In my post the other day on European universities, I mentioned that Students are also expected to plunge into their major requirements immediately. It’s assumed that your high school coursework has been of sufficient rigor that you don’t need a set of “general education” courses in composition, the humanities, and the sciences — you’re assumed to have learned that already. In fact, as a result of the Bologna Process, a set of agreements among European countries to standardize their degrees... Read more

Do you call people by their last name — friends, co-workers, neighbors?  As in, “Hey, McDonald, what are you up to this afternoon?” Just curious — whether it’s regional, or generational, or class, or the like. What’s your experience? Read more

The context:  the Obama administration is in the process of determining an updated salary threshold for overtime-exempt status, per, among other sources, Politico (look at the Pinocchio photo). Advocates are treating this as a pay hike, pure and simple, per the headline:  “Barack Obama poised to hike wages for millions,” that is, affected workers will receive overtime where they hadn’t before, as an unalloyed gain.  Opponents are building up stories of jobs lost, or reductions to part-time — though, for a... Read more

Here’s your flaky PC complaint for the day:  “‘you guys’ is sexist because it excludes women.”  (From Vox, with commentary and comments at Althouse.) The author’s suggested replacements: Friends Folks Everyone Colleagues Gang Team Y’all Guys and girls Yes, this is silly. You know what, to me, the most common instance of “you guys” is? “Hi, I’m Mike.  I’ll be your server.  How are you guys tonight?  Can I get you guys something to eat while you look at the... Read more

Yes, that’s the way people are tossing around this story, about a woman, Rachel Dolezal, not just white but blonde, who dyed and permed her hair and has been, for the better part of a decade at least, claiming to be black, reporting hate crimes (presumably hoaxes), teaching Africana Studies from the perspective of being one of “the group”, etc.  “If transgenderism means that you can claim to be a woman because you feel like one, then transracialism must be... Read more

Here’s an interesting piece of news, from Kaiser back in May but reprinted in the Chicago Tribune this morning: Hospital prices have risen nearly three times as much as overall inflation since Ronald Reagan was president. Health payers have tried HMOs, accountable care organizations and other innovations to control them, with little effect. A small benefits consulting firm called ELAP Services is causing commotion by suggesting an alternative: Refuse to pay. When hospitals send invoices with charges that seem to... Read more

who brought home his Poetry Book, what with tomorrow being the last day of school. Now, I’m not a poetry person myself, but he really enjoyed this unit, what with his teacher emphasizing descriptive language, and the layout of the words on the page.  Anyway, here are some selections (spelling corrected): The Sky The sky is black dark silent like a mouse sky is filled with sparkling stars.   Leaves Leaves whirl side to side as if Wild Tigers roaming... Read more

(If you’re missing background on the Sulkowicz story, here’s a piece by Megan McArdle with lots of context.) On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely do you judge it to be that Emma Sulkowicz is being truthful in her recounting of events, with 0 being “I’m quite certain that she’s lying through her teeth” and 10 being “I believe her 100%” (and 5 being, of course, “there’s a 50/50 chance either way”)?  Really — tell me in the... Read more

Remember when Bernie Sanders proposed his  College for All Act?  I had initially thought of it as so unserious as to not even merit any attention, but it seems relevant in light of the “I defaulted and I’m proud” op-ed from last weekend. First, the Sanders plan:  given that public colleges are financed and governed at the state level, and private colleges, well, privately, his attempt to fund and govern colleges at the federal level is a bit convoluted.  Here are... Read more

Somehow I ended up on the mailing list of the representative whose district I used to be in until the latest gerrymandering redistricting, Bob Dold, and today I got a somewhat mysterious e-mail, linking to a page touting his success in engineering the passage of an amendment that “would help thousands of children like 9-year-old Round Lake resident Sophie Weiss,” by providing them with access to CBD oil. What is CBD oil, you ask?  There’s a separate press release which... Read more