I recently watched an episode of "The Simpsons" that reminded me of the show's linguistic sophistication.

Sideshow Bob, imprisoned for crime, is at his parole hearing, and is questioned about his crazed homicidal hatred of Bart Simpson. The dialogue (recollected) proceeds,

Lawyer: "Robert, if you were released, would you pose any threat to one Bart Simpson?"
"Bart Simpson? The spirited little scamp who twice foiled my evil schemes and sent me to this dank, urine-soaked hellhole?"
"We object to the term 'urine-soaked hellhole' when you could have said pee pee soaked heckhole."
"Cheerfully withdrawn."
"What about that tattoo on your chest. Doesn't it say, 'Die Bart, die'?"
"No! [bares his chest]. That's German for 'The Bart, the'."
Courtroom spectator: "No one who speaks German could be an evil man."

Once out on paroled, Sideshow Bob promptly captures Bart with murderous intent. Being a gentleman, he grants Bart a last request. Bart stalls for time. He requests as a final entertainment that Bob sing the entire libretto of H.M.S. Pinafore! Bob is proud of both his culture and his singing voice, and is far vain to resist. And thanks to the delay, Bart is of course rescued in the proverbial nick of time.

[I grieve to state that Sideshow Bob mangles one of the lyrics. He sings, "For he himself has said it, and it's clearly to his credit, that he is an Englishman." The word 'clearly' should be 'greatly'.]

Can anyone hazard a guess why the premier G&S website is hosted by the Math Dept. of a state university in Idaho?

Here is it.

There's an article (albeit a rather old [1997] one) at http://www.westga.edu/~bquest/1997/internet.html that asks the same question. "It just so happens that a G & S afficianado is an associate professor in Boise State's Math Department, and he has obviously been instrumental in the hosting of the site there." and "... Only Alex Feldman is at Boise State. He is listed as an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science whose professional interests include theory of computation and recursion theory. From the web site, the identity of Jim Farron could not be determined."

Jim Farron has since died and there's a tribute to him here, but it doesn't say if he had any connection with the university.

This 1998 NY Times article is interesting, but doesn't address the "Why Boise?" question.