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Neo, neoliberals, and nonsense #2

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  Neo, neoliberals, and nonsense. After taking the plunge with blog number 1, I now have to decide on some sort of direction of travel (making the assumption that more blogs will follow and that they may actually have to lead to somewhere or something). Thinking about coming up with that direction reminded me of how many years ago a colleague at another University asked me about my “five year research plan”. At that stage of my career, I was quietly confident of a rough sketch covering the subsequent 5 days or so, but months or years was well beyond my limited attention..>-SQUIRREL! [1] Now of course I have some ideas about things I would like to read about, summarise and share with you, but I have some concerns. First, a hypothesis 6 (about why I might want to write a blog), might be that it would compel me to read at least something of an economic and political literature that isn’t exactly unpleasant per se, but has a tendency to raise my blood pressure beyond its typi...
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#5 "Had a darn good title forgot to write it down", or "Paranoia will destroy ya"

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#5 “Had a darn good title, forgot to write it down [1] ” or “Paranoia will destroy ya [2] ” The last several weeks (since I finished and posted blog 4) have of course delivered more of the multi-levelled (international, national and local) sh*t show. In fact, I have decided that politicians and University leaders throughout the UK have discovered this blog and are using it as a sort of neoliberal template of incompetence (Hence, paranoia will destroy ya).  It’s like a Black Mirror version of the film Groundhog Day [3]  (especially for the people who paid attention when Morpheus told us about our suspicions about all not being right in the world. [4]  ) Trump and his evil and incompetent proteges have been shooting themselves and each other in the foot, knee, groin and face over tariffs, deporting people to camps in El Salvador, ignoring or misunderstanding court orders and, at time of writing, messing up the Pentagon and pissing off ex-employees. Wait! UPDATE. Musk says T...
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Universities are financially autonomous...Not! #4

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  #4 Universities are financially autonomous.Not! I haven’t blogged in a while, as I have been unwell, with several problems that have flummoxed our socialised medicine system here in the UK. I would put system in air quotes here, but I fell that that gag has been overused (Oh no it hasn’t).   I have also been spoiled for choice about topics, because loads of really unbelievable things have happened in the world that continue to inspire us to think that many people are more than a few cards short of a full deck. But enough about the Labour government. Sorry “Labour” [1] government (for my Canadian and British world wide fan base---OMG we have a Dutch person here [2] ). I am mocking the current “Labour” government who so far are not governing very much like a Labour government. This is British understatement, for my growing Canadian and worldwide audience.   Many of us in UK academia have been “doomscrolling” in social media and mainstream news outlets because the re...
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