I like this person, I like this person’s writing, and I AM OBSESSED with this person’s nom de Internet-plume.

Also Sprach the erudite and kind Werner Herzog’s Bear at Notes from the Ironbound (the post is many times worth reading in full):

I then remind myself that it is in fact an insane profession.  For instance, I know multiple people who’ve published books with reputable presses on important topics who can’t get tenure track jobs.  I know many more who are fine scholars and stellar teachers who toil as low-wage contingent faculty, or who are on the tenure track at schools that pay little and offer a pittance, if anything, for research funding.  At the same time, I know complete and utter mediocrities with tenure.  I have seen someone get promoted to full professor for being a crappy department chair.  The more I think about it, the more I realize that it is these people who keep the academic dream alive.  The youngsters see such mediocrity and think “if they can make it, surely I can too.”

Werner Herzog’s Bear should have written my Slate article instead of me–under the name Werner Herzog’s Bear, selbstverständlich. Many Internet fist-bumps to you.