BY MARTIN KICH In an article published by Smithsonian Magazine, Megan Gambino interviews data journalist Ben Blatt on his recent efforts to apply data analysis to literary works. Here are the opening paragraphs of Gambino’s article, which frame the interview: In most college-level literature courses, you find students dissecting small portions of literary classics: Shakespeare’s…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH In an article published by AlterNet, Alex Kotch reports on the material released by UnKoch My Campus showing how the intensifying calls to protect free speech on campus are being used as a cover for suppressing progressive dissent and protest on campus—covering some of the same points that I highlighted in…
BY MARTIN KICH In a recent Curbed newsletter, I came across an item titled “Three Gilded Age Berkshire Retreats for Sale Right Now.” The author of the article, Robert Khederian, notes that as a summer destination for the very affluent of the “Gilded Age,” the Berkshires never quite had the cache of Newport, Rhode Island,…
BY MARTIN KICH The Wall Street Journal, of all places, has posted a video showing how little the Department of Defense can purchase if all of the federal funding for arts programs is eliminated, as President Trump has proposed. The video is illuminating and suggests a great deal not only about our national priorities but…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH On its website, PEN America has published an item on writers and artists detained and interrogated as a result of the Trump administration’s travel ban. The article includes the following anecdotes, the second of which involves a distinguished historian invited to speak at Texas A&M University: “The bestselling children’s book author Mem Fox,…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH This is the latest report from UnKoch My Campus. Although it does not entirely align with other recent discussions of this topic posted to this blog, I think that it contributes some new elements and details to that discussion: In the past month, state lawmakers across the country coordinated an…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Some links to resources of possible interest: Women’s History Month; National Women’s History Project; New York Times Learning Network: Celebrate Women’s History Month; Smithsonian Education: Women’s History Teaching Resources; Science NetLinks: Women’s History Month; National Education Association: Women’s History Month in the Classroom;
BY MARTIN KICH Here is another item to put in the folder of false assertions about how Federal tax policy screws the wealthy and exists to provide giveaways to the impoverished. In reporting on an Issue Brief produced by the Pew Research Center, the Hechinger Report highlights the widening gap between the value of Federal…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Here are some excerpts from a scathing article in Roll Call on the Senate’s silencing of Elizabeth Warren. Written by Mary C. Curtis, the article is titled “GOP Seeks a Safe Space from the Words of Coretta Scott King,” highlighting the hypocrisy in the Far right’s absolute disdain for the creation…
BY MARTIN KICH Each week The Hill distributes a newsletter called Sunday Show Wrap-Up. Ahead of this week’s shows, I think that it is instructive to review the headlines and summaries from last week, collectively gathered under the heading “Spotlight Shines on Trump Travel Ban.” Please skim the list, which sets up some extended commentary…