Bovine terrorism is a bomb in a bull.
March 29, 2008 12:02 PM Subscribe
Homeland security majors? Homeland. Security. Majors. I understand the words, but together they make no sense. What are some of the course names? "Toothpaste: Threat or Menace?"? "Distinguishing Brown People from White People"? Talk about backing the wrong team. In 8-12 years or so, these degrees will be about as useful as if degrees as a Satanic Ritual Abuse Specialist had been offered in 1986.
posted by DecemberBoy at 12:23 PM on March 29, 2008 [6 favorites]
posted by DecemberBoy at 12:23 PM on March 29, 2008 [6 favorites]
Also, is it too cliche now or will it trip the Godwin alarm if I point out that every time I hear "homeland" used in the context the Bush administration uses it, I immediately think "Vaterland" and "Völkisch"? It's NSDAP-a-riffic.
posted by DecemberBoy at 12:27 PM on March 29, 2008 [2 favorites]
posted by DecemberBoy at 12:27 PM on March 29, 2008 [2 favorites]
Slate shoulda just asked me.
Fear + continuing breakneck pace of commoditization of higher education = homeland security majors
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 12:34 PM on March 29, 2008
Fear + continuing breakneck pace of commoditization of higher education = homeland security majors
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 12:34 PM on March 29, 2008
Probably for the same reason that i'm studying geography. It's a growth sector with tons of government money out there to be had. Who knows, maybe they actually want to protect their country but don't want to kill foreigners for oil?
posted by schyler523 at 12:47 PM on March 29, 2008
posted by schyler523 at 12:47 PM on March 29, 2008
Yeah, but a lot of those homeland-security and emergency-management majors come from fake colleges.
posted by box at 12:54 PM on March 29, 2008
posted by box at 12:54 PM on March 29, 2008
Box: That makes it even easier (and cheaper) to bilk the government out of money that they would otherwise spend on $4000 toilet seats, or some other stupid shite.
posted by schyler523 at 1:06 PM on March 29, 2008
posted by schyler523 at 1:06 PM on March 29, 2008
That's a coincidence, I'm working on my PhD concerning the impurification of all of our precious bodily fluids at this very second...
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:13 PM on March 29, 2008 [5 favorites]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:13 PM on March 29, 2008 [5 favorites]
During the 1990s, we lived in the Long Boom. Now it's the Long Siege.
posted by acb at 1:27 PM on March 29, 2008
posted by acb at 1:27 PM on March 29, 2008
Don't enter the program, the student loan payments are torture...
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:59 PM on March 29, 2008 [2 favorites]
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:59 PM on March 29, 2008 [2 favorites]
Lots of govt money available. Soon, though, the work will be outsourced to China
posted by Postroad at 2:01 PM on March 29, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by Postroad at 2:01 PM on March 29, 2008 [1 favorite]
Color-Coded Threat Level System In New Colors for Spring!
posted by homunculus at 2:47 PM on March 29, 2008
posted by homunculus at 2:47 PM on March 29, 2008
Somehow I got on the e-mail list for one of these programs offered by an online "college."
Combined with the panic over school shootings Katrina and other natural disasters and the general militarization of the police, it's not surprising that the idea has developed and everyone's jumping on the bandwagon. Some online military/history programs have started offering variations on this, too. Must be a hell of a lot of money involved. There are a bunch of "project management" degrees popping up, too, which seem to be geared to disaster recovery.
posted by etaoin at 3:20 PM on March 29, 2008
Combined with the panic over school shootings Katrina and other natural disasters and the general militarization of the police, it's not surprising that the idea has developed and everyone's jumping on the bandwagon. Some online military/history programs have started offering variations on this, too. Must be a hell of a lot of money involved. There are a bunch of "project management" degrees popping up, too, which seem to be geared to disaster recovery.
posted by etaoin at 3:20 PM on March 29, 2008
is it too cliche now or will it trip the Godwin alarm if I point out that every time I hear "homeland" used in the context the Bush administration uses it, I immediately think "Vaterland" and "Völkisch"?
Well, at least there are two of us. We didn't used to use this sort of language. Up until very lately, it was always the "bad" governments using such rhetoric to whip their citizens into a frenzy or just follow the latest Five Year Plan. Talk of The Fatherland and such was reserved, in my naive mind, for them, whoever they were. I refuse to say Homland Security. I am trying to spread the usage of Homemade Security, which I heard somewhere, or to just ignore the whole issue - refuse to acknowledge their existence. Probably not a very useful strategy. I'm open to suggestions.
posted by Hobgoblin at 3:22 PM on March 29, 2008
Well, at least there are two of us. We didn't used to use this sort of language. Up until very lately, it was always the "bad" governments using such rhetoric to whip their citizens into a frenzy or just follow the latest Five Year Plan. Talk of The Fatherland and such was reserved, in my naive mind, for them, whoever they were. I refuse to say Homland Security. I am trying to spread the usage of Homemade Security, which I heard somewhere, or to just ignore the whole issue - refuse to acknowledge their existence. Probably not a very useful strategy. I'm open to suggestions.
posted by Hobgoblin at 3:22 PM on March 29, 2008
Well, at least there are two of us. We didn't used to use this sort of language. Up until very lately, it was always the "bad" governments using such rhetoric to whip their citizens into a frenzy or just follow the latest Five Year Plan.
