On his weekends, the English professor reads the Daily News

And there, on February 19, 2016, he reads the headline, “Martin Shkreli really is a bad boy of pharma, government argues.” The text by Daniel McDonald explains that the hedge fund guy Martin Shkreli, a middle-aged white man who dresses like a teenager and talks like a gangsta rapper, is being accused of witness intimidation.

But because Mr. Shkreli is already under indictment, he has an advocate.

Reading the advocate’s email in defense of his client, the English professor uncaps his red pen and goes marginal.

The English Department and the overflowing urinal

During the night of May 11-12, a urinal in the English Department’s building at the University of Hawaii at Manoa overflowed, flooding offices on two floors and sending water down the elevator shaft into the elevator’s motor room. As the home of an English department, this building is of course subject to what’s euphemistically called “deferred maintenance,” because of course everybody says, “Aw, I always hated English.”

But inside this particular English Department building, the mentalité remains unsoiled, buoyantly afloat on its inland sea of righteousness. Here’s a lifeboat bulletin from Susan M. Schultz.