This may not seem much to you and me, but being denied a “professor emeritus” status at a university, when you taught there for many years, is a huge, a massive slap in the face for the person so denied.

And as it is with William “Weather Underground” Ayers. So denied.

Oddly enough, it is from the son of Robert Kennedy — the Kennedy clan being of historically liberal bent — where said denial sourced.

From the Chicago Tribune:

In a very unusual move, University of Illinois trustees Thursday denied giving emeritus status to controversial retired professor William Ayers.

The vote, at a U. of I. board meeting in Urbana, was unanimous and came after a passionate speech by board chair Christopher Kennedy, who invoked the 1968 assassination of his father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, in saying that he was voting his conscience.

The other trustees, without comment, also voted against the appointment.

What was it, perhaps, that seemed to convince the trustees to vote against William Ayers?

The information I shall now reveal is not revealed or directly sourced in our DEM. Christopher Kennedy, the son of Robert Kennedy, and U.I.C. board chair, wrote:

I am guided by my conscience and one which has been formed by a series of experiences,many of which have been shared with the people of our country and mark each of us in a profound way.

My own history is not a secret.

My life experiences inform my decision making as a trustee of the University.

In this case of emeritus status, I hope that I will act in a predictable fashion and that the people of Illinois and the faculty and staff of this great institution will understand my motives and my reasoning.

I intend to vote against conferring the honorific title of our University to a man whose body of work includes a book dedicated in part to the man who murdered my father, Robert F.Kennedy.

There is nothing more antithetical to the hopes for a university that is lively and yet civil, or to the hopes of our founding fathers for their great experiment of a self-governing people, than to permanently seal off debate with one’s opponents by killing them.

There can be no place in a democracy to celebrate political assassinations or to honor those who do so.

We are citizen trustees whose judgments should be predictable to the community that we serve, and I would ask anyone who challenges my judgment, “How could I do anything else?”

Seldom do I make such coarse judgments or statements, but I care to make one now because it is so astoundingly warranted:

Fuck you, William Ayers, you besotted Leftist bastard. This is your past, finally, just a tad bit, catching up to you.

Fuck you with a white-hot piece of rebar up your professorial non-emeritus ass.

BZ

P.S.
But, of course, this is only my opinion.

Why is it that everything and everyone is damaged, today?

Why is it that we make excuses for everyone or everything that is “damaged,” today?

Why is it that every situation has a -disorder attached to it?

When I grew up, as a boy in the 50s, I couldn’t pay attention for shit. I couldn’t pay attention for shit into the 60s. I couldn’t pay attention into my college days in the late 60s / early 70s. I didn’t like school; I didn’t like high school; I didn’t like college. I couldn’t sit down. I had to be up and moving and acting. Classes bored me senseless. Doing nothing for an hour ratcheted up my anxiety to the Nth degree. I had to be moving. I had to be outside.

I knew one thing: I wanted an “outside” job — as I eventually took in Law Enforcement. An “inside” job — as in an office — would have resulted in my being a mass murderer.

I was “damaged” and yet I managed to survive and, further, thrive. I started to play to my strengths. I knew that no desk job would suffice. I knew that I had to constantly change my job and that the next job had to be “outside.”

“Inside” jobs killed me. They killed me worse as I got older.

I had to work in the jail system when I first hired on to my current full-time job, in 1980. Yet, at the Branch Jail, there was an “outside.” I didn’t have to work, just yet, in enclosed rooms.

The next year, in 1981, I was transferred to the old Main Jail which was an ancient stone and cement and granite building. It was “inside.” I knew I wouldn’t be leaving this building, at the rate of transfers, for years. I worked Male Booking which was the lowest of the low: in the basement. But I could at least see, outside that sliding metal and Plexiglas door, Real Cops pull into the jail parking lot with their arrestees. I worked the worst of the worst: in the basement, in an ancient building, on the graveyard shift. But I was kept busy because Booking was insane with activity on graves.

I had to make a massive mental shift which only managed to distract me because I was constantly busy.

From there, I worked Outside Jobs for the department. Tons of them. I was happy and I thrived and received kudos and such.

When I lost my last Outside Job, at EVOC last year, I was petrified. I hadn’t worked an Inside Job in years. And my old ass was now going back to the Jail System.

Which is Inside.

I couldn’t pay attention at any number of jobs, and in my current job. That I’ve managed to achieve any level of success bespeaks my sheer knowledge of a system as opposed to my being able to function calmly and consideredly therein.

