The Durham Herald-Sun must be short on story ideas, since a leading local story is that textbooks are overpriced:

UNC professor Hugon Karwowski is so exasperated with the state of textbook pricing these days that he no longer assigns a particular book for the 70 or so students in his introductory physics class.

Instead, he has told the students enrolling in his course this fall to go out in search of their own physics book. As long as it is at least 700 pages long and is a study of calculus-based physics, it’s fine with him.

“They can get one on the Internet for $20, or they can use the one their brother used five years ago,” Karwowski said. “If they’re so poor they can’t afford [it], I’ll give them a book.”

I’d say that the observation that too many books are lightly revised and republished in barely-altered form is probably accurate; I’m at a loss as to how the calculus or Newtonian physics would change enough to justify a new textbook edition every few years (at least for an introductory textbook). In other disciplines, though, things change enough to justify new books—students would be suspicious of an American government textbook that was last revised in 1998 or so, and political science in general has to keep pace with history. To note a couple of examples, I’d have a hard time selling the Midterm Loss theory today, while a book covering Bowers v. Hardwick in constitutional law without Lawrence v. Texas would seem downright quaint.

My general observation is that students will almost always get most of their money back out of a book (particularly if it’s used) if the same course is being taught again the next semester by the same professor (and if the self-same professor has put in his book order in time!). Unfortunately, at small colleges that doesn’t happen much outside the introductory survey course (if I’d stayed at Millsaps, there’s a good chance I’d have had 3 new courses to prep for 2005–06), and even at the bigger schools most professors don’t want to teach the same damn course over and over again.

So, if you’re a student, my advice would be to hang onto your books if you aren’t getting most of what you paid for them back. Alternatively, check into selling them at the Amazon.com Marketplace and cut out the bookstore middleman—it’s almost guaranteed that someone will be using the same books somewhere in America next semester.

From a faculty member’s perspective, I tend to think that the cheapest readable textbook you can use is probably the best; four-color graphics of the Electoral College may be nicer than grey-and-teal to the Virgin Mobile generation, but my observation is that most of the four-color jobs are either written for idiots who shouldn’t be in college in the first place (condescending to your students with your choice of textbook—which they may very well see before they see you—is probably not the way to get off on the right foot) or otherwise bear the mark of writing-by-committee. Give me Fiorina et al. or Kernell and Jacobson any day.

The latest revelations in the interminable Valerie Plame saga don’t seem to be making things any clearer, although Joe Gandelman tries to read the tea leaves and forsees political problems for the White House, even though the odds of Rove having committed a crime (at least by revealing Plame’s name) seem to be getting slim.

Meanwhile, it’s still All Plame, all the time over at JustOneMinute, if you can’t get enough of this excitement.

Robert Tagorda is deeply concerned about events surrounding embattled Philippine leader Gloria Macapagal Arroyo:

I find Arroyo’s actions utterly problematic, and they likely warrant removal. But, on a more fundamental level, I’m once again disturbed with the way that the entire country is handling the scandal. Mass demonstrations, military pronouncements, church declarations—every major step is being taken outside the realm of the constitution.

The Philippines have had a relatively turbulent history of extraconstitutional turnovers in power, as the Washington Post account makes clear:

So far, street demonstrations called by opposition parties have failed to draw crowds of the size that have toppled two Philippine presidents. Peaceful protests brought Aquino to power in 1986. A similar “People Power” movement hoisted Arroyo, then vice president, into the top spot four years ago to replace President Joseph Estrada, who was facing impeachment on graft charges.

While most unbiased observers would agree that the first “EDSA Revolution” that brought down the Marcos regime in 1986 was a legitimate response in the face of an authoritarian regime, two successive transfers of power outside the ordinary democratic process would not be good for building Philippine democracy—even if, as seems to be the case, the presidents being toppled are corrupt.