The other night, Joey and I were walking to our favorite neighborhood brewpub for dinner. I saw what looked like a twenty dollar bill on the ground and I swear to God, my first thought was, "That can't actually be a twenty." I'm not sure I would have actually kept walking if I were alone but Joey did not even hesitate - he pointed at the money, said, "whoa!", and picked up what turned out to be TWO twenties. Honestly, I still couldn't quite believe they were just lying there, like maybe they were counterfeit, or someone had planted them and was just waiting to see what we would do. I had to explain the joke to Joey (who is a computer engineer) and he just said, "Well, good thing I'm not an economist, isn't it?" Amen to that...
I came across an interesting discussion about a 19-year-old intern who was fired from The Gazette in Colorado Springs for plagiarism. There appears to be some controversy over the fact that the editor publicly named the girl in a letter to readers (explaining and apologizing for the plagiarism), with some people saying that doing so was unduly harsh because this incident will now follow her for the rest of her career. I was intrigued by this discussion for two reasons - one, it seems pretty clear to me that this was not a case of ignorance (as I have often encountered with my own students who have no idea how to paraphrase or cite correctly) and two, putting aside the offense itself, I have often struggled with how to handle situations where there are long-term repercussions for a student, repercussions that lead the overall costs to be far higher than might seem warranted for the specific situation. As an example of the latter issue, I have occasionally taught seniors who need to p
At least your choice was better than that facing two economists in the other classic joke when they find something else on the sidewalk: http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/000466.html (Warning! Somewhat crude. Not for everyone's "taste.")
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