Non Sequiturs

Ongoing Harreld Hire Updates — 13

August 2, 2018 By Mark 23 Comments

I will continue to add updates about J. Bruce Harreld and his illegitimate presidency to this threaded post. If this post scrolls you will be able to find it by clicking the link in the sticky post at the top of the home page. You can also bookmark this post, or search for it using various keywords and phrases, such as Harreld, fraud, co-conspirator, or carpetbagging dilettante.

For previous posts about the Harreld hire, click the tag below.

01/18/19 — The 2020 Task Force Phase II Final Report.

01/05/19 — J. Bruce Harreld, China, and America’s National Security Interests.

01/02/19 — Fresh off Harreld’s obligatory appearance with the UI Football team in Tampa — not far from his multi-million-dollar vacation home in Jacksonville — I was not expected additional media availabilities until the start of the academic year. Silly me. Here’s Harreld giving an exceedingly conciliatory interview to Chinese media. Related concerns here.

12/29/18 — In Which J. Bruce Harreld Continues His Petty, Bratty, Vindictive Persecution of the UI Labor Center.

12/16/18 — A Slate of Updates About J. Bruce Harreld and the University of Iowa.

12/02/18 — The Secret to J. Bruce Harreld’s Entrepreneurial Success at the University of Iowa.

11/28/18 — The Daily Iowan’s Marissa Payne reported today on the deep political and financial connections of members of the Iowa Board of Regents, including particularly President Michael Richards. It is a straightforward accounting of how beholden Richards and a majority of the board are to the Republican party.

11/12/18 — Predictably, J. Bruce Harreld’s Entrepreneurial Insurgency Begins With a Lie.

11/03/18 — The Iowa Board of Regents and the 2018 Elections.

10/24/18 — J. Bruce Harreld at Three Years — Part 4: Stabbing the Faculty in the Back.

10/14/18 — J. Bruce Harreld at Three Years — Part 3: Putting Women at Risk of Sexual Abuse.

10/03/18 — J. Bruce Harreld at Three Years — Part 2: Iowa’s U.S. News Ranking Implosion.

09/24/18 — J. Bruce Harreld at Three Years — Part 1: The Children’s Hospital Construction Debacle. Updated 09/28/18.

09/05/18 — Harreld the Ogre Slashes and Burns the UI Labor Center — Part 6: Fighting the Good Fight.

08/26/18 — Harreld the Ogre Slashes and Burns the UI Labor Center — Part 5: The Leadership Lie.

08/19/18 — Harreld the Ogre Slashes and Burns the UI Labor Center — Part 4: The Motive Lie.

08/12/18 — Harreld the Ogre Slashes and Burns the UI Labor Center — Part 3: The Process Lie.

08/07/18 — Harreld the Ogre Slashes and Burns the UI Labor Center — Part 2: The Mission Lie.

08/02/18 — Harreld the Ogre Slashes and Burns the UI Labor Center — Part 1: The Funding Lie.

Ongoing Harreld Hire Updates — 12

February 10, 2018 By Mark 42 Comments

A new threaded post on this topic can be found here. For previous posts about the Harreld hire, click the tag below.

07/15/18 — J. Bruce Harreld and the UI Student Housing Market.

07/08/18 — A must-read report on the chaotic and reckless construction process of the new UI children’s hospital, from the Gazette’s Vanessa Miller.

07/05/18 — J. Bruce Harreld and the Mike Crow/ASU Playbook — Part 2.

07/02/18 — J. Bruce Harreld and the Mike Crow/ASU Playbook — Part 1.

06/18/18 — J. Bruce Harreld Tells (More) Lies to the Daily Iowan. Updated 06/20/18.

06/04/18 — Reassessing the Integrity and Credibility of the Iowa Board of Regents.

05/28/18 — J. Bruce Harreld and the UI Employment Practices Whitewash.

05/20/18 — The Bunker Mentality of J. Bruce Harreld – Now With Loaded Guns.

