Musings: Ah, old scholar.

I realized this morning that my not infrequent grumbling about students' work ethics and yard ethics and driving ethics etc. may rehearse one of the more tired cliches of university life: The "What's wrong with these kids?" & "Back in my day" & "Now is worse than then" cross-generational divide. If I gave you the impression that I am united among my colleagues on the faculty in a constant misanthropic judging of today's youth, then I apologize. Such is not the case.

In fact, as I rediscovered at a faculty party this weekend, the professoriate has perhaps a greater ability to stir my ire than the earnest if underachieving undergrads about whom I sometimes rant.

Case in point: the tenured colleague from another department who brazenly and proudly told my partner and I that--

1. He hates cats and would be happy to shoot them if they came into his yard. ["Um, you do live out of the radius of my cat's wanderings, right?"]
2. He has pulled himself up from his bootstraps over the course of his career, the evidence of which is the fact that when he first moved here to [unnamed college town] he lived in a neighborhood where [sotto voce] he "was the only white person around." ["Um, it is truly inspiring how you've left those insidious black and brown folks behind."]
3. The university needs to stop hiring so many ugly women, and when he's on a hiring committee makes sure to vote against any unattractive women candidates. ["Um, what is the number for the campus ombudsman again?"]
4. He doesn't feel you need to be able to talk with the person you're fucking. In fact, he had a thing with a 17 year old a few years back. The pussy, he insisted, was great. ["Um, did a tenured faculty member just say "Pussy" and proudly admit to statutory rape?"]
5. The Mexican-American fellow colleague of ours who's thinking of running for the House of Representatives in the future should borrow his white wife and children to impress voters, unless of course that would hurt the "obvious" advantage of being a minority candidate. ["Um, we are talking about the United States, right? What fucking advantage?"]

Sigh.