An interesting bit of trivia: While at Eton, Eric Blair (future pen name, George Orwell) “was briefly taught French by Aldous Huxley.” England’s a small place, isn’t it? That wasn’t Orwell and Huxley’s only exchange. Huxley wrote to Orwell on … Continue reading →
In the “Republicans fooling themselves” thread, commenter “expat” reminisces: I just saw a piece on Today about girls entering college who are spending thousands for classes about adjusting to college life, including how to get in to sororities. I got … Continue reading →
Jonathan Haidt is a writer and social psychologist who started out as a liberal. But along the way something unexpected happened: he actually read a book that featured the writings of leading conservative thinkers. Until then, Haidt: …had thought of … Continue reading →
[NOTE: This fond reminiscence was sparked by a comment on the Periodic Table thread.] The college I attended had a fairly rigorous set of science requirements for its liberal arts candidates: two (count em, two) year-long lab science sequences, or … Continue reading →
[NOTE: I came across this post from 2006 the other day and thought it could bear a recycling.] When I was in junior high there was a large poster of the Periodic Table of the Elements that hung in the … Continue reading →
Now that Reid has escalated the attacks on Romney for not releasing a decade of his past tax returns, the issue of Obama’s secrecy about his Columbia years has resurfaced. The cry is: “Want Mitt to release his tax returns? … Continue reading →
In a recent interview: …[Elizabeth] Warren repeatedly and adamantly proclaimed that the law schools at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania hired her as a professor because of her scholarship and teaching abilities, not to improve diversity on their … Continue reading →
So all right already—Obama was a stoner in high school. Didn’t we already know that? And although the photos are rather interesting in a retro-70s way, do we really care? Not all that much, although it certainly tells us some … Continue reading →
I can’t get quite as worked up about the Elizabeth Warren Cherokee flap as so many others have. That’s because I decided long ago (even before my political “change”) that however well-intentioned affirmative action may have originally been, it’s a … Continue reading →
This. But my question is: why would anyone be surprised? Hasn’t it always been obvious that reverse discrimination is an inevitable effect of the whole affirmative action enterprise? And I’m not at all sure it matters anymore whether affirmative action … Continue reading →
…but Russ Smith sure is. In an article entitled, “Is Barack Obama Dumb?” he writes [emphasis mine]: There are [the] usual caveats: Of course Obama isn’t illiterate or Bush-dumb because as Jesse Louis Jackson once said, “God doesn’t make junk,” … Continue reading →
Cornel West has long been known to be a loose cannon, but this is pretty vile, even for him: Cornel West, a Princeton University professor and leading black intellectual, is harshly criticizing President Obama, a candidate he once supported but … Continue reading →