International Press Freedom Award Winners

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,…

Impact of GOP Convention on Colleges and Universities

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…

“Guns Make Us Safer” (with Certain Exceptions)

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…

We Have Been Too Quiet

BY AARON BARLOW What’s the point of having academic credentials if you can’t use them? Sure, we make them into bludgeons inside the ivory tower, but that’s really just child’s play: the bludgeons do all the real damage of balloons. Only when there is ‘real-world’ application can they have an impact, do they really mean…

Demand and Compromise at CUNY

BY HENRY REICHMAN Last month the Professional Staff Congress, a joint AAUP-AFT union representing faculty and staff at the City University of New York (CUNY), reached a tentative collective bargaining agreement with the CUNY administration after working six long years without a contract.  The union’s executive committee and delegate assembly have voted overwhelmingly in support…

Learning from Flint, Rick Snyder Style

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…

Tech Leaders’ Open Letter on Trump Candidacy

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH We are inventors, entrepreneurs, engineers, investors, researchers, and business leaders working in the technology sector. We are proud that American innovation is the envy of the world, a source of widely-shared prosperity, and a hallmark of our global leadership. We believe in an inclusive country that fosters opportunity, creativity and a…

The Earth as Art

BY MARTIN KICH Thousands of images taken by ASTER, the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer, are now available online. Many of the images look like works of art. Consider the following image of an alluvial fan in the semi-arid interior of China:  

Attacks on Academic Freedom Continue in Turkey

BY HANK REICHMAN UPDATE:  THIS PIECE WAS PUBLISHED SHORTLY BEFORE WORD BEGAN TO SPREAD OF A POSSIBLE MILITARY COUP IN TURKEY.  THE POTENTIAL IMPLICATIONS OF SUCH A COUP, SUCCESSFUL OR NOT, FOR THE DEVELOPMENTS DISCUSSED IN THIS POST ARE, OF COURSE, UNKNOWN AT THIS TIME. In March, AAUP President Rudy Fichtenbaum and I issued a…