Reacting to news that “more than 120” professors at Tehran University have “collectively resigned in protest to the killings of students by suppressive forces,” Thoreau responds in a way quite familiar to many of us:

The important question for any postdoc (or any untenured professor at a school in a budget crisis, *cough*) is, with 120 faculty jobs empty, are they conducting searches?  How many letters of reference will they want?  To whom should application letters be addressed?  I am…I mean, my friend is flexible on start-up package and salary.

Having once been among 500 applicants for jobs at places as far-flung as University of the Wittwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa and Black Hills State University in Spearfish, South Dakota, I feel his pain.