05/13/18 — J. Bruce Harreld Lawyers Up.

05/07/18 — About That “New” Budget Model at the University of Iowa.

05/01/18 — That didn’t take long. The Gazette’s Vanessa Miller reports that J. Bruce Harreld is killing off Iowa’s 70-year-old Institute of Public Affairs.

04/30/18 — Long-Simmering Problems at UI Healthcare are Coming to a Boil.

04/25/18 — Which UI Centers and Institutes Will Harreld the Ogre Slash and Burn? Updated.

04/19/18 — Larry McKibben Has Had Enough of ‘Casino’ Kim Reynolds.

04/17/18 — Updating the UI 2020 Academic Organizational Task Force.

04/15/18 — J. Bruce Harreld Turns on the University of Iowa.

04/08/18 — Tuition Hikes, Naming Rights, Textbook Taxes and More.

04/01/18 — Two Weeks Until Crunch Time: Taxes, Tuition and the 2020 Task Force.

03/25/18 — How State Legislatures and Governing Boards Prey on Higher-Ed Students. With particular attention paid to Iowa Representative Pat Grassley, R-New Hartford.

03/18/18 — J. Bruce Harreld at the Halfway Point. It’s all downhill from here.

03/04/18 — Part 7 of Designing the New American University: a Book Review in Context. What Mike Crow’s book is really about and who it is for.

03/01/18 — Part 6 of Designing the New American University: a Book Review in Context. Covers the period between publication in March of 2015 and today.

02/25/18 — Part 5 of Designing the New American University: a Book Review in Context. Covers the second half of chapter seven — p. 267-297 — and the conclusion. Updated 03/05/18.

02/22/18 — Part 4 of Designing the New American University: a Book Review in Context. Covers the first half of chapter seven — p. 240-267.

02/18/18 — Part 3 of Designing the New American University: a Book Review in Context. Covers chapters five and six.

02/16/18 — A few quick thoughts on the now-annual conjecture that UIHC might be privatized or partner with a commercial healthcare provider.

02/15/18 — Part 2 of Designing the New American University: a Book Review in Context. Covers chapters three and four.

02/11/18 — Part 1 of Designing the New American University: a Book Review in Context. Covers the preface, acknowledgements and introduction, and chapters one and two.

Ongoing Harreld Hire Updates — 11

September 3, 2017 By Mark 36 Comments

A new threaded post on this topic can be found here. For previous posts about the Harreld hire, click the tag below.

02/04/18 — Another One Bites the Dust: Administrative Turnover in the Time of Harreld.

01/28/18 — Iowa’s Rapidly Devolving Higher-Ed Budget Battle.

01/21/18 — Wendy Wintersteen Talks Tuition and Funding Cuts.

01/14/18 — Casino Kim’s FY19 Higher-Ed Budget Proposal.

12/29/17 — Jerre Stead’s Hostile Takeover of the University of Iowa.

12/21/17 — The Perfidious Administrative Priorities of Interim Provost Sue Curry.

12/15/17 — By Way of Thanks to the UI Faculty Senate.

12/03/17 — J. Bruce Harreld and the Proxy Provost.

11/30/17 — What the VPMA/CoM Search Tells Us About the CLAS Search at UI.

11/21/17 — Dismantling the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences — Phase I.

11/11/17 — A short note on Interim Provost Sue Curry’s Crusade to Destroy the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

10/29/17 — What the Wintersteen Hire Tells Us About J. Bruce Harreld.

10/20/17 — The Iowa State Presidential Search in Context.

10/16/17 — For all the right reasons, Art Cullen, editor of the Storm Lake Times, comes out hard against Wendy Wintersteen for president of Iowa State.

10/08/17 — The Conspiratorial Lies of Jerre Stead and J. Bruce Harreld.

09/28/17 — Updating the Iowa State Presidential Search.

09/24/17 — For Students at UNI, ISU and UI: the Tuition Task Force Explained.

09/17/17 — The Student Guide to the Iowa Tuition Task Force.

