Michael Faia's Home Page: The Higher Learning, Satire, Applied
Mathematics, Sociological Theory, and Short Fiction
Right: Faia with new bride, best man standing mystified
Michael A. Faia
P. O. Box 3406
Bandera, TX 78003
phone (830) 796-4133
This site contains research and writings on higher education,
dumbing down, the Maple mathematical system,
mathematical sociology, sociological theory, functionalism,
system theory, chaos theory, along with excerpts from novels
and exercises in short fiction and satire.
Send all positive and/or negative feedback
to the following e-mail address:
Michael A. Faia
Right: Kava en route to the funeral of King Tupou IV, Tonga, Polynesia, 2006
Click
here for Soft-Eclectic Solutions,
homepage for
Social Science Software Services (S**4).
NB: Several items listed below may be missing temporarily,
while our cybercaverns are re-loaded.
New wall paintings. New bones. A nice little fire. Outta marshmallows.
Rise up reading! Extend your horizons!
The Character of our Content:
Satirical Inquiries into the Higher Learning (under excavation)
Examinations
Grades
Accumulation (credits, credits, credits, and "extra credit" ...)
Degrees
!
"And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine"
--Wordsworth
At first it's kinda fun, you're merely a heel called,
But soon you'll end up with your arse keel-hauled
Do not ever, God forbid, bite the hand that doth feed you,
But do not ever heed the hand that will smite you
It is said that El Niño your sins deftly bore:
May your sins bore El Niño, while levelling the score
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Chapter 1: The Measures of Academe: A Short Revisionist History
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Chapter 2: What Don’t Happen?; or,
Liberation Ichthyology:
An Ethnomethodological Inquiry (pdf version)
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Chapter 3: Iota, Convictions of the Middle Years; or,
The Mule of Academe that Engenders Nothing
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Chapter 4: Our Sacred Rights: A Parody
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Chapter 5: Suppose the Third Umpire Were the Poorest Student
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Chapter 6: The Dynamics of Dumbing Down: An Open Letter to the Quintessential Dean
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Glossary: Babbitts of the Heart
e-mail:
Michael A. Faia
The social structure of terror: Exercises in Ogburnian sociology
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Article #1: "Three Can Keep a Secret if Two Are Dead"
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Article #1: "Three Can Keep a Secret if Two Are Dead" (pdf version)
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Article #2: Wrong Millennium:
The New Orleans of the Mind (pdf version)
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Article #3: Clausewitz on War (pdf version)
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Article #3: Clausewitz on War
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Article #4: Proven Identities and Secret Words:
Preface to the Sociology of Modern Cryptography:
A *.ps File
e-mail:
Michael A. Faia
Long Bones: Maple, Applied Mathematics,
Mathematical Sociology, Sociological Theory
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A Trilogy on Social Theory, Book I: What's Wrong with the Social Sciences? (pdf version)
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A Trilogy on Social Theory, Book II: Quantitative Structuralism: Strategy and Tactics (pdf version)
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A Trilogy on Social Theory, Book III: RSVP to Sociology: An Exceptionally Rough Draft (pdf version)
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A Trilogy on Social Theory, Book IV (who's counting?):
System Theory, Simulation Experiments, ... (postscript version,
still rough)
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A Checkered Debate on Social Theory and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (pdf version)
e-mail:
Michael A. Faia
From Havilah to Mexico: A Small Collection of Exemplary Stories
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Mexican Convolutions (pdf version)
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The Name of the First is Pison: First Excerpt (pdf version)
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The Name of the First is Pison: Second Excerpt (pdf version)
System Theory Aborning: Scattered Bits and Bones Brought Together
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Article #1: Social Structures and Speeding Trucks
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Article #1: Social Structures and Speeding Trucks (pdf version)
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Article #2: A Less Than Harmonious Paradox
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Article #3: "Ready, Fire, Aim":
Social Systems and Rational Choice: A *.ps File
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Article #3: "Ready, Fire, Aim": Social Systems and Rational Choice
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Article #4: Differential Equation Modeling as a Source of Theoretical Insight:
Four Disparate Examples
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Article #4: Differential Equation Modeling as a Source of Theoretical Insight:
Four Disparate Examples (pdf version)
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Article #5: The Ubiquity of Chaos: A *.ps File
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Article #6: Durkheim Quantified:
A Systemic Interpretation of Sentiments and Social Control
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Article #7: Laying Off Bets along a Slippery-Slope Isoquant
Subject to Further Erosion
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Article #8: Lucy's Mighty Legs
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Article #9: The Politics of Abortion
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Article #10: Estimating the Homeless Population
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Article #11: Comparative Analysis
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Article #12: Determinants and Consequences of Nonmarital Fertility
e-mail:
Michael A. Faia
A Potpourri of pdf's
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Article #1: Three Sociological Traditions
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Article #2: The Vagaries of the Vignette World
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Article #3: The Myth of the Liberal Professor
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Article #4: Selection by Certification
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Article #5: Productivity Among Scientists
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Article #6: Dynamic Functionalism; a.k.a. Quantitative Structuralism: A Review
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Article #7: Cultural Materialism in the Functionalist Mode
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Article #8: Alienation, Structural Strain, and Political Deviancy
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Article #9: Secularization and Scholarship among American Professors
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Article #10: Sex Differentials in Academic Salaries
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Article #11: Will Unions Make Us Less Professional?
e-mail:
Michael A. Faia
Right: Founder Edward Lavulavu (left),
'Unuaki-'o-Tonga Royal University, Tongatapu, South Pacific
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The Mohole Room: Curriculum Vitae (pdf version)
RSA encryption keys (requires Maple; see Maple paper above for procedures):
exponent e: 875 647
modulus n: 217 907 630 327 773
086 086 068 586 827
935 783 128 237 202
809 066 189 254 436 27
The ballad of Lucy the Slender:
From "Ditties Didactic for Classroom Use"
"From the day we became bi-peds
We started to use our heads"--Lucy
(Sing to the melody of Gershwin, "It ain't necessarily so,"
complete choral rendition, from "Porgy and Bess")
You can't emphasize my cerveau
You can't emphasize my cerveau
You may think I'm funny
With brains like a bunny
But I worked with 'em from the word go
I want you to check out my thighs
How I stretched 'em while reachin' the skies
Found new ways to pee
'thout wetting my knee
And came up with a new exercise
Listen, ears are omni
Listen look and listen look and tally one, tally one
I'm the woman who turned things around
Thus raisin' my eyes from the ground
Kept my sights on my male
as he tried to set sail
an' no longer need call Lost and Found
Now famine, disease, and-a war
They bring us a life mighty poor
Having opened our eyes
and-a seen our demise
We're strugglin' against the Old Bore
Listen, ears are omni
Listen look and listen look and tally one, tally one
One day you'll be hearin' `bout Marx
And the overall signif'cance of quarks
I hope you can dig it
We ain't gonna rig it
Reality's much more than just sparks
You may think I'm funny
With brains like a bunny
I worked with `em from the word go
You may think I'm funny
With brains like a bunny
I worked with `em from the word go
So you can't emphasize my cerveau
You can't emphasize my cerveau
But I'm tellin' you, brother
Significant Other
There's lotsa stuff for us to know
I'm teachin' this lesson to show (all you folks)
You can't empha-
can't empha-
can't empha-
can't empha-
can't emphasize my cerveau
Left and below: Faia and colleagues
hit the sauce