One of the ways nationalist governments control people is by manipulating language. By manipulating language, you can shape the way your citizens view the world on a very basic level. Orwell's "newspeak" was a commentary on this practice as it was used in the Stalinist USSR. "Homeland". "Regime change". "Weapons of mass destruction". "Homicide bombers". "Islamofascist/Islamist". Even goofy shit like "Freedom Fries", which didn't catch on except among the dippiest of dipshits. And so on. Name one time you heard any of these terms before 2002 or so. Yet now they're used like they've always existed and they're the natural and only thing to call whatever's being described. The manipulation was so successful that most people didn't even realize it was happening, but these terms were no accident.
posted by DecemberBoy at 3:40 PM on March 29, 2008 [5 favorites]
One of the ways nationalist governments control people is by manipulating language. By manipulating language, you can shape the way your citizens view the world on a very basic level. Orwell's "newspeak" was a commentary on this practice as it was used in the Stalinist USSR. "Homeland". "Regime change". "Weapons of mass destruction". "Homicide bombers". "Islamofascist/Islamist". Even goofy shit like "Freedom Fries", which didn't catch on except among the dippiest of dipshits. And so on. Name one time you heard any of these terms before 2002 or so. Yet now they're used like they've always existed and they're the natural and only thing to call whatever's being described. The manipulation was so successful that most people didn't even realize it was happening, but these terms were no accident.
posted by DecemberBoy at 3:40 PM on March 29, 2008 [5 favorites]
How about fear mongering majors?
That's how you get a job at The Fear Factory.
posted by homunculus at 4:08 PM on March 29, 2008
That's how you get a job at The Fear Factory.
posted by homunculus at 4:08 PM on March 29, 2008
Reading the comments above it appears that either there is no need to teach Emergency Management at university level, nor at college level at all. Is that because emergency management is just a technical skill to be taught at a vocational school, or is there just no need to teach it at all?
posted by X4ster at 4:10 PM on March 29, 2008
posted by X4ster at 4:10 PM on March 29, 2008
The manipulation was so successful that most people didn't even realize it was happening, but these terms were no accident.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:21 PM on March 29, 2008
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:21 PM on March 29, 2008
I disagree with the tone of a lot of these posts -- you seem to be responding to the headline of the story rather than the story itself.
I think there has always been a place in academia for things like emergency management -- in engineering subdiscplines as well as medical/epidemiology and public policy and business management.
Just because these things are being funded by DHS (and no, I'm no fan of theirs) doesn't mean that it's automatically some blackwater-esque uber-patriotism indoctrination degree.
Perhaps Katrina may have gone down a little better if the people at the technocrat levels of the local and state governments (FEMA was, and remains, a lost cause in this administration) had been required to have some more academic preparation for their jobs.
I fail to see the jingoism here, other than that which is implied in the headline and intro.
And yes, I consider diploma mills to be despicable, but there are plenty who get their bullshit "qualifications" in all sorts of subjects from them, so it's a bit of a straw man in this case as far as I'm concerned.
posted by chimaera at 4:28 PM on March 29, 2008
I think there has always been a place in academia for things like emergency management -- in engineering subdiscplines as well as medical/epidemiology and public policy and business management.
Just because these things are being funded by DHS (and no, I'm no fan of theirs) doesn't mean that it's automatically some blackwater-esque uber-patriotism indoctrination degree.
Perhaps Katrina may have gone down a little better if the people at the technocrat levels of the local and state governments (FEMA was, and remains, a lost cause in this administration) had been required to have some more academic preparation for their jobs.
I fail to see the jingoism here, other than that which is implied in the headline and intro.
And yes, I consider diploma mills to be despicable, but there are plenty who get their bullshit "qualifications" in all sorts of subjects from them, so it's a bit of a straw man in this case as far as I'm concerned.
posted by chimaera at 4:28 PM on March 29, 2008
Yeah, I'm not against the programs, per se, but I would interested in seeing what is being taught by them. I mean, if there is a big focus on terrorist attacks, which happen very rarely, it is a misallocation of time a resources. But somebody who actually knows how to handle an emergency needs to be in these positions. The fact that Harry Connick was able to get water to the people of New Orleans when the U.S. government couldn't doesn't speak to the competence of our crisis managers very well.
posted by Astro Zombie at 5:04 PM on March 29, 2008
posted by Astro Zombie at 5:04 PM on March 29, 2008
the article is really kind of thin.
I don't know, man; it's pretty well-padded for something that essentially just says, "Duh."
posted by Sys Rq at 5:13 PM on March 29, 2008
I don't know, man; it's pretty well-padded for something that essentially just says, "Duh."
posted by Sys Rq at 5:13 PM on March 29, 2008
box
Found the following institutions that have Masters programs in Emergency Management, not exactly the 'fake colleges' that you link to.
Benedictine University
California State University
Capella University
Eastern Michigan University
Florida State University
George Washington University
Georgia State University
Jacksonville State University
John Jay College, City University of New York
Louisiana State University
Metropolitan College of New York
North Dakota State University
Oklahoma State University
Saint Xavier University
Texas A&M University
University of Chicago
University of Colorado
University of Delaware
University of Nevada at Las Vegas
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of South Florida
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
University of Washington
Virginia Commonwealth University
posted by X4ster at 5:24 PM on March 29, 2008
Found the following institutions that have Masters programs in Emergency Management, not exactly the 'fake colleges' that you link to.
Benedictine University
California State University
Capella University
Eastern Michigan University
Florida State University
George Washington University
Georgia State University
Jacksonville State University
John Jay College, City University of New York
Louisiana State University
Metropolitan College of New York
North Dakota State University
Oklahoma State University
Saint Xavier University
Texas A&M University
University of Chicago
University of Colorado
University of Delaware
University of Nevada at Las Vegas
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of South Florida
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
University of Washington
Virginia Commonwealth University
posted by X4ster at 5:24 PM on March 29, 2008
Yes, X4ster, but the fake colleges link was nonetheless fascinating.
posted by limeonaire at 7:35 PM on March 29, 2008
posted by limeonaire at 7:35 PM on March 29, 2008
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posted by StrikeTheViol at 12:16 PM on March 29, 2008