On "t*ts" and "teats"

     No doubt you’ve heard all about the Alan Simpson “tit” story:

Alan Simpson: Social Security Is 'A Milk Cow With 310 Million Tits' (HuffPost)

     Among others, NOW has called for Simpson to step down from that Commission. Then AARP piled on, calling his remark “offensive.”
     Now, don’t get me wrong. Ever since the Clarence Thomas hearings, I’ve considered Alan Simpson an asshole.
     But the reaction to his “milkcow” remark baffles me.
     I’m not referring to the proposition that his remark was used to convey. He’s against Social Security; I get it. So he’s a Republican. That’s objectionable, I guess, but nothing to squawk about.
     The big reaction seems more about his way of expressing the proposition—i.e., his use of the word “tits.”
     Simpson's from Wyoming and likes to express ideas in a folksy manner. I don’t especially care for folksy blather, but it isn’t intrinsically objectionable.
     So he went off the rails a little bit. Shoulda said “teats” but said “tits.”
     Teats, tits. –They’re practically the same word!
     My dictionary defines “teat” as follows:

a nipple of the mammary gland of a female mammal, from which the milk is sucked by the young.

     And “tit”:

a woman's breast or nipple (vulgar)

     But then my dictionary lists phrases with “tit” in it, including this one:

suck the hind tit  informal: receive less of something than others who are competing for it.

     OK, now correct me if I’m wrong, but the “tit” of “suck the hind tit” is in fact a teat. You don’t really have “hind tits” on a woman—not in my experience. This “hind tit” business is about cows, man. Not women.
     So sometimes “tits” means “teats."
     Thus, even though Simpson is an asshole, I’m gonna defend the guy with regard to this whole “tit” brouhaha.
     The correct response to Simpson’s remark is not: "You said 'tits'! My God!" No, it is this: “So, Al baby, what’s wrong with a cow havin’ all those tits—er, teats?”
     Nothin’.

Goofy "Kaplan" deal nixed

California Community Colleges End Controversial Deal With Kaplan U. (Chronicle of Higher Education)

     California's community-college system has canceled a controversial agreement that would have allowed students at some colleges to earn credit for discounted online courses at Kaplan University.
     The 112-campus community-college system is severely overcrowded, and officials saw the November agreement as a way to make it easier for students to get classes they need. For Kaplan, the agreement promised a boost of credibility and a ready pool of new students, who would be able to take certain online courses at a 42-percent discount.
     But at a time of intense scrutiny of for-profit colleges, the arrangement between the nation's largest public-college system and a prominent for-profit college drew complaints from faculty groups and others. Critics argued the system was endorsing Kaplan, and they said it could be difficult for students who transferred to the state's public universities to receive credit for Kaplan courses.
     The agreement was more an idea than reality: In nine months, few colleges, if any, had cleared Kaplan courses for students to take for credit under the deal. In a letter last week canceling the agreement, a community-college official said the community colleges had failed to secure agreements with California State University and the University of California to automatically accept the Kaplan courses.
. . .
     Some who had criticized the agreement cheered the decision to cancel it, saying that even at a discount, the Kaplan courses were a bad deal for students. Community-college courses in California cost $26 per credit hour, the lowest in the country, while Kaplan's discounted courses would have cost about $216 per credit hour.
     "It certainly is odd that a system that is so proud of its affordability and low fees would encourage students to pay $216 a credit," said Deborah Frankle Cochrane, program director at the Institute for College Access and Success.
     The agreement was a smart business move by Kaplan, said Scott Lay, president of the Community College League of California, a lobbying group for the community-college system. The company intended to use its discounted price for online courses as a loss leader to make students familiar with Kaplan, he said….

Special interests

Community Colleges Want Changes in Proposed 'Gainful Employment' Rule (Chronicle of Higher Education)

The American Association of Community Colleges is urging its members to weigh in on the Education Department's "gainful employment" proposal, warning that the draft rule could "negatively affect some certificate programs." In a letter sent to community-college leaders today, George R. Boggs, the association's president, acknowledged that the proposed rule—which would cut off federal aid to institutions whose students carry high debt-to-income ratios and have low loan-repayment rates—would have a "limited" impact on community colleges, but added: "Our goal in shaping these regulations is not just to ensure that community colleges remain eligible for federal aid, but also that clearing the bar will be simple and straightforward as possible." The letter suggests that colleges ask the department to clarify that the rule would not apply to one-year certificate programs that lead to associate degrees and to exempt from the rule programs in which fewer than 35 percent of students borrow federal loans, among other changes.

300 Million Downloads From iTunes U (Inside Higher Ed)

Apple released data on Tuesday demonstrating the dramatic growth of iTunes U. In three years of operations, downloads have topped 300 million. More than 800 colleges and universities have active sites, with more than 350,000 audio and video files posted.