Jill Biden’s Doctorate Is Garbage Because Her Dissertation Is Garbage

You can tell someone is smarting from an inferiority complex when he insists on being addressed as “Dr.” on the basis of holding an academic doctorate rather than being a physician. Ph.D. holders who have genuine accomplishments don’t make you call them “Doctor,” which is why you never hear about “Dr. Paul Krugman” and “Dr. George Will.” None of the professors I knew at Yale, even the ones who were eminent in their fields, insisted on the title, and I think most of them would have scoffed if someone had addressed them as “Dr.” The only reason you ever hear the phrase “Dr. Henry Kissinger” is that Kissy grew up in title-mad, airs-and-graces Germany, where people are awed rather than dismissive even if you insist on a triple-serving title (“Herr Professor Doktor”).Insisting on being called “Doctor” when you don’t heal people is, among most holders of doctorates, seen as a gauche, silly, cringey ego trip. Consider “Dr.” Jill Biden, who doesn’t even hold a Ph.D. but rather a lesser Ed.D., something of a joke in the academic world. President-elect Joe Biden once explained that his wife sought the degree purely for status reasons: “She said, ‘I was so sick of the mail coming to Sen. and Mrs. Biden. I wanted to get mail addressed to Dr. and Sen. Biden.’ That’s the real reason she got her doctorate,” Joe Biden has said.Mrs. Biden wanted the credential for its own sake. As for its quality, well. She got it from the University of Delaware, whose ties to her husband, its most illustrious alumnus if you don’t count Joe Flacco, run so deep that it has a school of public policy named after him. That the University of Delaware would have rejected her 2006 dissertation as sloppy, poorly written, non-academic, and barely fit for a middle-school Social Studies classroom (all of which it is) when her husband had been representing its state in the U.S. Senate for more than three decades was about as likely as Tom Hagen telling Vito Corleone that his wife is a fat sow on payday. The only risk to the University of Delaware was that it might strain its collective wrist in its rush to rubber-stamp her doctoral paper. Mrs. Biden could have turned in a quarter-a**ed excuse for a magazine article written at the level of Simple English Wikipedia and been heartily congratulated by the university for her towering mastery. Which is exactly what happened.Jill Biden’s dissertation is not an addition to the sum total of human knowledge. It is not a demonstration of expertise in its specific topic or its broad field. It is a gasping, wheezing, frail little Disney forest creature that begs you to notice the effort it makes to be the thing it is imitating while failing so pathetically that any witnesses to its ineptitude must feel compelled, out of manners alone, to drag it to the nearest podium and give it a participation trophy. Which is more or less what an Ed.D. is. It’s a degree that only deeply unimpressive people feel confers the honorific of “Doctor.” People who are actually smart understand that being in possession of a credential is no proof of intelligence.My friends, I have read this document in its entirety and it is so equally lacking in rhetorical force, boldness of conception, and original research that it amounts to a triple null set, a vacuum inside a blank inside an abyss. If Ingmar Bergman were alive and hired to make a film about this paper, he would say, “I can’t do it, there’s so much emptiness even I cannot grasp it,” and it would sound so much worse in Swedish that suicide hotlines would have to hire extra staff. Gene Simmons has a better claim to be a Doctor of Love than Jill Biden to be a Doctor of Education; after all, Simmons has spent a lifetime demonstrating mastery of his field. As for Biden, she has spent a lot of time teaching remedial English to slow learners in community colleges. Which is like being a rock musician who’s in a bar band. That plays covers. At mixers. Held in assisted-living facilities. Mrs. Biden’s dissertation emits so much noxious methane the EPA should regulate it, Greta Thunberg should denounce it, and Hollywood celebrities should hold a telethon to draw awareness to its dangers.As Joe Biden has frankly noted, Mrs. Biden sought the Dr. honorific to rebuild her amour propre. Much of the press plays along, addressing Jill Biden as “Dr. Biden” even when actual medical doctors are referred to without the honorific if they are not currently practicing. Eminent pediatric neurosurgeon and HUD secretary Ben Carson is now “Mr. Carson” to the New York Times, but the same paper refers to Mrs. Biden as “Dr. Biden.” This practice appears to contradict the Times’ style guide, which explains that the “Dr.” title is used for non-physicians “only if it is germane to the holder’s primary current occupation (academic, for example, or laboratory research).”Mrs. Biden until recently taught English composition at NoVa, a small community college in Northern Virginia. To justify addressing her as “Dr.” would require a generous view of what constitutes an “academic,” and judging by the writing skills evinced by her students (“She very bad teacher and it is hard to pass class. I RECOMMEND NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR”), they emerged from her tutelage lacking mastery of even very basic grammar. As for the contents of the dissertation, which she cobbled together from a few secondary sources and some vapid interviews and questionnaires she sent around at the campus where she worked before her husband became vice president, Delaware Technical Community College, I’ll go over them in detail in my next column.

