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I’m writing this on Inauguration Day. Although I missed hearing the speech live, I did catch a stream of it a little later on, and I was struck by how, in a relatively short speech, the President managed to remind us of the needs of those who have too often been left out of “we, the people” — women who do not earn equal pay, homosexuals who do not enjoy equal rights, immigrants who are not afforded equal protection. It was a liberal speech in the best sense of the word, a speech open to possibility and progress, and while I could, as always, wish it had gone farther, I was glad I had a chance to read and hear it.

In which the NCAA implies giving up on an expectation of integrity, while paying lip service.

Inspired by Nick Bilton's NYTimes article Disruptions: Impulse Buys, Straight to a Screen, I decided to add up exactly how much money I sent to Amazon in 2012 for digital books.

Graduate school is a competitive, stressful and extremely demanding environment. We’re all continuously trying to live up to everybody’s expectations: our supervisors’ expectations, our perfectionism-induced expectations of ourselves, while trying to meet the demands of students, a family and friends. To stay sane in this pressure cooker, it’s important to come back to our senses regularly and regain focus.

Another overseas programs appears to be biting the dust. The University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) is not renewing its contract with the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT). This brings into question yet again why universities pursue these overseas ventures when they are rarely profitable and difficult to sustain.

I had been feeling achy and draggy for longer than I could remember. I had a chronic headache, too. I thought of these as flu-like symptoms, but not the flu, because I don't get the flu. I almost never even get a cold. I have what I sometimes refer to as "autoimmune surplus syndrome, or ASS": my system gobbles up every virus or germ that comes its way, and when it has nothing left to feast on, it turns on itself, like the Ouroboros, the serpent that eats its own tail. I worry about being devoured from within, but not about what is flying around in the air. I figured that feeling lousy was the price I had to pay for overloading myself with work, classes, and active vacations at my age.

Sometimes I just can't let things go. Sportswriter Rick Reilly's response to being "duped" by Lance Armstrong appears to be one of those things.

Reading between the lines for what's most important.