Yet more consistency with expectations

• Overheard: "I am so screwed."
  
  A student in my non-majors class who hasn't been to class in a week and a half, after receiving today's test.
  
  
• Observed: Another faculty member pulling out of the local sandwich shop in his large SUV, as I pull in driving my Prius hybrid.
  
  He is our resident climate change denier/skeptic.
  
  
  

 

How did I miss this part?

Al Gore III's Prius was going over 100 mph. Someone commented to me about a month ago that he heard the Prius was wimpy. I was puzzled, but apparently, this is a common misconception.

Here is a Los Angeles Times article discussing "why is the Prius such a screaming hot rod?" and "although it's probably no comfort to young Gore, his arrest is being seen by some as a testament to the little Prius' performance and, shall we say, absence of wuss."

Doubling the Love

Dean Dad over at Confessions of a Community College Dean has this excellent post about administrators suffering from narcissism:

http://suburbdad.blogspot.com/2007/03/ask-administrator-footprints-on-my-head.html

In particular, he says:

As the undeservedly-forgotten historian Christopher Lasch noted in his undeservedly-forgotten bestseller The Culture of Narcissism, narcissism isn't merely a synonym for self-centeredness. It's actually an inability to distinguish 'self' from 'other.' It's an inability to tell where the self ends and other people begin. That can resemble self-centeredness, but it can also result in crippling weakness and fear, since the lack of stable boundaries is inherently scary. That's why narcissists can sweep people up, then turn on them quickly. Simply put, they are not to be trusted, since they lack a basic, fundamental understanding of 'reciprocity,' which is the foundation of trust. They can't depersonalize decision-making

This is, I think, a great explanation of how narcissistic personalities manifest themselves once someone gets into a position of power in academia. Dean Dad says about one narcissist he worked with:

My contention that management isn't just the practice of rewarding your friends and punishing your enemies was literally incomprehensible to him.

I think he is right on here. As a result, narcissists do not understand why people might get mad at them for this behavior, and can not anticipate how future interactions might be impacted

So, assuming you can't run away, what can you do about a narcissist? So far, I've only found two things that have helped: (1) flattery seems to smooth things over in the short term and (2) knowledge you are dealing with one makes the whole thing less upsetting. I've heard keeping your head down is another strategy, but alas, I've never been good at that.

On an entirely different subject, Slash Dot has an interesting note responding to a study claiming the Hummer is greener than a Prius and other hybrids.

This seems to be popping up all over the place. According to some, we environmentally friendly folks are just ignoring the "facts". Because, you know, questioning the assumptions involved in coming up with the numbers is putting our heads in the sand.

Frak!

Ack! We've been zapped by the Alternative Minimum Tax! Our double (but similar) incomes combined with our whopping tax shelters (2 kids + mortgage interest) somehow means we can only take about $1450 of the $3150 tax credit for the hybrid we purchased this year.

Of course, if we made over $750,000, we could take the whole thing.

S. F. Chronicle Article: Hybrid Tax Credit Bait and Switch