin.info.

Acquired Tastes: The Way Of The John-D

I will never truly go on the record as being a child of the ’80s and ’90s, but I will go as far as expressing a more than academic interest in the popular culture commonly associated with that time frame. Following that vein, is there anyone who represents the ’80s and ’90s as completely as Patrick Swayze? Swayze either starred in, or played a pivotal role onscreen for the following movies: Youngblood, Dirty Dancing, Road House, and Ghost. Doesn’t anyone find it even remotely interesting that Swayze, following an improbably glorious run of finding work in the aforementioned popular cult classics, simply vanished off the face of the planet after 1991?

Patrick Swayze is an interesting enough pop culture phenomenon to at least nudge the A.V. Club to begin an autopsy, er, inquiry into, if not his whereabouts, then his influence on the generation he meant the most to.

Noel Murray writes:

For a good long stretch in the late ’80s and early ’90s, Patrick Swayze was the go-to guy for Hollywood casting agents looking for a rugged action hero with heart and soul—deep, but not too deep. Whole websites and mini-cults have sprung up around Swayze’s Road House character, a philosophy major with a Zen-like understanding of when to fight and when to “be nice.” But Road House is just one tile in Swayze’s mosaic of manhood. Below are some key quotes that outline how anyone can become the dancin’-est, truckin’-est, surfin’-est tough guy on the block. How to be, in essence, “The Swayze.”

If only there was a need for the emergence of a thoughtful, mildly amusing, endearing, philosophically-inclined, but fundamentally happy teacher with abs that were used in the Spartan movie, 300, and the widest repertoire of cheesy power ballads from the ’80s, ’90s, and beyond: to wit, “The John-D”. Now wouldn’t that be an improvement on “The Swayze”? I’m thinking of turning off the comments for this particular post, by my faith in humanity prevents me from doing so. Any thoughts?

Picture of Patrick Swayze from Point Break comes courtesy of A.V. Club

Picture of Yours Truly need not be credited, because The John-D need only answer to himself.

Acquired Tastes: The Onion Dispatch

I have to admit. This made me laugh out loud.

 

Heroic Secret Service Agent Takes Question Intended For Bush

WASHINGTON, DC—Agent Anthony Panucci dives in between the president and a hostile reporter.

The blurb, which is complemented by that fantastic picture you see to your right, is classic The Onion. And in that vein, it gets better, almost as if this were some throwback article from the early 21st century:

WASHINGTON, DC—White House Secret Service Agent Anthony Panucci is being called a hero after intercepting what could have been a critically damaging question aimed directly at President Bush during a press conference in the Rose Garden Tuesday.

According to eyewitnesses, the press conference began with Bush fielding routine questions about March Madness and the dedication of a World War II memorial near his home in Crawford, TX. However, approximately seven minutes into the event, a lone reporter somehow managed to maneuver to the front of the press corps group and fire off a loaded, highly charged question concerning Bush’s role in the controversial dismissal of eight federal attorneys last year.

“I just followed my training and did what I was supposed to do—put myself between the president and irreparable harm,” said Panucci, who is credited with safely deflecting the attack away from Bush, as well as acting before the reporter had a chance to get off a follow-up question at close range.”

Enjoy the rest of the article by clicking at the beginning of this entry, and while you’re at it, have fun sending the entire article to friends in the States. Hey, there’s got to be some drawbacks to being in one of the richest, most powerful nations in the world, right? Peace!

Picture comes courtesy of America’s Finest News Source.

Of Lies and Men (Writing Them, That Is)

I’m still checking papers, and while the general quality of the papers have not really improved, at least I haven’t caught anyone trying to pass off other people’s ideas as their own. Fellow blogger and academic Brian Belen already discussed plagiarism in the context of the new technologies we use to communicate with other people, and it’s worth checking out, if only to click on that link to myself. Ah, vanity! I admit…I have yet to escape your rich, rose scented clutches. At any rate, Brian’s observations on academic dishonest are worth revisiting:

Anyone who knows me is well aware that I take a very hard line about plagiarism. If memory serves, in the two years I spent teaching at the University of Asia and the Pacific I caught upwards of twenty cases of plagiarism among my students. Within an academic environment, plagiarism strikes me as a cop-out for laziness rooted in poor values, undoubtedly performed with malice. It doesn’t take that much effort to cite a source, and plagiarism belies an intention to deceive, where “submission for submission’s sake” or “the need to make the grade” become more important than the learning that underlie such requirements. This is the same point I would try to get across to my students: Have some self-respect. Take pride in your work. And exert the effort to give credit where credit is due.

Brian’s remarks on the roots of plagiarism are worth considering to round out Slate’s discussion of media ethics in reportage. This article resonated with me not only because of the all-too-real spectre of dishonesty, or the gross disrespect shown one of my favorite essayists, Anne Fadiman, but for the remarkably rational and thoughtful way in which Slate editor Jack Shafer concludes:

Randall’s wartime lies remind journalists that if a source’s story is too good to be true, it probably isn’t. The Sedaris inquiry instructs readers not to become too invested in a personal history that seems too funny, too sad, or too true. And the Schott affair suggests ever so gently that sometimes memory is a liar.

The lesson here, as always, is that honesty is truly the best policy. In the end, the truth will set you free.

I better rest before getting back to checking papers though. The fact that I rattled off two successive clichés doesn’t bode well for the quality of my checking.

Picture comes courtesy of Glatt Plagiarism Services, Inc..

