Pun Salad

… better scurry:

• David Friedman's university, much like the University Near Here, is "very big" on sustainability. And it's a very bad joke:

  To see why, imagine what it would have meant c. 1900. The university existed, it had a lot of students and faculty. None of them had automobiles. Many, presumably, had horses. Sustainability would have included assuring a sufficient supply of pasture land for all those horses into the indefinite future. It might have included assuring a sufficient supply of firewood. It would, in other words, have meant making preparations for a future that was not going to happen.

  This doesn't matter to people who are wrapping themselves in the comfy blanket of feelgood rhetoric. David observes: "This is not how universities are supposed to function." But it is, nevertheless, increasingly how they do function.

• But David's comment about "making preparations for a future that was not going to happen" seems relevant in other contexts. For example, the ARC Tunnel project between New Jersey and Manhattan, recently shut down by NJ Governor Chris Christie.

  In the future—even the near future—is that region's economy going to depend on spending vast sums of money to shuttle ever-increasing numbers of people back and forth daily across the Hudson River? Really? Or is this another preparation for a future that's not gonna happen?

• But some are unhappy about the cancellation:

  U.S. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) Friday announced that he has launched an investigation into the shutdown of construction of the Hudson commuter rail tunnel by Gov. Chris Christie.

  The 86-year-old senator is understandably upset that some young whippersnapper put the kibosh on his pet project. It's not important that the western tunnel terminus was planned to be the Frank R. Lautenberg Secaucus Junction Station. No ego involved there, I'm sure.

• Greg Pollowitz has the correction of the day from the New York Times:

  An article on Nov. 4 about the San Francisco Giants' victory parade referred incorrectly to the type of underwear shown to the crowd by first baseman Aubrey Huff. His "rally thong," which he said he wore for luck during the Giants' run to the World Series title, was designed for men, not for women. (Go to Article)

  Lay on, Aubrey Huff,
  And damn'd be him that first cries, "A thong's guy stuff!"