09/10/17 — A Defining Moment for the Iowa Board of Regents — Part 2.

09/03/17 — A Defining Moment for the Iowa Board of Regents — Part 1.

Ongoing Harreld Hire Updates — 10

April 12, 2017 By Mark 63 Comments

A new threaded post on this topic can be found here. For previous posts about the Harreld hire, click the tag below.

08/27/17 — J. Bruce Harreld and the UI Five-Year Tuition Proposal — Part 2.

08/21/17 — J. Bruce Harreld and the UI Five-Year Tuition Proposal — Part 1.

08/12/17 — The UNI and ISU Five-Year Tuition Proposals.

08/05/17 — The Iowa Board of Regents and the $91M Lie.

07/30/17 — Perusing the Tuition Task Force Reading Room.

07/27/17 — The Iowa Tuition Task Force is Exposed.

07/24/17 — Regent Larry McKibben, chair of the Iowa Tuition Task Force, has cancelled Thursday’s big meeting, and it will not be rescheduled. Reporting here, here and here.

07/23/17 — What the Iowa Tuition Task Force is Really About.

07/16/17 — What the Iowa Tuition Task Force is Not About.

07/03/17 — Reintroducing Steve McGuire to Reality.

06/25/17 — J. Bruce Harreld and the Tuition Task Farce — Part 4. Updated.

06/22/17 — J. Bruce Harreld and the Tuition Task Farce — Part 3.

06/18/17 — J. Bruce Harreld and the Tuition Task Farce — Part 2.

06/14/17 — J. Bruce Harreld and the Tuition Task Farce — Part 1.

06/04/17 — Today Tuition Hikes, Tomorrow a Task Force.

05/28/17 — Iowa Board of Regents President Mike Richards. Part 1. Part 2.

05/21/17 — J. Bruce Harreld and the UI Peer Group Tuition Lie: Part 2. (Part 1 was published on 05/17/17.)

05/19/17 — The University of Iowa has settled the case brought by Tracey Griesbaum, and reached a final agreement with Jane Meyer. UI press release here, which includes links to regents source docs. All moneys to be paid from Athletic Department funds.

05/17/17 — J. Bruce Harreld and the UI Peer Group Tuition Lie: Part 1.

05/03/17 — What Gary Barta Did to Jane Meyer. Updated 05/04/17.

04/27/17 — J. Bruce Harreld Makes His Move.

04/19/17 — The Riverside Recital Hall Remodel and the Levitt Center Lease.

04/12/17 — J. Bruce Harreld at Eighteen Months. Part 1. Part 2.

What a Russian Botnet Looks Like

February 15, 2017 By Mark 1 Comment

A year and a half ago or so, this WordPress-based website was hosted by a rapidly disintegrating shared-hosting platform that was the networking equivalent of a wide-open frontier town which had been hit by a virulent pathogen. The original site host I had signed with was almost immediately bought out by an internet slumlord, and in only a matter of weeks the promised protections, service and support went from adequate to abysmal. As such I had to become much more knowledgeable about protecting my site from everything from outages to intrusions, including automated attempts to break into the back-end/control panel. [ Read more ]

Ongoing Harreld Hire Updates — 9

November 13, 2016 By Mark 80 Comments

A new threaded post on this topic can be found here. For previous posts about the Harreld hire, click the tag below.

03/29/17 — The End of the End for ISU President Steven Leath.

03/19/17 — J. Bruce Harreld Sheds His Skin. Part 1. Part 2.

03/09/17 — Iowa State President Steven Leath and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. Part 1. Part 2.

02/27/17 — Waste and Delay at the Stead Family Children’s Hospital of Iowa.

2/18/17 — Unraveling the Mysteries of the ISU Flight Services Supplemental Cirrus Log.

02/12/17 — In Demonstrating His Superior Judgment J. Bruce Harreld Proves He Is a Fraud. Part 1. Part 2. Updated 02/14/17.

