I want to make a very serious point after I finish with Burning Behavior – Part 3 that involves Isaac Asimov.

After commenting on John Martin’s blog where he was excoriating fired  Professor Ward Churchill I felt compelled to check my facts. I cautioned John that “getting” one obnoxious Professors tenure could bring on a witch hunt for other wacky Professors that for one reason or another had been given tenure. Coming from a long line of educators I am extremely sensitive to tenure issues. Since his firing several wacky Professors have been denied tenure or had their academics challenged including Glen Poshard at Southern Illinios and Finkelstein at Depaul. Lets face it, the University is not about TRUTH, its about learning how to judge both what is truthful and more importantly what is useful. Wackyness and Hillarity abound at the University (no matter which one you attend). I believe this adds to the undergrad and graduate experience.

Nonetheless, having not been able to find the essay of Asomov’s that I wanted to use for the Why We Continue To Burn piece (coming soon). I thought it behooved me to go to UIS’ library here and try to find it. I failed miserably! I spent the whole day looking for this damn essay. It wasn’t in the magazine I thought it was – Discover, Omni, Scientific American. I went through all the stuff I could in the stacks and periodicals. I found an article in Discover where Asmov seemed to be moving towards the position he left us with and an essay that posited Exactly the opposite position! Finally I came home at 6:00 pm in the misery of failure and googled – Asmov 1989- and found what I was looking for…Man. You never know where you will find the truth.

I am writing this simply as an excuse for having no exciting new blog for today.