Acquired Tastes: Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere

My mother-in-law has an absolute passion for literature and learning, which is why I wasn’t even mildly surprised when I spied, next to her copy of Elie Wiesel’s Messengers of God, the graphic adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, a distinct combination of eclectic intelligentsia that merely confirms that Mama Dodie is a nerd of the highest order. Still, I borrowed her copy of Mike Carey’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s first full length novel with trepidation. Given my critical misgivings (and wholehearted, gleeful appreciation) of the cinematic adaptation of Frank Miller’s 300, I understood all too clearly the dangers of adaptation.

Fortunately, we’re in good hands with Mike Carey. In his introduction to Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere (a clunky title which is probably a source of profound embarrassment to Mr. Gaiman), Carey writes:

I was asked in an interview recently what I thought of the Constantine movie, and I said that it was very enjoyable as long as you didn’t go into it expecting “the film of the book.” What that glib comment conceals is the extent–the enormous extent–to which any adaptation splits itself off from its source and becomes its own journey: its own answer to a set of questions that only formulate themselves as you set to work. Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner, Brecht and Weil’s Threepenny Opera, the stage versions of The Producers and His Dark Materials, they’re all straight jazz riffs on their wonderful originals rather than straight translations. Because straight translation from one medium to another is both impossible and undesirable.

It is this understanding of the problems involved in adaptation, as well as the gorgeous art by Glenn Fabry, that probably accounts for my enjoyment of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. I heartily recommend it, even if you aren’t slogging through less than triumphant adaptations of scholastic thought that my students have been submitting lately. It’s one way to get through the painstaking task of walking the fine line between constructive criticism and the utter annihilation that shoddy academic work deserves.

Oh well. One has to be several kinds of madman to even want to teach, really. To borrow liberally from Mr. Gaiman’s insight into the character of Emperor Joshua Norton in “Three Septembers and a January”, my madness keeps me sane.

Picture of Neverwhere comes courtesy of Amazon.

Acquired Tastes: Tolkien and Herbert

Just as soon as I was ready to return to the daunting pile of papers which currently constitute my very own Annapurna, I stumbled across the startling news that the The Children of Húrin, the posthumous Lord of the Rings novel that Christopher Tolkien spent close to three decades preparing for publication will be released worldwide on April 17, 2007. Appropriately enough, breaking news of this sort got an enthusiastic response from geek haven Fark, where in true geek fashion the responses were largely negative, if only because Tolkien has always been a sort of a rite of passage for all would-be geeks. While it would be interesting to offer a digression on the schismatic qualities of Tolkien’s work, that’s a post for another day. Instead, here’s a sample of the comments that the aforementioned news spawned:

Nerdlinger

I will never claim LOTR is great literature, but seriously, if you are in a bookstore you should pick up the Silmarillion and read a page or two. You will be willing to nominate LOTR for the Nobel Prize after you stop throwing up.

Faethe

You have to be into way sappy stuff. It’s cheese. English cheese. Stiltson. Good on everything, but way stinky.

Tolkien is like that.

Oddly enough, the writer who get the raw end of the deal for this particular post was Frank Herbert’s son, Brian. To wit:

Paulson

I hope he doesn’t follow in the footsteps of Frank Herbert’s son. The stuff he pissed out is an abomination to the Dune series and literature in general.

CowboyNinjaD

The new Dune books are pretty good if you ignore the weak writing, unlikely motivations of characters and at least a half-dozen things that contradict the first 100 pages of the original book.

But other than that, they’re awesome.

Bring on the whored-out version of LOTR.

theexistent

Brian Herbert could be forgiven his sin of being a piss-poor writer (along with Kevin J. Anderson) if he at least evidenced an understanding of his father’s Dune novels. Given that in his first prequel he conflicts with canon in the SECOND FREAKING SENTENCE it was pretty apparent he had no intention of remaining faithful to his father’s vision. It also showed up that his lame excuse of writing sequels (he found his father’s notes) was absolute BS. I hope there is an afterlife just so his father can give him an epic azz whooping for running such a beautiful universe into the sand.

Picture of The Children of Húrin comes courtesy of Amazon.

Acquired Tastes: The Onion Dispatch

I apologize for the lack of recent activity on this blog. Checking papers is an art which demands nothing less than one’s very soul, if only out of respect for the amount of work that my students put in. And still, my workload looms like Mount Parnassus itself. Sigh. At any rate, here’s a little something that tided me over when I was despairing at either my inability to teach, my students’ seeming inability to learn, and sometimes, even both:

Child-Safety Experts Call For Restrictions On Childhood Imagination

WASHINGTON, DC—"By constantly reminding kids that they’re human children with no magical skills, you ensure that they will live a prolonged life," child-safety expert Kenneth McMillan said.

Despite the fact that the article above represents the very antithesis of what I aspire to as a teacher, the following excerpts made me chuckle, just a bit:

“If your children are allowed to unlock their imaginations, anything from a backyard swing set to a child’s own bedroom can be transformed into a dangerous undersea castle or dragon’s lair,” McMillan said. “But by encouraging your kids to think linearly and literally, and constantly reminding them they can never be anything but human children with no extraordinary characteristics, you can better ensure that they will lead prolonged lives.”

As well as the dénouement:

Unfortunately, removing everything from a child’s field of view that could stimulate his active young mind is extremely time-consuming, and infeasible as a long-term solution, McMillan acknowledges. “To truly protect your children, you must go to great lengths to completely eliminate their curiosity, crush their spirit of amazement, and eradicate their childlike glee. Watch for the danger signs: faraway expressions, giggle fits, and a general air of carefree contentment.”

Added McMillan: “Remember, if you see a single sparkle of excitement in their eyes, you haven’t done enough.”

Hopefully, the rigor with which I check papers will somehow translate into helping kids rediscover a sense of wonder, that if they try hard enough, they will experience the many joys implicit in producing quality work. I know, it’s a stretch. But even we teachers can dream…