NEWS YOU CAN USE: No, Harvard Students, Betsy DeVos Is Not a ‘White Supremacist:’ More school choice, and fewer Title IX kangaroo courts, would actually help black students.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Is there something about adjunct faculty members that makes them prone to outrageous political outbursts?

Adjunct teaching has been expanding for three reasons. First, it’s much cheaper for colleges and universities. Second, American graduate schools award an enormous number of Ph.D.s, even in disciplines where jobs are scarce. Graduates who can’t find tenure-track positions may take adjunct employment rather than give up on the academic dream. And third, for decades conservatives have railed against the institution of tenure, which they see as protecting ideologues. Their attacks have succeeded in weakening it.

But there’s reason to believe widespread reliance on adjunct faculty may encourage the very radicalism conservatives fear. Social scientists have found that when aspiring intellectuals face highly restricted employment opportunities, they often take refuge in extreme politics.

In the words of Eric Hoffer: “Nothing is so unsettling to a social order as the presence of a mass of scribes without suitable employment and an acknowledged status.”

Trump should address the situation.

BUT KEEP YOUR INNER HOWARD WALLOWITZ AT HOME:  3 geeky getaways to indulge your inner Sheldon Cooper.

JUST DON’T TRY TO PET THEM:   Man wakes up to adorable lynx kittens on his porch.

IN FACT, WHEN I WAS THERE, IT WAS OBVIOUS MUCH OF THE TOURISM WAS GASTRONOMIC:  In Portugal, uncorking some unexpected culinary delights.

PLAN NOT TO CHASE THE SQUIRREL:  A CEO with ADHD says these rules can make anyone more successful.

ALWAYS HAVE A SPOTTER:  Teen dies after being crushed lifting weights.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): As Mark Rippetoe would say, lifting weights is extremely safe, but bench pressing alone accounts for virtually all of the (few) deaths related to lifting, usually in a scenario just like this one.

WHAT COUNTS IS NOT THE CONTENTS OF THE WALLET, BUT THE CONTENTS OF THE CHARACTER:  Poverty: Temporary or Permanent?

REMEMBER THE INNOCENT:  #LasVegas Victims Identified.

POLITICAL TOURETTE’S:  Twitter Instantly Goes Ugly After #LasVegas, Trump Gives Somber Statement.

CARRION CROWS CAWING:  Sunday Night Horror in Las Vegas – Politicizing Tragedy.

ONCE MORE WITH FEELING:  They hate us, they really, really hate us.

AFTER ALL THEY MUST BE UNTERMENSCHEN AND DEGENERATES:  No sympathy for the Republican devils.

FAMILY ISSUES STATEMENT: Tom Petty, Heartbreakers frontman who sang ‘Breakdown,’ ‘Free Fallin” and other hits, dies at 66.

Reportedly found unconscious at his Malibu home on Sunday night, Petty was rushed to UCLA’s Santa Monica hospital in full cardiac arrest and died Monday at 66. For hours, multiple media outlets reported his death only to retract those reports; his death was confirmed Monday night by his family’s spokeswoman. A cause has not been announced.

The family’s spokeswoman, publicist Carla Sacks, released this statement Monday night: “On behalf of the Tom Petty family, we are devastated to announce the untimely death of of our father, husband, brother, leader and friend Tom Petty. He suffered cardiac arrest at his home in Malibu in the early hours of this morning and was taken to UCLA Medical Center but could not be revived. He died peacefully at 8:40 p.m. PT surrounded by family, his bandmates and friends.— Tony Dimitriades, longtime manager of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers on behalf of the family.”

Petty had just completed an extensive tour to mark the Heartbreakers’ 40th anniversary. It concluded Sept. 25 with a three-night homecoming stand that sold out at the Hollywood Bowl.

“It’s shocking, crushing news,” his longtime friend and collaborator Bob Dylan said. “I thought the world of Tom. He was great performer, full of the light, a friend, and I’ll never forget him.”

RIP — what an awful day of news.

“I SAW PEOPLE PLUGGING BULLET HOLES WITH THEIR FINGERS.”

