BY MARTIN KICH Today, Donald Trump spoke in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and promised to restore the jobs of coal miners. I grew up in Scranton, and he might just as well have promised to restore the jobs of telegraph operators or those in typewriter factories. The population of Scranton peaked at more than 140,000 in 1930.…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH On the Costs of Intercollegiate Athletics This is an excerpt of an e-mail sent to the CFO of our university by Rudy Fichtenbaum, who, in addition to serving as the President of the national AAUP, is employed an adviser to the Executive committee of our AAUP chapter at Wright State: “When…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH This is a press release for the Colorado ACLU: Adams State University has agreed to rescind a “No Trespass Order” banning Danny Ledonne, a former professor who publicly criticized administration practices, from its Alamosa, CO campus and to pay $100,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Colorado based…
BY MARTIN KICH The media has become overly fond, I think, of describing this presidential election as a choice between two unappealing candidates. To be clear, I don’t think that the media is incorrect in making this assessment, but I do think that it is incorrect in suggesting that this election stands as a historical…
BY MARTIN KICH Even before the convention began, more than 100 women posed nude for an “art installation” called “Everything She Says Means Everything.” Here is how an Esquire story on this protest opened: “As the sun rises Sunday morning over the Quicken Loans Arena in downtown Cleveland, 100 women stand completely nude, holding large,…
BY MARTIN KICH In Trump world, there are no coincidences. To cite just one of the more recent egregious examples of this phenomenon, Trump suggested that if Ted Cruz’s father bore a close resemblance to someone in the background of a photo of Lee Harvey Oswald, then Ted Cruz’s father may have been involved in…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH This is a press release from the Committee to Protect Journalists. I have added the photos of the journalists. _________________________ New York, July 18, 2016—The Committee to Protect Journalists will honor journalists from Egypt, India, Turkey, and El Salvador with its2016 International Press Freedom Awards. The journalists have faced threats, legal action,…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Writing for Crain’s Cleveland Business, Rachel Abbey McCafferty reports on how Cleveland’s colleges and universities are being impacted by the Republican National Convention: “Cleveland State University’s second summer session is getting underway on Monday, July 18 — the first day of the convention. With the parking restrictions and road closures in the…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH The following is an excerpt from CNN’s Politics Nightcap daily newsletter: “RNC kick-off: Police union asks for ‘open carry’ suspension “The head of Cleveland’s largest police union is calling on Ohio Gov. John Kasich to temporarily restrict the state’s open carry gun laws during this week’s Republican National Convention after Sunday’s shooting in Louisiana that killed three officers…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH The editors at the Detroit Free Press have published an editorial titled “Like a Sick Joke.” Here are the opening paragraphs: “In the wake of the Flint water crisis, amid profound concerns over an aging oil pipeline under the Great Lakes, with an ongoing, urgent need to decrease pollution and improve air quality and…