And by “we,” of course, I mean “me,” Historiann. (There is no we, unless you count my family member Miles who runs this blog and hosts it! Thanks again, Miles!)
This is just a little shout-out to all of you early American history, women’s history, Barbie, and cake fans (and the few, the proud John Adams haterz too) out there. And of course, all foes of bullies, everywhere–thank you for your words of encouragement and solidarity. Once again, I am humbled and saddend by the stories you tell in e-mails and comments on my posts on bullying in academia. And, I’m very encouraged by Rad Readr’s report that his dean is going to use the Chronicle article on academic bullying as the starting point of a conversation with department chairs about bullying.
As one of my intrepid correspondents wrote: bullying “turns what should be the best profession in the world into a weekly ordeal.” That’s exactly how I feel–how dare these bullies try to steal a profession that we love! So after dessert, let’s take back the playground.
Cake today provided by Cakewrecks.
Historiann 
We “love” you too, Historiann. We particularly “love” your image of a cake that places “read” within quotation marks. It seems particularly astute, and most definitely not “unnecessary.” It illustrates the transformation of literacy practices that occur daily in our Internet Age. The Internet is not making us stupid, it’s rewiring our brains, it’s changing the way we think, and that may be a good thing.
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Ortho–the quotation marks around random words thing is a joke at cakewrecks. One of the most common ways to wreck a cake is to use quotation marks indiscriminately. But, I’m “glad” that you find “meaning” in the practice otherwise!
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Thanks for the love, Historiann!
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Damn! I’d downloaded that same cake and was going to post it on “our” blog “eventually.” Ah well–guess you can’t “have” your cake and “post” it, too!
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Wait — Shouldn’t “we” report this “cake” and this “post” to this “blog”? — http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/
😉
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Roxie–there are lots of cakes at cakewrecks that suffer from, shall we say, eccentric punctuation–you could almost submit the whole site!
Sorry Rose–but it was a pretty tasty cake! There’s plenty left over for you to use. And KC–welcome home!
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