Degrees (Fahrenheit)/Activity
60 ~ Californians put on sweaters (if they can find one).
50 ~ Miami residents turn on the heat.
45 ~ Vermont residents go to outdoor concerts.
40 ~ You can see your breath. Californians shiver uncontrollably. Minnesotans go swimming.
35 ~ Italian cars don’t start.
32 ~ Water freezes.
30 ~ You plan your vacation to Australia.
25 ~ Ohio water freezes. Californians weep pitiably. Minnesotans eat ice cream. Canadians go swimming.
20 ~ Politicians begin to talk about the homeless. New York City water freezes. Miami residents plan vacation further South.
15 ~ French cars don’t start. Cat insists on sleeping in your bed with you.
10 ~ You need jumper cables to get the car going.
05 ~ American cars don’t start.
00 ~ Alaskans put on T-shirts.
-10 ~ German cars don’t start. Eyes freeze shut when you blink.
-15 ~ You can cut your breath and use it to build an igloo. Arkansans stick tongue on metal objects. Miami residents cease to exist.
-20 ~ Cat insists on sleeping in pajamas with you. Politicians actually do something about the homeless. Minnesotans shovel snow off roof. Japanese cars don’t start.
-25 ~ Too cold to think. You need jumper cables to get the driver going.
-30 ~ You plan a two week hot bath. Swedish cars don’t start.
-40 ~ Californians disappear. Minnesotans button top button. Canadians put on sweaters. Your car helps you plan your trip South.
-50 ~ Congressional hot air freezes. Alaskans close the bathroom window.
-80 ~ Hell freezes over. Polar bears move South. Viking Fans order hot cocoa at
the game.
-90 ~ Lawyers put their hands in their own pockets.
California’s budget crisis has reduced the University of California to near-penury, claim its spokesmen. “Our campuses and the UC Office of the President already have cut to the bone,” the university system’s vice president for budget and capital resources warned earlier this month, in advance of this week’s meeting of the university’s regents.
Well, not exactly to the bone. Even as UC campuses jettison entire degree programs and lose faculty to competing universities, one fiefdom has remained virtually sacrosanct: the diversity machine.
Not only have diversity sinecures been protected from budget cuts, their numbers are actually growing. The University of California at San Diego, for example, is creating a new full-time “vice chancellor for equity, diversity, and inclusion.” This position would augment UC San Diego’s already massive diversity apparatus, which includes the Chancellor’s Diversity Office, the associate vice chancellor for faculty equity, the assistant vice chancellor for diversity, the faculty equity advisors, the graduate diversity coordinators, the staff diversity liaison, the undergraduate student diversity liaison, the graduate student diversity liaison, the chief diversity officer, the director of development for diversity initiatives, the Office of Academic Diversity and Equal Opportunity, the Committee on Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Issues, the Committee on the Status of Women, the Campus Council on Climate, Culture and Inclusion, the Diversity Council, and the directors of the Cross-Cultural Center, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center, and the Women’s Center.
