A Few Non-Scientific Reflections on Stephen Hawking’s Final Paper

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Writing for Discover, Nathaniel Scharping seems to do a very creditable job explaining “What Stephen Hawking’s Final Paper Says (And Doesn’t Say).” I say “seems to” not because I have any reason whatsoever to question what he writes but because I know relatively little about even basic physics and next to…

Quotation of the Day

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH I was doing some research on Trump jokes on late-night talk shows on television, and I happened across this observation in an article published by HuffPost Entertainment in August 2017. It is the short final paragraph of “Stephen Colbert Just Earned His Biggest Ratings Win over Jimmy Fallon,” an article written…

SCOTUS Union Attack Rooted in Politics

BY JOHN McNAY The Supreme Court’s attack on the labor movement last week by the five Republican justices was an unjust act rooted entirely in politics and having nothing to do with the Constitution. It is a right-wing fantasy to suggest that everything public union members do is a political act. With the increasing corporate…

My Letter to the Chicago Tribune on Higher Ed

BY JOHN K. WILSON I have a letter to the editor in tomorrow’s Chicago Tribune, in response to a July 11 editorial by the Tribune which glorified the University of Illinois while urging lawmakers to exert more control over other colleges to force them to cut costs and programs. I wrote: The Tribune Editorial Board advises more…

Make American Idiot Great Again

BY HANK REICHMAN Today’s Washington Post carries an article reporting that protesters upset by President Trump’s upcoming visit to the United Kingdom have launched a campaign to play Green Day’s “American Idiot” so many times that, by the time Trump arrives, the song will be the No. 1 single in the UK.  According to the…

Joan Wallach Scott Urges Administrators to Stand by Targeted Faculty

POSTED BY KELLY HAND The AAUP continues to call attention to the targeted harassment of faculty, which has followed an increasingly familiar pattern since the 2016 election. Right-wing websites such as Campus Reform and the Professor Watchlist publicize, and frequently distort, statements or social media postings by faculty members whose perspectives on racism and other topics they…