02/10/17 — Regents President Bruce Rastetter will not seek a second-six year term on the board. His current term ends April 30th. Initial reports here, here and here.

02/02/17 — Steven Leath’s Rochester Trip That Violated ISU Travel Policy and State Law. Part 1. Part 2.

01/23/17 — Catching Up on the Last Six Weeks of J. Bruce Harreld’s Lies, With Bonus Steven Leath. Part 1. Part 2.

01/15/17 — Steven and Janet Leath’s $6,800 King Air 350 Round Trip to N.C. on 07/03/14.

01/10/17 — An Apples-to-Apples Comparison of Student Interviews With Sally Mason and Steven Leath. Part 1. Part 2.

12/31/16 — Why the Iowa Board of Regents Cannot Fire ISU President Steven Leath. Part 1. Part 2.

12/24/16 — Why Did Both of Iowa State’s Airplanes Fly to Northeast Illinois on the Same March Dates?

12/22/16 — The Problem with Using ISU Pilot Joe Crandall to Justify the Cirrus Round Trip on 03/12/16.

12/20/16 — ISU Flight Services Billed $3K in Per-Mile Charges for Leath and Wife on Empty Plane.

12/17/16 — The Regents Audit Did Not Exonerate ISU President Steven Leath of Criminal Acts. Updated 12/17/16. Updated 12/18/16 [1]. Updated 12/18/16 [2].

12/15/16 — Bleeding Heartland posted a tour de force on the failings of the regents audit, and why law enforcement must investigate Steven Leath.

12/10/16 — Say It Ain’t So, Joe: The 2016 UNI Presidential Search in Context.

12/01/16 — Engines of Anxiety and J. Bruce Harreld: A Book Review in Context.

11/20/16 — The Missing Piece of Iowa’s Tuition and Student Debt Conversation.

11/13/16 — There is No Iowa Board of Regents.

Ongoing Harreld Hire Updates — 8

October 9, 2016 By Mark 107 Comments

A new threaded post on this topic can be found here. For previous posts about the Harreld hire, click the tag below.

11/10/16 — Iowa State President Steven Leath: Feudal Lord of Story County.

11/06/16 — ISU President Steven Leath: “I am open, honest and forthcoming.” (With bonus Harreld and UNI.)

11/01/16 — ISU President Steven Leath Is More Than a “Minor User” of the King Air 350.

10/30/16 — On Iowa State President Stephen Leath Having it Both Ways.

10/27/16 — Krapf vs. Iowa Board of Regents: Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss is DENIED.

10/25/16 — Steven Leath’s Use of the ISU King Air 350, Either Alone or With His Wife.

10/22/16 — An Unofficial Audit of the Iowa State Cirrus SR22 Flight Logs. Updated 10/23/16. Updated 10/24/16.

10/18/16 — Bruce Rastetter’s Serial Betrayals of the Iowa Board of Regents.

10/16/16 — Iowa State President Steven Leath: Honest Abe or Tricky Dick?

10/13/16 — The Middle of the End for ISU President Steven Leath — Part 2.

10/10/16 — The Middle of the End for ISU President Steven Leath — Part 1.

Ongoing Harreld Hire Updates — 7

August 30, 2016 By Mark 97 Comments

A new threaded post on this topic can be found here. For previous posts about the Harreld hire, click the tag below.

10/06/16 — The Real Legacy of University of Iowa Traitor Jean Robillard.

10/01/16 — Wrong Way Leath and the Microburst Lie. Updated.

09/27/16 — J. Bruce Harreld and the UI ‘Speak Out Iowa’ Campus Climate Survey.

09/23/16 — J. Bruce Harreld Injects His Poison into the UI Faculty Ranks.

09/20/16 — J. Bruce Harreld and the UI Office of the Ombudsperson.

09/17/16 — On 03/22/16 Regents President Bruce Rastetter Lied to the Des Moines Register.

09/14/16 — J. Bruce Harreld’s 20-Year-Old Failed and Fake Ranking Plan From Kentucky.