One of the most isolated spots on earth faces a massive COVID wave

Gaza has recorded just over 29,000 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began, but it is now averaging about 1,000 new cases a day, driving that total figure up rapidly. While many countries have been hit hard by COVID-19, Gaza’s problems are made worse by blockade, which has devastated the economy.

‘Big Sky’ Star Jade Pettyjohn on Fall Finale Cliffhanger: ‘On the Surface, It Seems Like We’re Safe’

(Warning: This post contains spoilers for the fall finale of ABC’s “Big Sky.”)David E. Kelley’s ABC thriller “Big Sky” brought the first half of its first season to a close Tuesday with Cassie (Kylie Bunbury) shooting Rick Legarski (John Carroll Lynch) in the head after coming to the recuse of the kidnapped Grace (Jade Pettyjohn), Danielle (Natalie Alyn Lind) and Jerrie (Jesse James Keitel).It was a shocking scene that probably has fans thinking the girls are finally safe from their captors and the buyer who was coming for them — but Pettyjohn told TheWrap you shouldn’t get too comfortable while waiting for the show to return at midseason.“That’s really what’s so exciting about the show is that nothing is really as it seems and you don’t know where they’re going to take it. So on the surface, it seems like we’re safe — but you never know where that’s going to go,” the “Big Sky” star said. “And that particular cliffhanger is such a shocking one and such an important one for the series because it drastically changes where our characters go.”Also Read: 15 New Fall TV Shows Ranked by Premiere Viewers, From 'Big Sky' to 'Nurses' (Photos)Based on the series of books by C.J. Box, “Big Sky” has been trying to keep the drama’s viewers on its toes since it debuted with an episode that saw main character Cody Hoyt (Ryan Phillippe) killed off in its final moments. Now that the show has been granted an additional six-episode order from ABC — bringing the total for Season 1 to 16 — Pettyjohn said you should expect more of the unexpected.“It goes back to David E. Kelley being such a brilliant force of nature as a writer and as a showrunner because the core of what ‘Big Sky’ is is uncovering secrets and mysteries and the thrill of not knowing what’s going to happen,” Pettyjohn said. “That’s what makes this particular TV show so exciting to watch. I feel like the stakes, of course, have been very high throughout the series so far, but Episode 5 is where the stakes are at an all-time high. You don’t know the state of these characters and it’s just on the brim.”She continued, “It all reaches a tipping point and I think that’s the serious point that the characters are living in because they have reached a level of trying to accept their fate, of what they think is going to happen, and then they don’t. They get found. But they don’t know what’s going to happen next because they don’t know who this woman is, you don’t know where the buyer is, if he’s going to show up.”Also Read: 'Big Sky' Gets 6 More Episodes From ABCThe “Little Fire Everywhere” alum said she was particularly proud of how her character, Grace, bonded with her sister, Danielle, in tonight’s fall finale, as the girls had no idea what was coming next and Danielle chose to finally stand up to Ronald (Brian Geraghty).“That’s really one of my favorite colors and moments throughout that particular episode,” Pettyjohn said. “Throughout the series you see Grace taking over and stepping up to the plate. She escapes and she runs away and she gets shot twice by Rick’s bow and arrow and she really is the epitome of a warrior. But she ends up not being able to make it, she comes back… And with the sisterhood that Natalie and I created, there’s been a divide between them, because they are so different. Grace is so analytical and Natalie’s character, Danielle, is so hotheaded. It was a really beautiful shift to see Danielle step up to the plate and really hold her own, which is something Grace has been doing. To see her sister evolve into that in order to protect Grace was a really beautiful moment. They’ve never been as close as they are in that particular episode.”“Big Sky” will return Jan. 26 at 10/9c on ABC.Read original story ‘Big Sky’ Star Jade Pettyjohn on Fall Finale Cliffhanger: ‘On the Surface, It Seems Like We’re Safe’ At TheWrap

Woman comes up with 'genius' way to get free shipping on every online order: 'This is sorcery'

This works on virtually any online website, and it's absolutely genius.

Betsy DeVos pleads with Education Department employees to ‘resist’ the Biden administration

Alberta's top doctor says new strain of COVID-19 identified in the U.K. may not be 'dramatically different'

Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, commented on the new variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 detected in the U.K., indicating that it may not be as significant some may assume.

Florida shuts down bay known nationally for its oysters

Because of a dwindling oyster population, a Florida agency voted unanimously Wednesday to shut down oyster harvesting in Apalachicola Bay through the end of 2025, dealing a blow to an area that historically produced 90% of the state’s oysters and 10% of the nation’s. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation commission did express the hope of reopening the bay before the ban on commercial and recreational harvesting ends if oysters recover sooner.