My web guru Robin pointed my towards this Boing Boing post about Jimmy McMillan, a current NY gubernatorial candidate and founder of the Rent is Too Damn High Party. I really encourage you to visit his site for the groovy intro track alone.

Anyways, here’s a video of Jimmy at the Gubernatorial Debate last night:

As Robin said, “this man is my new hero.”

I guess the logical response in this situation is mockery. But I won’t make fun of Mr. McMillan, for a few reasons:

1. He’s a karate expert
2. He’s probably right
3. Really, no more or less ridiculous than, say, Christine O’Donnell, who is somehow a ‘legitimate’ candidate.

I say if he doesn’t win in New York, we invite him to be mayor of Toronto. I’d trust this guy a hell of a lot more than Rob Ford. Or Smitherman, for that matter.

As many of you may know/be unaware of/not care about, I work in  the area of higher education policy. I’ve also recently begun a PhD on this very subject (studying universities at university is the most meta degree EVER). So, I find myself with a lot of higher ed related thoughts which gradually pool over time, until they reach critical mass and spill out all over some unsuspecting word processor.

One such Vesuvial missive has ended up on The Mark, a really great website that (present company excluded) publishes work by very interesting Canadians. If you care to give it a look, the article is about the recent tuition review in the UK, and how its proposals may attract some attention in Canada. I’m not sure if quoting yourself on your own blog is a symptom of “The New Douchery”, but here’s an excerpt anyway:

Let’s be clear on what the Browne Report means. While its recommendations are couched in a stated concern for the quality of the university system and its accessibility to students from all backgrounds, this policy is about one thing and one thing only – reducing the government’s financial obligations to the university system. It doesn’t even increase the overall financial resources available to U.K. universities – it just shifts the burden of paying for the current system onto students and their families.

I’ve actually done a few things for The Mark, including this article about quality assessment in higher ed, and an audio interview where I hem and haw and say “you know” a lot. If you can get past my bits, it’s actually a very interesting piece.

Those who know me will not be surprised to hear that Bad Religion is my favourite band. In fact, you may be so intimately familiar with this fact that its mere mention will send you fleeing towards the proverbial fire escape (or perhaps literal fire escape – I have no idea where you are right now and how you might leave in case of conflagration, and frankly, I don’t care to know).

Anyway.

A big reason I am so fond of BR is lead singer Greg Graffin. As well as being a songwriter and vocalist, he’s also a professor of biology at UCLA. He also just wrote a book, Anarchy Evolution. Surprisingly, he was invited on to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to chat about punk rock and his views on religion:

If this doesn’t cement his rep as an elder statesman of Punk, I don’t know what will.

And, in case you’re wondering, the new Bad Religion Album “The Dissent of Man” is wicked good.