I refuse to work the “new” Main Jail. It is an ill-devised building which creates its own ill-crafted and damaged employees. My guess would be: these are deputies who crave to be “outside” but they simply cannot achieve this.

My first assignment at the Branch Jail when my EVOC job was eliminated: I got an INSIDE JOB.

I was assigned as the Supervisor to the Security side of the Branch Jail. That meant that I supervised the four highest level security portions of the entire jail, where the worst of the worst were housed. And they included not only county — but also State and Federal prisoners as well. Assholes that — I later realized — the state and federal systems didn’t want and, instead, thrust upon us because our contracts were loose and obscure.

Just last week, that has changed.

Another Sergeant came to the shift when another retired. I left “Security” and I am now responsible for another section of inmates who primarily sun themselves in the light of day.

Oh. My. God. I could not tell you what a difference this makes.

Just to see the light of day.

Maybe you think I’m “damaged.” In truth, I’m just happy as hell to have another “Outside” job.

I know I’m autistic to a degree, that I’m color blind, that I’m emotionally stunted, that I’m ADHD, that I can’t concentrate on anything more than a few seconds, that I’m depressive and lazy and obsessive-compulsive. I don’t have much of a grasp on love or personal situations. I’m as emotionally-blessed as a sea anemone. My senses don’t thrill: I don’t smell much or taste much or hear much or see much. Which is why I require my senses to be overloaded when quite possible.

And those are my good traits.

You know what? Despite that I’ve managed to make a life for myself and a few others that I’ve encountered along my way. I supported my first wife and put her through nursing school, and a 17-year girlfriend where I supported her beading venture, and my current wife of three years. I’ve done nothing but support women my entire life. It just worked out that way.

I’ve succeeded as a Human Being despite the fact that, primarily, I am not.

I’ve been quite duplicitous.

I don’t quite know what I am.

But Human is not it.

BZ

The ONLY car company NOT to take stimulus dollars was Ford.

Given that, here are what your taxpayer dollars are actually funding:

Fox 2’s Rob Wolchek got a tip about what some guys are doing at Chrysler’s Jefferson North Assembly Plant in Detroit. This is the same plant that President Barack Obama visited back in July and talked about the significance of manufacturing in America.

The same place where the President remarked on the tax-payer generated government loan saying “I believed that if each of us were willing to work and sacrifice in the short term — workers, management, creditors, shareholders, retirees, communities — it could mark a new beginning for a great American industry. And if we could summon that sense of teamwork and common purpose, we could once again see the best cars in the world designed, engineered, forged, and built right here in Detroit, right here in the Midwest, right here in the United States of America.”

And yet, your tax dollars are being spent for those making $75 + an hour. Certainly more than I make an hour, after 35 years on my job.

Response to Query: Update on FOX 2’s Jefferson North Expose
From the FOX 2 story on Chrysler Group’s Jefferson North Assembly Plant, the company was able to identify all 15 employees captured on video. Within 36 hours of learning about this matter, each one of the employees was suspended indefinitely without pay. While the evidence seems conclusive, the company needs to act in accordance with corporate protocol before further action is taken. We expect that by Monday, each of these cases will be dispositioned.

This isn’t just private cash at work; this is public cash — taxpayer money.

Which, for me, makes ALL the difference in the world.

BZ

This may not seem much to you and me, but being denied

From Wired.com:

T-Mobile told a federal judge Wednesday it may pick and choose which text messages to deliver on its network in a case weighing whether wireless carriers have the same “must carry” obligations as wire-line telephone providers.

The Bellevue, Washington-based wireless service is being sued by a texting service claiming T-Mobile stopped servicing its “short code” clients after it signed up a California medical marijuana dispensary. In a court filing, T-Mobile said it had the right to pre-approve EZ Texting’s clientele, which it said the New York-based texting service failed to submit for approval.

EZ Texting offers a short code service, which works like this: A church could send its schedule to a cell phone user who texted “CHURCH” to 313131. Mobile phone users only receive text messages from EZ Texting’s customers upon request. Each of its clients gets their own special word.

T-Mobile, the company wrote in a filing (.pdf) in New York federal court, “has discretion to require pre-approval for any short-code marketing campaigns run on its network, and to enforce its guidelines by terminating programs for which a content provider failed to obtain the necessary approval.”

Such approval is necessary, T-Mobile added, “to protect the carrier and its customers from potentially illegal, fraudulent, or offensive marketing campaigns conducted on its network.”

It’s the first federal case testing whether wireless providers may block text messages they don’t like.

Hello.

Heads-up.

BZ