Happy Friday ProfHackers! Here’s to hoping that your April is off to a better start than T. S. Eliot’s. If you suffer from seasonal allergies, now might be the time to double-down on your allergy meds and any other preventative measures that you can find. According to the Washington Post, the mid-Atlantic, may be facing “a tidal wave of pollen” thanks to the lengthy and quixotic winter that we’ve enjoyed.
A story broke earlier this week that Harvard had a trio of books bound in human skin. More recent stories like one in Boston Magazine have debunked the story explaining that the books are bound in sheepskin. But, The Atlantic points out that it was once “somewhat common to bind books with human skin.”
In other harrowing news, word is spreading about the difficult conditions our colleagues at the University of Southern Maine are facing in response to budget shortfalls. Claire Potter has reprinted a response from Lucinda Cole, associate professor of English at USM.
Closer to home, the hits keep coming to the College of Charleston. Earlier this spring, the state legislature voted to cut funding to both CoC and the University of South Carolina Upstate for programming “gay-friendly” books as their first-year reading selections. More recently, the College of Charleston announced that Lt. Gov. Glenn McConnell will be their next President. McConnell has been the subject of recent criticism due to his participation in Civil War reenactments.
On a happier note, Italy magazine reports that the Vatican Library will go digital. The major undertaking will “digitize thousands of its historical manuscripts, which date from the origins of the Church to the 20th century.”
We’ve talked a lot about standing desks here at ProfHacker: Ryan has written several posts documenting his experience. Amy has written about “Hacking an Adjustable Standing Desk,” and Konrad wrote about a “Portable Ninja Standing Desk. Elsewhere on the Chronicle, Summer McGee has taken the standing desk to a whole new level with her piece on the Treadmill Desk.
Finally, this week David Letterman announced that sometime in 2015, he will retire. Speculation on a possible replacement has already begun: Stephen Cobert, Craig Ferguson, Ellen Degeneres, Tina Fey . . . as you can see in the Time piece linked, the possibilities are (almost) endless.
Our videos of the week...
Letterman’s announcement.
A response by HoneyMaid to those who disapproved of its recent “This is Wholesome” commercial, which features both gay and biracial families:
And lastly, Simon’s Cat: “Crazy Time.”
[Creative Commons licensed image by Flickr user RichardBH.]
