Random bullets of good news from around the web

It's March now, so spring can't be far behind.  Can it? CAN IT?

Herewith some random bullets to elevate our collective spirits.

• Apparently the University of Maryland is considering better benefits, etc., for its non-tt faculty (behind subscription wall, sorry). 
• Some actual good advice about avoiding bad advice by David Perlmutter at CHE. 
• What we say about critical thinking skills is true: "The Employment Mismatch" says so.  In related news, however, "employers" also want freshly minted new B.A/B.S. grades to have experience and skills in walking on water; otherwise, employers gripe about "unprepared" workers. 
• Salon alerts us to mystifying "helpful" personal emails about bad links on web sites that turn out to be shilling for an online company, the "University of Spam."
• A certain press well-known to academics dropped its lawsuit against a McMaster University librarian who had questioned its overall publication methods and products.  
• February seems to be dream month. Based on a scientific survey that consisted of random stuff I happened to read on blogs last month, a lot of people were reporting their dreams.

In other news: I did not watch the Oscars last month, and we were part of the Nielsen survey for that time, so take that, Seth McFarlane! Seriously, all the magazine and blog coverage pretty much said it all. I am not a 13-year-old boy, and gross-out humor doesn't interest me much (sorry, Family Guy, South Park, Bridesmaids, and Judd Apatow, etc.), so I figured I'd skip it. Who knew the bonus would be avoiding a misogyny-fest?

Speaking of misogyny, someone ought to write about an interesting phenomenon: since "b---h" has lost its sting by being used for women so frequently in modern media, and various synonyms for female sex  workers have also become so common in the MSM, what used to be known as "the c-word" has made an incredible surge in use in the past 5 years or so as an obligatory checked-off item in the list for "edginess" in serious dramas like House of Cards.  I'm sure we all joyfully await the rise of the next misogynist slur once the c-word has lost its punch through overuse.