Goodbye Rodblagojevich

Ow. The whole thing is so awful that I'm embarrassed, and I'm not even from Illinois.

Much better

The sky is bluer, the grass is greener, the air is autumnier. Everything is just much better now. As the election results were announced, I could hear screams of enthusiasm coming from campus. (I am still not sure whether as an ISU employee with restrictions on my freedom of speech I would be allowed to join them.)

Joseph has taken down the hundreds of Halloween decorations that he has drawn and is starting to replace them with happy Obamas.

Beware the button police

Illinois State University has expressly stated that employees are not allowed to wear or display any political materials. Also, we are not allowed to discuss political views. Also, faculty are not allowed to attend political rallies on campus. Also, we may not perform activities of a political nature during our lunch hour. Also, we are not allowed to identify our affiliation with ISU in any way if we do any political work on our own time.
The pièce de résistance is that this week we were all required to take our 30-minute computerized ethics quiz. And on this quiz, they asked the question: "Can employees support a local political candidate?" And apparently, the correct answer was "Yes." Perhaps I misunderstand what they mean by support. Maybe we may be emotionally supportive, so long as we don't tell anyone or do anything about it.
So, I secretly, and on my own time, offer my emotional support to the candidate of my choice.