Good morning board members,
 
This week has been excedingly difficult for the selection committee due to the absence of Mr. Wonderful's #1 Groupie  who is "on holiday" with eleven longhaired Pink Floyd fans in a chartresuse microbus. She has been unable to monitor all of the board's postings, but she did fax her perceptions of the ones she was able to read during brief stops at internet cafes. The selection committee thought that reproducing her fax would give the message board readers an "inside" view of the inner workings of the committe. Groupie #1's  perceptions, provided without the essential open and collective deliberations with the entire committee, follow:
 
Hi gang,
There certainly have been a lot of "perfectly great" postings this week and it's not anywhere near over. I picked out some of them that I like in the attached file. Maybe you all can print it out and then read my comments.
 
a) The first one by Invictus is good, especially the last 2 paragraphs.
 
b) And I really liked hearing from Greg Eells and reading his take on the Bower thing. I liked this post a lot.
 
c) I sometimes thing that Stephen Judd should get the award permanently and we should retire it. This one is a great post as usual. I especially like the last section that starts "This is bossism at its worst....." and continues to the end. Bravo. Stephen.
 
d) Truth's answer to DiscomBOB's question is excellent. I'm referring to the part of her post that she puts in quotes.
 
e) Emma's sentence "You are adjuncting at a 4th tier school but you are dealing with a 1st tier faculty,,,,,"  That was an uplifting and encouraging thing to say. I very much liked it.
 
f) What can I say about Cold Hard Factoid's post? Too bad that our nepotism rule prohibits consideration of any posting made by any member of the selection committee.
 
g) And to complete the circle, we're back to another posting from Invictus. His last couple of paragraphs are very good.
 
I'm sorry I'm leaving you in the lurch on this. I hope this early look of the contenders is a little bit of a help. Use it or ignore it; whatever works best for the selection committee.
 
Well, goodbye for now. Tonight my eleven longhaired friends and I are going to drive theirvold charteuse microbus over to the Malemute Saloon where the boys will be whooping it up. We heard that the kid who handles the music box will be hitting a jag-time tune and alternating between singing Bob Dylan ballads and reading Robert Service poetry of the Yukon. Maybe I'll get to meet that lady known as Lou. If the Malemute is an internet cafe, I'll email you from there tonight.
 
Ya'll keep warm,
 
Moonbeam
[aka #1 Groupie]
 
 
After due deliberation - open and collective -  the Mr. Wondeful selection committee is pleased to announce this week's recipients:
 
THIRD PLACE WINNER - Southern Mess:  "If USM were truly a business, these fools would have been handed their a** long ago. We are bleeding all our reputational capital, which determines ouf market value in the educational world. It hurts most the students of this institution who have graduated or will graduate. Their stock has dropped. Basically all that we are doing is selling off all our parts. There goes English. Music has been auctioned off. Half of business is gone to greener pastures. We are merging with mediocracy."
 
 
FIRST AND SECOND PLACE WINNERS - Mississippi Burning & Invictus (tie) whose  sobering poker-laden postings could have very well been composed while sitting at the card table in the back room of the Malamute:
 
Mississippi Burning: ".....the most egregious statistic in Mississippi higher education: this state has no "flagship" comprehensive state supported university in the first or second tier. We hold a pair of 3s, backed by two 4s. Not too awful for some bastardized game of poker (can I draw one more card?), but a brutal indictment of the state of higher education in Mississippi."
 
Invictus: "I hope the high rollers at IHL don't decide to toss back one (or both) of the 4s in hopes of getting a deuce, because the odds then are that they'll wind up holding aces backed with 8s."
 
 
On behalf of the entire Mr. Wonderful Organization: Contratulations to each of this week's recipients.