Looks like Mrs. Cheney is pretty ruthless in showing her disapproval of academic dissent with conservatism.
Disgusting and dispiriting. And this, just an hour after I read Allen Renear on getting government and university funding in humanities computing, from 2000:
But we must also be prepared for these efforts to fail. And if they do fail, when we fail at them, it must be with the grace that allows us to at once fail, and at the same time remain in the game, continuing our work. This means that we must give up the ‘everlasting delusion… [the] utopianism’ and instead ‘…cheerfully accept [our] inexorable destiny’. That destiny being that we will have to make our own way in the world, sustained by our conviction, courage, and skill, by our colleagues, students, and friends… and, above all, by the never-failing excitement of the work.
This is from “Humanities Computing 2000: Passion and Authenticity,” pp. 27-39 in: Domenico Fiormonte, ed. Informatica umanistica. Dalla ricerca all’insegnamento (Humanities computing. From research to teaching), Roma: Bulzoni Editore, 2003. Renear quotes from J. Ortega y Gasset, Mission of the University, London: Routlege, 1998.
I’ll be drinking to that tonight. It’s been a day of extremes.
