A few years back a scholar noted that he'd been able to document Joseph Stalin's guilt for the  pretty much direct murders of some eight million people — and he, the scholar, had been attacked as an apologist for Stalin. The scholar noted… Read full post »

            Every year between 1966 and 2006, I taught Introductory College Composition, and twice during that period, The Great Wheel of Fashion turned and brought back into vogue "The Modes of Rhetoric," including the definition exercise.

    … Read full post »

     If as a teacher or in print I ever praised without warnings "lifelong learning," I apologize.

            Continuing to educate oneself throughout life is good. Learning truly useful new skills is good. But nowadays the… Read full post »

Bad boys, bad boys

Watcha gonna do?    

                  The United States will have trouble maintaining a counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy in Afghanistan in large part because our mainstream culture offers little respec… Read full post »

            California's Proposition 8 is working its way to the US Supreme Court, and the debate over gay marriage is going to heat up — which is interesting, given that gay marriage isn't a practical matter for many people. Especially in California, gay coup… Read full post »

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? 

We should expand on the old idea of "the Freudian slip": Sometimes our misunderstanding or total failure to understand can point toward matters of significance.

            One such misunderstanding wa/… Read full post »

I've got a question for you, a kind of thought experiment.

            How would you react to a large bumper sticker that read "SUPPORT OUR MISSION IN AFGHANISTAN (even if that means higher casualties)" — with a note that "'Casualties' mea/… Read full post »

The Kids Ain't Alright — But Neither Are They Impaired

    In a an excellent column titled "Raising minimum driving age is modest statement," John M. Crisp of Del Mar College and Scripps Howard News service notes that "The Safe Teen and Novice Driver Uniform Protection Act" now before the US Congress "would provide for a three-… Read full post »

Reference: "Who Will Save Lindsay Lohan?" By Bill O'Reilly for BillOReilly.com, Thursday, May 27, 2010

            It was compassionate — empathic, perhaps —  of Bill O'Reilly to express concern with Lindsay Lohan's drug use in hi/… Read full post »

  I have some questions to ask; they're "loaded," but not rhetorical.

            Why should this generation of Americans make sacrifices for future generations? Why should older people sacrifice for the young?

    … Read full post »

            In a column published in The Ventura County Star newspaper under the title "Turning the page on textbook selection process" (28 April: B9), Beverly Kelly argues vigorously for trusting teachers to teach and to make their classes interesting, especially f… Read full post »

            Hi, my name is Rich, and I'm a workaholic.

            (And now you say, "Hi, Rich!")

            Anyway, I'm a workaholic, and when I retired… Read full post »

   The signing in Prague of what the BBC calls "a landmark nuclear arms treaty" has occasioned a good deal of commentary, including comments on President Barack Obama's characterizing the treaty as a "step on a longer journey" toward nuclear disarmament .

    &nb… Read full post »

Context: Diane Rehm Show, News Hour 2 (International), Friday, 19 March 2010 (NPR)

        Diane Rehm commented that her show kept getting questions on drug legalization. One reason the question keeps recurring is that few pundits or politicians seriously addre… Read full post »

            When we teach America's young about the fall of the Russian Empire, Bolshevik style, we should dwell a bit on one small reason for that fall — and take away more than a bit of a warning.

          … Read full post »

    Rabbi Hillel taught, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow," and this very sensible teaching is becoming an immediate problem for me as we race, prematurely, into Political Season 2010.

    &nbs… Read full post »

            I became aware of the problem early in my teaching career, in 1967 or so. We were doing a standard definition exercise in a composition class, and a student was reading aloud her brief definition piece that began, "In the Unit… Read full post »

            In early February 2010, Scripps Howard News Service got out a fine group of stories by Thomas Hargrove et al. on highway safety. Our roads nowadays aren't as bad as they often have been, but the casualty-rate is bad, and the question is what to do… Read full post »

In an article under the title "Lifelong learning the key to success" in my local newspaper, a conservative commentator perkily recommends individual Americans' taking "responsibility for your future starting today" in a brave new America in which "The time of lifelong employment is over," and where t… Read full post »

            In June through August 1952 Galaxy Science Fiction published "Gravy Planet" by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth, to be re-published in novel form the next year as the satiric classic, The Space Merchants. In Space Merchants, Pohl and Kornbluth ask "What… Read full post »

            I have a story that can serve for a little allegory for a central problem with US health care. This is not a sad anecdote that will pull at your heartstrings, but an instructive story about a cat.

         &n… Read full post »

            If you've ever argued with a significant other over whether toilet seat lids belong up or down, or whether toilet paper should be mounted to deliver the sheets "over" or "under" — if you've ever gotten into a nasty little spat over bathroom trivia,… Read full post »