Bogarting Peace
Nicholas Wilbur, the Ol’ Dirty’s go to guy for Brian Bogart coverage, has another fascinating piece about our first graduate student in peace studies. Apparently he’s not much for the classroom interaction:
“I don’t have to attend the classes because I’m keeping up outside of (them),” Bogart said. “What I’m doing outside the classroom is sufficient to fulfill the requirements of that course.”
Um, not exactly. For graduate students, 55 percent of the grade involves classroom participation in one form or another. One would think that Bogart’s vehement desire not to participate in class, regardless of the intentions, should result in a failing grade. Using Bogart’s odd logic, I could claim that all of the hours I’ve spent in this damn, dusty office over the years should garner me credits toward my journalism degree. Tom Bivins, I think, would disagree.
But political science windbag Jane Cramer agrees with Bogart, claiming that he has more knowledge than his classmates and therefore should be exempt from the requirements of his syllabi (as sad an indictment of the political science department as I’ve ever heard). This is according to the ODE editorial, which we should take with a grain of salt considering that it directly contradicts Wilbur’s news story by stating that Bogart is only taking one class, rather than the three implied by Wilbur’s piece.
If you think this is a strange discrepancy, maybe you should use the “Ask the Editors” feature at the ODE’s highly trafficked blog to get an answer.
Wilbur’s article continues:
“Bogart said it’s exhausting to do outreach for five hours a day discussing his three years of research and 15 years of personal experience in the defense industry.”
Yeah, he’s really overextending himself by sitting for five — that’s right, five — hours a day in a lawn chair and chatting with your standard collection of anti-war wingnuts.
Notice he doesn’t mention returning home to any satisfactory family or social life. Reading and studyin’ after protesting all day sure beats the hell out of crying lonely tears into a cold bowl of E-Z Mac n’ Cheeze, ja?
It must be said: if the guy would stop wearing those ugly-ass windbreakers (see: today’s ODE photo), he may catch himself a nice slice of tail and find peace within himself.
I salute Brian Bogart for services towards the Spew section. This gets better by the week.On top of that I go home and study, do a national campaign, and I also like to read as much as possible. I would say that this is harder than any course Ive ever had in my life.Yes, but you don’t get course credits for doing things of equal or greater difficulty to the course; you get them for actually taking the course. If he wants to challenge the class and test out of it, that would be one thing – there’s a mechanism in place for that – but otherwise Cramer is setting a hell of a precedent here, one that we can only hope has hilarious unintended consequences.
Damn that’s fucked up. I was way smarter that at least 3/4’s of the people in my classes, and yet, I still had to attend. Seriously though, it’s really moot, as having a masters in “Peace Studies” isn’t worth the recycled paper it’s forged on.
I wonder if Professor Cramer would extend the same courtesy to an ex-military pro-war activist.