POSTED BY MARTIN KICH In “Colleges Ask for a Share of Future Salary in Lieu of Loans, “ an article written for the Associated Press and published in the Washington Post, David Jordan reports that Norwich University in Montpelier, Vermont, has become the latest post-secondary institution to adopt this alternative way for students to finance…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH This item is from Labour Start, which reports on labor issues and supports worker activism internationally. The details on the workers’ hours and compensation are pretty shocking: In South Korea, workers at IT software giant Oracle have been on strike since 16 May after negotiations for a first collective bargaining agreement with the…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH In this series, I have highlighted headlines that are cleverly expressed, making use of puns, irony, figurative language, or unexpected word choices to grab a reader’s attention. Not surprisingly, the Trump administration has so unabashedly flouted all sorts of political conventions that headline writers have felt freer to write headlines that…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH The 13 July 2018 issue of University World News includes Maria Elena Hurtado’s article “Ten Universities Still Occupied in Fight to End Machismo”: The so-called ‘feminist wave’, started in mid-April, that took over by force 22 Chilean universities or faculties in demand for improved sexual harassment protocols, better conditions for female…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH In the online journal published by Still Point Spaces, Andrea Brady has written a lengthy, three-part personal essay on the “University as Anxiety Machine.” The essay should resonate with many academics in the U.S., as well as those in other nations. Here is the opening section: It was Welcome Week at…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Over the past decade, the Erdogan regime in Turkey has been targeting opposition groups, especially in the military, the judiciary, the news media, and academia. These attacks escalated dramatically after the attempted coup in July 2016. Despite the widespread repression, Erdogan managed only a relatively narrow victory in the most recent…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH In a June 28 article for the Associated Press, Eva Vergara has reported: After a long day of work, Sofia Brito fell asleep on a chair in an office at Chile’s Constitutional Court. She says she awoke abruptly to find her mentor, the court’s president, atop her and caressing her hair.…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH On July 18, the headline of the Los Angeles Times daily newsletter was “Trump’s Double-Negative Defense.” Trump’s explanation that the uproar over his press conference with Putin is much to do about nothing because he simply meant to say “wouldn’t” instead of “would” seems an attempt to reduce much broader issues…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Any resurgence of the American labor movement is going to have to focus on workers in the most exploited categories—from warehouse workers to misclassified “independent contractors” to adjunct faculty—whose numbers will continue to increase due to automation and the corporatization of the public sector. Under the headings “A Prime Day for…