A Little Mad

Botanist Edgar Anderson wrote almost 50 years ago that botany was the prisoner of popularity and not the impulse to investigate areas that were grossly neglected.

I was thinking of this because a colleague asked me about a certain program well known for a particular area in Latin American history. He asked what the "head" of that cadre of specialists focused on as well as what his/her grad students wrote about. When I had to put in words that person's research as well as the grad student's writings I realized that they had all written the same book, only the blanks were different.

How this garbage keeps coming down the pipe as original contributions to the academy is beyond me. When I mentioned this at lunch to one of the deans here who knows the "head" of this cartel, his reply was that the wo/man throws great parties. Seriously. *sigh*

I'm not sure I can look my grad students in the face tomorrow night. Suckers.