Day: January 26, 2013

George Mason Law School professor Todd J. Zywicki is suggesting that it might be wise to apply the Sarbanes-Oxley regulations to universities.

Sarbanes-Oxley is the intrusive and pointless, feel-good law enacted  in 2002 in response to the corporate scandals of the 1990s. The reporting and record keeping mandates it imposes are burdensome and expensive, and considering how most of those involved in the ’90s scandals wound up in prison, unnecessary.

Still, Zywicki points out that the reasoning behind instituting the regulations for business are just as apt for American higher education and that there is no good reason to exempt the schools from them.

He says that while it has been traditionally assumed that universities are charitable organizations run with “an eye on the public good” they have evolved into big business riven with self interests and presidents making seven-figure salaries.

He says that their boards of trustees “have all but abandoned any pretense of governing”.

Read his reasoning here

And go here to see what he says fits with the situation at  Penn State.

As of Thursday, January 24, electronic devices can no longer be thrown away with other trash, reports State Rep. Jim Cox (R-129).

Passed in 2010, the Pennsylvania Covered Device Recycling Act requires consumers and businesses to recycle covered devices, such as computers, laptops, computer monitors, televisions and tablets. Trash haulers will no longer take covered devices unless a municipality has a curbside electronics collection program that ultimately sends the devices to an electronics recycler. They also may not be taken to, or accepted by, landfills or other solid waste disposal facilities.

Consumers may continue to recycle their electronics through a county or municipal electronic recycling program, if one is available. Consumers should first contact drop-off locations to see what types of electronics will be accepted at a given location. Some retailers are offering recycling programs as well, Cox said.

There is a good chance that you’ve seen The Gods Of The Copybook Headings written by Rudyard Kipling in 1919 as it flies around the web with a fair amount of frequency in these Obama years.

If haven’t though it is below.

“Copybook heading” refers to the inspirational or educational phrase placed at the top of the pages of copybooks used in English schools during Kipling’s day.

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,

The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

By William W. Lawrence Sr

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Answer to yesterday’s puzzle: Man needs so little, yet he begins wanting so much.
Louis L’Amour