IKEA in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the world: double standards?

Everybody has by now seen the scandal that IKEA created by removing women from its catalog in Saudi Arabia. At home, things are very different, as my most viewed posting exemplifies. But the Swedish company IKEA didn't really apply Swedish (and, really, universal) standards of treating humans equally. They decided, for profit reasons obviously, that they should comply with the anachronistic, offensive, stupid, fascist, oppressive rule of a theocratic state, Saudi Arabia, namely, that women are second-rate beings (for religious reasons--don't forget) and remove them from their catalogs:

The question then is this: If we have democracy at home, and certain consequences of it, do we forget it when we go abroad in order to be "nice" to (or make profit in) a dictatorial theocratic regime?

Third-rate, second-rate and first-rate

A friend/colleague of mine has come up with the following wise saying:

The hallmark of a third-rate university is that they hire second-rate administrators with first-rate salary.

This came to my mind, recently, when I read this:

Hypocritical' principals get big pay rise

UNIVERSITY principals were accused of hypocrisy today after figures revealed they were given big pay increases while staff are facing redundancies.

The survey covering 2008-09 showed Professor Anton Muscatelli, the then principal of Heriot-Watt University, received the largest rise in Scotland – a 23.8 per cent increase from £168,000 in 2007-8 to £208,000 in 2008-9.

Professor Tim O'Shea at Edinburgh University took a 2.6 per cent cut but still received £223,000. Napier's Joan Stringer got a 7.9 per cent rise to £191,000. And Anthony Cohen at Queen Margaret had a 14 per cent rise to £171,000.

Mary Senior, of the University and College Union, said: "It is hypocritical to give themselves large rises while giving a ludicrous offer to the staff who do all the work."

A spokeswoman for Heriot-Watt said: "Principal Muscatelli joined on £160,000, a modest salary within the sector. By the start of 2008-9, he had implemented a visionary new strategic plan."

Physics vs Management

As I was flying back home, I spent a few hours at the Amsterdam airport. One of my favourite activities is to visit the business section of the bookshop and look at amusing titles such as "the path to leadership", "how to make money while sleeping", "management and zen", "the habits of the fifty five most successful people in Saudi Arabia", and so on. Last year I came across a book on finance (still in the business section) which contained a statement of the Black Scholes formula, followed by a programme in Excel. It is then when I realised that it is good I don't do financial mathematics.

The main point today of this comment is the following image, taken as Schiphol a few hours ago:

Imagine seeing these two books, in the same series, next to each other at the formative age of, say, fifteen. And suppose you had no hunch for science. You'd instantly think that management is as deep as physics or, at least, something that can be studied at the same level as physics. You go to university, you have a choice: Should I study this or that? You have forgotten you've seen these two covers, but it's embedded in you. You believe that there is a choice. And that it is, merely, a choice between equivalent subjects.

This is what the modern university is like. This is what our administrators promote. Science has become equivalent to making money for, hm... for what, really?