09/11/16 — J. Bruce Harreld Officially Welcomes His Excellency J. Bruce Harreld. Part 1. Part 2. Updated.

09/08/16 — It’s not just me. Bleeding Heartland chronicles a year of posts about the Harreld hire.

09/06/16 — On the Origins of J. Bruce Harreld’s U.S. News Ranking Obsession. Part 1. Part 2.

09/03/16 — Bruce Rastetter, Joe Murphy, and the Iowa Board of Regents’ Revolving Door.

08/30/16 — Your Most Important Right as a University of Northern Iowa Presidential Candidate.

Ongoing Harreld Hire Updates — 6

July 16, 2016 By Mark 107 Comments

A new threaded post on this topic can be found here. For previous posts about the Harreld hire, click the tag below.

08/28/16 — The Inevitable Damage to Come From J. Bruce Harreld’s Ranking Obsession.

08/26/16 — J. Bruce Harreld in Three Days: Confused, Compliant and Caustic.

08/23/16 — On Bruce Rastetter, Oversight, Politics, Business and Biofuels.

08/21/16 — The Moment When J. Bruce Harreld Sold Women Out and Went All-In on Gary Barta.

08/18/16 — Regents Appoint Abuser of UI Students, Faculty and Staff as Co-Chair of UNI Search.

08/15/16 — The Iowa Board of Regents Sics the Iowa AG on a Teacher the Board Abused.

08/14/16 — Iowa Regent Larry McKibben Tells a Lie Within a Lie Within a Lie.

08/12/16 — On Presidential Searches, Funding Splits and Regental Incoherence.

08/10/16 — Governor Terry Branstad Corrupted the Iowa Board of Regents.

08/08/16 — A Brief Administrative History of Bob Donley and Mark Braun. Updated.

08/06/16 — What You Don’t Know About 2016 UNI Presidential Search Firm AGB.

08/03/16 — Comparing the 2015 UI Presidential Search to the 2016 UNI Search (So Far). Updated.

07/31/16 — Bruce Rastetter and the Common Application Portal Scam.

07/26/16 — On the Iowa Board of Regents, Fairness and the UNI Search.

07/23/16 — J. Bruce Harreld and Big Data. Part 1. Part 2. Updated.

07/21/16 — The Iowa Board of Regents and the UNI Search Firm Search.

07/19/16 — The Iowa Board of Regents as Crony Political Machine.

07/17/16 — Ten Months of J. Bruce Harreld’s Mendacity in One UI Press Release.

Two Headlines 33 Minutes Apart

July 8, 2016 By Mark 2 Comments

The media race is once again on to distill mass murder into a motive that can then be analyzed, debated and profited from long past the burials to come. This is America in 2016, where a bloodbath in the streets is simply more riveting fodder for cable news.

Then again, take any country in which a third of the population would welcome a culture war, stock that country with an endless supply of firearms including military-grade weapons, add in toxic political voices at the highest levels of political discourse, and this is the inevitable result. What is happening all around us is not happening to America, it is America.

Two headlines from Google News, 33 minutes apart:

Official: 5 Soldiers Killed in Shooting in S Sudan Capital
New York Times – 10 minutes ago

Two Snipers Kill Five Officers, Wound Several Others At Dallas Protest
NPR – ‎43 minutes ago‎

America is at war. Many of the battles are individual skirmishes, many of the victims have been innocents. Yesterday, however, saw a tactical assault on law enforcement in a major city in the United States. Read those two headlines again.

For more context, read this. If you want a deeper understanding of why we are where we are, follow the link in that post and keep reading.

If you just want to keep yourself alive, recognize that for the time being every peace office in the United States is going to be on the edge of hysteria. That does not exonerate crimes committed by the police, but it does give bad cops even more of an excuse to kill, and good cops every incentive to shoot first if there’s any doubt.

Move slowly. Do what’s asked of you. Keep your hands in plain view.

— Mark Barrett