Student and Faculty Dress Codes

Although they have continued to provoke some controversy, school dress codes have become commonplace in primary and secondary schools. But at the college level, dress codes would seem very anachronistic. So, when I came across a small item that suggested that a student dress code had been proposed but not adopted at Purdue University, I…

America Re-Imagined, in Retrospect: Fifty Notable American Novels about the “West”: 33-35.

  L’Amour, Louis.  Bendigo Shafter.  New York: Dutton, 1978. Literary critics have generally disregarded Louis L’Amour as an author of very formulaic novels in a sub-literary genre.  Certainly, his prodigious output might suggest a more workmanlike than reflective approach to writing fiction.  For over three decades, L’Amour produced at least three novels each year, becoming…

If They Keep Repeating It, Then It Must Be True

Why are the Far Right criticisms of Progressives almost always retreads? (Much like their “new” proposals for promoting broadly shared prosperity and political inclusion, which have never seem to have been implemented quite purely or thoroughly enough to produce results even remotely close to those that have been promised—or so the repeated rationalization of their…

In the Absence of Satisfying Facts—or Any Facts at All

On January 29, this was the lead headline on the NBC Nightly News newsfeed: “Malaysia Airlines MH370 Declared an ‘Accident,’ Search for Survivors Ends.” On the surface, this headline is absurd in at least two very obvious ways. First, how can the loss of the plane be declared an “accident” when no one has located…

Neologisms from the "Blizzard of 2015"

Bombogenesis: a scientific term that the Weather Channel has popularized because it combines suggestions of the destructive power of heavy ordinance and associations with the Biblical story of the origins of life—that is, it suggests re-creation out of the maelstrom. Here is the explanation from the Weather Channel’s website: “Bombogenesis. The word sounds ominous, but…

The Gates Foundation Profiles American College Students

The following infographic was produced by designer Eleanor Lutz and journalist Linda Kennedy for the Gates Foundation. It has been publicized under the lead “If There Were Only 100 College Students in America,” but it basically presents percentages rounded to the closest integer. The sources of the statistics in each category are indicated on the…