So I already carry a Quik-Clot trauma pack in my car, but I wonder if we shouldn’t have those, and tourniquets, widely distributed. As we learned with the Boston Marathon bombing, in mass-casualty events getting bleeding under control fast is key, and responders are often overwhelmed. It’s fine to keep this stuff in your car, but at these big public events maybe the organizers need to have mass-casualty first-aid kits, not just the usual stuff for bloody noses and scraped knees. A sad sign of the times.

SARAH HOYT: THE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING AND THE ATTACK OF THE CARRION CROWS.

[T]he carrion crows viewing this as a chance to advance their agenda, should get down on their knees and beg whatever God they believe in to forgive them and turn them into real humans, with real human feelings.

And that’s not counting the people saying it’s okay because those people were likely Trump Voters.  Those people have willfully cut themselves from the human race and made themselves a species of hyena far more repulsive than real hyenas — who are after all only animals who can’t help their behavior.

Read the whole thing.

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GENERAL JACK D. RIPPER: “YOU SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO ME!” American Men: As Fertile as Dead Hamsters.

TENNESSEE MAN DIED shielding his wife from gunfire.

THE NEW YORK SUN: Aldean’s Army:

An apt metaphor. Their courage under fire will be talked about for years to come — even if we have so far witnessed on the internet only glimpses captured on cell phones. One is of one fan standing up and giving a rude gesture to the machine-gunner attacking the crowd. Others show individuals huddling protectively over injured friends, even while automatic weapon fire is still raining down on what used to be the concert.

These were Americans like Sonny Melton, a nurse from Tennessee quoted in USA Today. When the shooting started, his widow, Heather, a physician, said, “he grabbed me from behind and started running, when I felt him get shot in the back.” It killed him but not before he saved his Heather. One witness told NBC’s Today show that “you saw a lot of ex-military jumping into gear. I saw guys plugging bullet holes with their fingers.”

The witness saw “police officers standing up as targets, just trying to direct people to tell them where to go.” He added: “The amount of bravery I saw, words can’t describe what it was like.” It’s not as if there weren’t glimpses of bravery in earlier mass shootings. Rarely, though, have such attacks been made with fully automatic weapons (which are illegal in all states) and lasted 72 minutes.

That in itself is an astonishing span of terror — aimed at thousands of concert goers peaceably assembled for the most American of pastimes. No doubt in coming days we will start to learn more about the dark side of the story, the killer’s descent into whatever madness came over him. What a contrast to the thousands of ordinary Americans who, when fired upon, sprang to help one another and inspired their countrymen in a time of terror.

Related: Americans Under Fire:

At this hour local and national authorities are attempting to learn why a 64-year-old man named Stephen Paddock killed at least 58 people and wounded more than 500 in what is being called the deadliest shooting in U.S. history. While his motive for the massacre at a country music festival in Las Vegas on Sunday night remains a mystery, what’s clear is that amid the carnage and in its aftermath, Americans have been rising to the occasion.

This morning residents of Las Vegas assembled in hours-long lines to donate blood. Videos posted on social media and eyewitness accounts make clear that last night many of the concert attendees sought to help others escape the gunfire. . .

A witness described acts of heroism during the shooting and in the immediate aftermath in an interview with NBC: “It was everywhere. Thank God it was a country concert. You saw a lot of ex-military jumping into gear. I saw guys plugging bullet holes with their fingers. I saw police officers, while everyone else was crouching, police officers standing up as targets, just trying to direct people to tell them where to go. The amount of bravery I saw, words can’t describe what it was like.”

A slew of stories are emerging of people transporting people to hospitals using pickup trucks and personal vehicles. Civilians were offering them up with no reservations.

Look for the helpers. They’re always there. And ordinary Americans can be pretty extraordinary.

FUNDAMENTAL NOT-SO-CONSTANTS JUST DOESN’T HAVE THE SAME RING TO IT: Are the Fundamental Constants of the Universe Changing?

DAVID HARSANYI: When You Politicize Shootings You Make It Harder To Find Solutions: There are two kinds of social media reactions to horrifying events such as the Las Vegas shooting. One of them makes debate impossible.

DOES NOBODY USE CONDOMS ANYMORE? STD Rates Are At An All-Time High. But Why Are They Rising In the First Place?

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Puerto Rico has big problems, but President Trump isn’t one of them.