North Carolina (my home state, though only in my heart today) has a government that brooks no opposition, one whose political leaders are themselves led by the exceedingly rich Art Pope (creator of the Civitas Institute and state Budget Director). Through this Institute, Pope (though not directly: he no longer runs the institute) tries to…
How ancestry defines identity and what it means to be American are two inextricably linked and fundamental questions for most Americans. By extension, they have become the focal concerns of many academics across a number of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. We think of those issues as especially pressing and complex for immigrants…
The ASA resolution denouncing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians has provoked a great deal of discussion. I think that it may be beneficial to delineate some of the conclusions that might be drawn from that discussion. Some of the discussion has been very beneficial because it is focusing attention in a much-needed way on the…
This is another item that I am re-posting from Futility Closet (www.futilitycloset.com). It is re-posted with the permission of Greg Ross, who maintains the site. You can have daily updates from the site delivered to your e-mail each morning. ______________ Several years after publishing Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson was abashed to discover that he had…
The first post in this series is available at: https://academeblog.org/2013/12/15/remarks-in-response-to-a-bond-traders-case-for-drastically-reducing-federal-debt-in-63-charts-part-1/ Here is an excerpt from that post to re-establish the context; you can skip to the end of the italicized part if you read and recall the initial post: Jeff Gundlach is the CEO of Doubleline Capital, a Los Angeles-based investment firm. He was previously…
Last year, Paul Broun, a congressman from Georgia, was the featured speaker at a Sportsman’s Banquet at a Baptist church. I’m not sure what the keynote speakers at those banquets usually talk about, but Broun used his time at the microphone to observe, infamously, that embryology, evolution, and the Big Bang Theory are “lies straight…
Merry Christmas, You’re Fired Two days before Christmas, all 20 employees of the Snarf’s Sub Shop at 600 West Chicago, in Chicago, received e-mails saying that their positions were being eliminated. According to the owners, the restaurant has persistently done considerably less business than projected, a complete overhaul of the menu and space has been…
Jamie Dimon is the oft-embattled CEO of J. P. Morgan Chase. The Dimon family’s 2013 Christmas card is a panoramic shot that has to be viewed in sections to be appreciated. At least one commentator has suggested that it looks like a Ralph Lauren advertisement: Not to be outdone, the Kardashian family has reportedly spent…