Comments on: Bovine terrorism is a bomb in a bull.

Bovine terrorism is a bomb in a bull.

Afroblanco — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:02:29 -0800

Slate asks, "What's behind the boom in homeland-security and emergency-management majors?"

By: StrikeTheViol

StrikeTheViol — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:16:36 -0800

Cool discussion topic, but the article is really kind of thin.

By: DecemberBoy

DecemberBoy — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:23:30 -0800

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.

By: DecemberBoy

DecemberBoy — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:27:41 -0800

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.

By: Emperor SnooKloze

Emperor SnooKloze — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:34:41 -0800

Slate shoulda just asked me. Fear + continuing breakneck pace of commoditization of higher education = homeland security majors

By: schyler523

schyler523 — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:47:08 -0800

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?

By: box

box — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:54:20 -0800

Yeah, but a lot of those homeland-security and emergency-management majors come from fake colleges.

By: schyler523

schyler523 — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 13:06:38 -0800

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.

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 13:13:47 -0800

That's a coincidence, I'm working on my PhD concerning the impurification of all of our precious bodily fluids at this very second...

By: acb

acb — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 13:27:18 -0800

During the 1990s, we lived in the Long Boom. Now it's the Long Siege.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 13:59:08 -0800

Don't enter the program, the student loan payments are torture...

By: Postroad

Postroad — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:01:37 -0800

Lots of govt money available. Soon, though, the work will be outsourced to China

By: slimepuppy

slimepuppy — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:25:37 -0800

Is the Homeland secure? Choose one. A) Yes. B) No.

By: slimepuppy

slimepuppy — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:34:11 -0800

And, I guess, C) Orange.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:47:14 -0800

Color-Coded Threat Level System In New Colors for Spring!

By: etaoin

etaoin — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 15:20:33 -0800

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.

By: Hobgoblin

Hobgoblin — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 15:22:51 -0800

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.

By: ornate insect

ornate insect — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 15:24:30 -0800

How about fear mongering majors?

By: tkchrist

tkchrist — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 15:35:22 -0800

The new SS will have college degrees!

By: DecemberBoy

DecemberBoy — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 15:40:31 -0800

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.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 16:08:50 -0800

How about fear mongering majors? That's how you get a job at The Fear Factory.

By: X4ster

X4ster — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 16:10:42 -0800

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?

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 16:21:14 -0800

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

By: brandz

brandz — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 16:24:42 -0800

well, they all failed katrina 101.

By: chimaera

chimaera — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 16:28:30 -0800

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.

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 17:04:29 -0800

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.

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 17:13:40 -0800

the article is really kind of thin. I don't know, man; it's pretty well-padded for something that essentially just says, "Duh."

By: X4ster

X4ster — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 17:24:52 -0800

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

By: limeonaire

limeonaire — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 19:35:49 -0800

Yes, X4ster, but the fake colleges link was nonetheless fascinating.