This is a follow-up to John K. Wilson’s Posts on Mitch Daniels’ misunderstanding of academic freedom. Mitch Daniels’ and the Purdue Board of Trustees’ public defenses of his intention as governor of Indiana to prohibit the use of Howard Zinn’s histories in Indiana public schools focus largely, again, on Zinn’s supposed deficiencies as a historian.…
Writing for U.S. News and World Report, Luke Mullins has compiled “The Real Estate Euphemism Pocket Translator.” Here is a sample of the entries: Cozy Home: Too small for your big-screen TV. East Access to Everywhere: Can mean backing up to an expressway. Finishing Touches Needed: Often means lighting, hardware, paint, wood trim, and carpet.…
Cultural Representations of Higher Ed, No. 6 I am working backwards through this list. Here are films 101 to 150. The rankings are my own and in most cases somewhat arbitrary. The descriptions of the films are paraphrases of summaries found in a half-dozen print and online film guides. I compiled the list about a…
Yes, the new alarm from the Far Right, the ideological core of the political party that can find much additional funding for corporate agriculture but is unable to find a justification for the cost of the food-stamp and school-lunch programs, is that America is coming perilously close to being unable to defend itself. Forget about…
Critics of our current political system have frequently complained about the “revolving door” through which former legislators and other government officials pass on their way to K Street—to earning riches as lobbyists. But there are some indications that another revolving door may be opening, to the presidential mansions on university campuses. Three U.S. presidents served…
Having some awareness of the concept and history of tragedy in the theater may be somewhat helpful, I think, in responding to an out-sized current event such as the George Zimmerman murder trial. Most people would assume that if the word “tragedy” were to be applied at all to this murder case, it would have…
In the non-stop, intensive media attention to the George Zimmerman murder trial, you may have missed another court decision, one with perhaps equally broad, if not as deadly, implications for ordinary Americans. The Iowa Supreme Court upheld a dentist’s decision to fire his dental hygienist because she was so attractive as to be “irresistible” and…
Cultural Representations of Higher Ed, No. 5 I am working backwards through this list. Here are films 151 to 200. The rankings are my own and in most cases somewhat arbitrary. The descriptions of the films are paraphrases of summaries found in a half-dozen print and online film guides. I compiled the list about a…
This is actually a follow-up to two of my previous posts, “The Deepening Caste System in Higher Education” and “The Business Model for Higher Education.” In the first of those two posts, I describe the sweet deal that Richard Herman, the former president of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, received after he was forced…
Shortly after I made yesterday’s post, I received an e-mail from the group trying to galvanize broader support for higher pay for workers at McDonald’s and other fast-food restaurants: http://lowpayisnotok.org/mcdonalds/?utm_campaign=LowPay&utm_medium=email&utm_source=McDonalds. At the center of the page is a link to a video at the McDonald’s corporate website, ostensibly provided as a service to their employees…