the wanderer

SAINT OF THE DAY is Peregrinus, a second century priest and hermit. In honour of Plato.

JURGEN KLINSMANN is Germany's new coach.  He is the youngest man ever to hold the position, is a former Football Writers' Footballer of the Year, was capped 108  times by Germany and, even more impressively, completely won over the British media in his first season in the Premier League. It's difficult though, to avoid the thought that the DFB have only given him the job to avoid having to employ a foreigner.
Lothar Matthaus is, naturally, very unhappy.


THE 'SELECTIVE REDUCTION' SAGA rumbles on. There's an excellent meta post at meta-filter, Noli Irritare has a slightly-less-meta meta-post here,  the comments at Unfogged are generally thoughtful, and Amy Welborn's blog entry - with lots of comment, blogcritics, Hugo Schwyzer's and Schwyzer II are all worth your time.
The Pro- Richards bloggers include Alas (owner of the most glaring petitio in the history of petitios - just read her comment about sed Contra's post), Trish Wilson, and this which is (unfortunately) beyond parody. 

JOHN SUTHERLAND's pre-retirement analysis of changes in British academia in the last 40 years. ·

"The long awaited breakthrough of women into higher echelons of the academic profession. My successor as Lord Northcliffe Professor at UCL will be the first woman to hold the post . Incredibly, no woman, in nearly 170 years, has been permanent head of my department. That should now change, as a reflection of profession-wide reform. But not, alas, fast enough."

Via CrookedTimber and the Leiter report. 

BARACK OBAMA: it's unanimous, a star is born. A transcript of the speech, the Honolulu Advertiser (!), USA Today, the New York Times, and various others are all admiring. Even National Review manages to harrumph only mildly. The New Yorker profile is still the most informative one available online.