Normally, we'd avoid talking about anything that happens in academia because the pettiness of Ivory Tower politics depresses us. (And whoever said the stakes were small was understating the facts. They're microscopic.) On the upside, it makes the commercial media industry look good and right and smart and interesting—by comparison.

But sometimes it's unavoidable. Like today.

According to CampusJ, a Yeshiva University professor "started class yesterday by saying that his classes would be 'off the record.'" Not that this hasn't happened before. (Al Gore. Columbia. 2000.)

We're going to save any other professor or public figure who tries this the trouble: if you're talking to a room full of people that includes journalists and/or bloggers and you tell them it's off the record, that's the surest way to get them to write about it—and you. (Are you listening, Dan Bartlett? Steve Rattner?...) In that situation, there is no off the record.