Faculty at Western Carolina U Exert Singular Oversight on Koch Center
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Here are excerpts from two articles written by Becky Johnson for the Smoky Mountain News [http://www.smokymountainnews.com/], passed on to me by Connor Gibson of UnKoch My Campus: WCU Faculty Closely Monitoring $2 Million Koch Gift Faculty members have lauded administration for giving them a seat at the table. That wouldn’t happen…
Irony of the Day
BY MARTIN KICH An alternative title to this post might be “’Redefining The Takers.’” The New York Times has reported the possibility that Donald Trump may have avoided paying federal income taxes for more than two decades because of a $913,000,000 loss reported in 1995. In response to the story, Trump has asserted that he…
The Political Divide in the Perception of Higher Ed
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Here is a chart summarizing a recent Pew Research survey on how political ideology affects the perception of American institutions: The complete survey, including a link to a detailed breakdown of the results in PDF, can be found at: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/26/from-universities-to-churches-republicans-and-democrats-differ-in-views-of-major-institutions/ Education Dive has provided the following “highlights” of and “insights” about…
Irony of the Day
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH This short item was written by Andrew Kaczynski for BuzzFeed: “Guests at several of Republican nominee Donald Trump’s hotels woke up to a complimentary copy of USA Today’s blistering editorial that concluded Trump was “unfit” to be president. “The newspaper’s editorial board weighed in on the presidential race for the first time in…
Donald the One-Trick Pony
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH This is an excerpt from Dylan Matthews’ article for Vox, “Three Winners and Two Losers from the First Presidential Debate.” I think that it complements Kelly Wilz’s widely read post to this blog, “A Feminist’s Guide to Critiquing Hillary Clinton.” _________________________ Loser: Donald Trump Rough night. Drew Angerer/Getty Images Say what you…
Statistic of the Day
And NASCAR Drivers Aren’t Running Moonshine Any More
BY MARTIN KICH Here are the lead paragraphs in a photo-essay published by Business Insider: “College football met NASCAR in Tennessee on Saturday night when Tennessee played Virginia Tech in the “Battle at Bristol,” played at Bristol Motor Speedway. “The game set a college football attendance record with 156,990 fans in attendance. That shattered the…
Events in India and the Future of Organized Labor
BY MARTIN KICH In an article published by AlterNet, Vijay Prashad reports on the latest and most massive general strike that occurred in India in early September. Although the article has a Marxist slant that may make it seem more op-ed than news report, Prashad gets several things undeniably right: (1) the corporate media has…
Duke Supports NCAA’s Position on North Carolina Law
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Duke University has released the following statement on the NCAA’s decision to pull seven championship tournaments out of North Carolina in the 2016-2017 academic year: “We agree with the NCAA’s decision. Our position has been clear on this matter, which is that this legislation is discriminatory, troubling and embarrassing. We deplore…