Requiem for 2009
It was a rotten year, politically speaking. It didn’t start out so badly; I was not unhappy about Obama’s election. The Republicans had abandoned all …
Homegrown Lessons
I live in a leafy, ravined residential section of Raleigh, North Carolina. Our neighborhood, a couple of miles from downtown and close to a major …
Outspoken
When I first joined the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, I was puzzled by my fellow reformers’ positions on free speech at universities. On …
Generous Assessment
The flamboyant professor Ward Churchill, who taught at the University of Colorado at Boulder until he was fired in 2007, was the victor on April …
Reflections in a Time of War
No, I’m not responsible for this terrible war. I don’t study foreign affaIrS, I don’t write about foreign affairs, and I didn’t recommend that we …
Triangulating Sprawl
Moving from a small town in Montana to Raleigh, N.C., evoked some predictable reactions in me, such as shock at the traffic congestion and amazement …
The Deflationary Menace
Forgive me for furtively grinning when I learned that the people of Mexico (still considered a third-world country) spend more money per year on books …
Preemptive Liberation
It may sound sexist but, as most people know, women drivers are laggards when it comes to starting their cars. A male driver will be …
An Industry in Search of Robber Barons
The Commission on the Future of Higher Education, appointed by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, issued a draft report in June that comes down pretty …
Freedom to Speak
The name is quaint, the materials are lowbrow, the technology is simple, the venue is plebeian. But Toastmasters embodies the time-honored American traditions of voluntary …