Articles about Robin Williams are everywhere, on blogs, news sites, and my Facebook feed.  They all say, in short, “he suffered from depression, but he was a comic genius.” Given the wild manic nature of his comedy, after seeing so many posts/articles, I began to wonder if it wasn’t really depression that he suffered from, but bipolar disorder.  And a google search for Robin Williams bipolar turned up this article from psychcentral.com, in which the psychologist author says, We acknowledge... Read more

The other day, I saw references to an article asking for free tampons.  I figured this was a parody, a Swiftian piece intended to illustrate the absurdity of demands that insurers provide contraception at no out-of-pocket cost for reasons of “fairness” by making other “fairness” demands, so I didn’t pay much attention to it. But apparently it’s not. Here’s the Slate piece that made it clear that this is serious, and here’s the original article in The Guardian. The key... Read more

So, in lighter news (that is, as a break from ISIS, Gaza, Ukraine, the US/Mexico border, etc.), Megan McArdle blogged yesterday about the not-entirely-logical preference of city planners for streetcars over buses.  She writes that streetcars are more expensive and less flexible, which she sees as bugs, but speculates that planners see this as a feature, since developers and prospective residents will feel that the line is more permanent, and thus more of a selling point, than a bus line.... Read more

So my hostile open-borders commenter is back, eager to jump into my comments about the University of Illinois’s pursuit of full-pay Chinese students, and accuse me of racism. Let’s start with personal experience:  three Chinese roommates in grad school, one of whom I’m still in touch with, two of whom I “named” (that is, suggested the English name which bore the closest resemblance to their actual given name).  Two had mostly Chinese friends, except for us roommates, but we did... Read more

Source:  http://www.pinterest.com/pin/63894888438360001/ This, as Michiganders of a certain age will recognize, is an Oasis at a Meijer (or, at the time, Meijers Thrifty Acres) store.  Yes, before SuperTargets, -Kmarts, and -Walmarts, Meijer pioneered the one-stop shopping concept in Grand Rapids and, by my childhood, all of Michigan.  All the usual discount store departments, with an emphasis on the practical — more automotive and less fashion than Target, plus a full-service grocery, and, growing up, lining the front of the store... Read more

In recruiting undergraduate students from China to pay the bills, that is? A while back, I linked to and wrote about an article describing the extensive support services for foreign students at Oregon State University.  I lamented that the aggressive recruitment of foreign students will disrupt the hoped-for supply-and-demand, market-based reduction in tuition as students become less willing to pay any price for their college education, and more keen on comparison-shopping, and choosing no-frills (or, at least, fewer-frills) options — as... Read more

My husband and I met at the University of Notre Dame, and a couple years ago, we detoured there on our way to visit my parents in the Detroit area.  Lots had changed — the university, which quite readily attracts donors happy to have their names on buildings (though less willing to endow their upkeep costs), has been on a building spree lately, and has also bought up a lot of land just south of campus, which had been a... Read more

After our visit to Detroit back in March, I was able to offer some comments about the state of the city.  We didn’t go into the city this time around, but we did make it over to Birmingham when the movie we wanted was showing at the theaters in downtown Birmingham.  And here’s a fun fact about Detroit:  unlike, I suspect, most cities where the center of gravity for young hipsters is the city itself, in artsy gentrifying districts, the... Read more