What happened to the porn spam I used to get? I’d been feeling so good about myself for deleting those crass daily emails (once I’d explored all the freeviews they offer, I mean), but lately, nada — no eager twenty-somethings with the self-proclaimed “naughty habbit” of touching themselves in a provocative manner (is there another way?), no come-hither stares from busty, doe-eyed candystripers or curious cheerleaders hoping to “experiment” with their nubile sorority sisters.

No, instead I’m getting “academic” spam now — far less titilating emails chock-full of dense verbiage, half-baked ideas, and “messages” so heavy handed its a wonder their authors were able to lift their fingers long enough to type such profoundly insidious treacle. Seriously. I’m talking wrist-snapping material, here. Verbal arthritis.

Case in point: Late Thursday, someone in my department emailed the text of an essay to 45 of us. The emailer did so, she confessed, because the essay had so touched her that it must certainly touch others. Here is the note she appended to the text of the essay (names and logistics removed):

Dear all, and please skip completely if you are short on time. One of our folks, xxxxx xxxxx, who got her PhD from DU and is now up for early tenure at xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx in Texas wrote the below as a column for her campus newspaper. In light of the ongoing troubles in the world and the ongoing terrorist attacks in the Middle East, I found her words both poignant and timely. She passed it on to me and I have pasted it here for those of you who may be interested.

[name of sender]

What follows is the essay in it’s entirety — an essay, I should make clear up front, that I find odious, self-congratulatory, and entirely moronic. Still, I present it here because the sentiment that motivated this piece of garbage exemplifies (in my opinion) the kind of thinking — and so the kind of teaching — that permeates much of the humanities these days.

Later today (time permitting) I plan to gloss this piece, but for the time being, I’m posting it here — unadorned — for your reading pleasure:

As the daughter of a career military man, I grew up watching my fatherstop the car, get out and stand at attention as the flag was lowered or raised. My brothers, sisters, and I would stand next to him hands on our hearts, never fidgeting as we realized the import of the occasion. The flag represented everything my father had fought for, and we knew it must be important since my father left us to defend it. My mother would dress us up in our Easter Sunday clothes and take us to the airfield, where we would watch my father board the plane to Vietnam. Sitting on my oldest sister