Not only are American colleges and universities strangling the humanities, they are bankrupting an entire generation to do so. Another article by Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus in The Atlantic provides the latest on the college loan bubble, which is nearing one trillion dollars across the country, and the misplaced priorities of American universities: A […]

“More mush from the wimp” was the infamous (and accidental) Boston Globe headline over an article about a Jimmy Carter speech; it sums up Robert Kuttner’s feelings about President Obama in his latest at Politico.com.  Is Texas governor Rick Perry too right wing to be electable, Kuttner asks.  Not against Obama, he warns. Everyone should […]

It is the best of times and the worst of times in Brazil.  The country has so far survived the global economic upheaval in good shape; but Brazil is haunted by 200 years of promise that never quite panned out. Brazil’s disappointments are usually related to the interplay of two problems: the booms and busts […]

My Bard colleague David Nelson serves as the Jewish chaplain and from time to time shares thoughts and reflections with the faculty by email — a kind of in-house blog.  With his permission, I’m reposting his latest entry here.  It’s useful and interesting for what it says, and as a model of how a solid […]

Worried apparently that creditors will figure out ways to put claims on his foreign assets, and that Hermione Clinton and Barry “Don’t Call Me Hussein” Potter  might persuade the UN Security Council to tell the Ministry of Magic to sanction his hoard one of these days, Venezuela President Hugo Chavez is moving the gold out […]

As American colleges turn into overpriced and badly managed vocational and technical institutes, the ideal of a liberal education falls farther and farther from view.  On the “practical” side many colleges now offer majors in topics like business administration and recreation management.  Fair enough in its way, although this is an incredibly expensive and ineffective […]

Headline in the Wall Street Journal: “Sheen Emanated From BP Platform”That explains a lot, I suppose.  He clearly didn’t get here in the usual way.

In this time of revolution, crisis and market upheaval, at least one traditional building block in world politics seems to be emerging stronger than ever.This is the mysterious and perplexing “Anglosphere”, a group of countries where English is the first language of the majority of the population, political institutions and ideas are based in the […]

The bad news just keeps coming. Coming close on the recent revelation that economic growth is slowing faster than expected in France and Germany, British labor figures have disappointed forecasters and it seems that Greece is heading for yet another recession despite optimistic predictions to the contrary.A familiar pattern is emerging here. European leaders attempt to […]

Hamas has some interesting political ideas; it appears that it is only a bad thing to kill Palestinians and shell refugee camps when Jews do it.  When anti-Sunni Arab dictators shell peaceful Palestinians, that is perfectly OK.The breathtaking cynicism of the leadership of this terrorist organization is rarely so openly on display, but when the […]