So this is the sort of question I’d usually pose to my facebook friends, to get opinions outside of just close friends — but, it’s a question about my parents, and Mom is on facebook. My question is this, for those of you who stop by to see what I’m writing, and are old enough to have dealt with the issue:  what are your experiences with aging parents?  Have you had that conversation yet, in which you try to convince... Read more

The election’s over. And as far as the Illinois general election is concerned, it is truly over with.  Bruce Rauner vs. Pat Quinn for governor?  Rauner is very much in the “social liberal” camp, so far as I can tell.  So Rauner won’t be able to count on the enthusiasm of the GOP base; he’ll need to keep forking out his own money to counter what will presumably be massive spending on the part of the unions.  Will enough general election voters believe... Read more

And, while there, remembered that I had neglected to look into the Republican primary for the 9th district, to face safely-gerrymandered Jan Scharkowsky.  It’s just as well I didn’t, because it turns out her opponent will be one of these two candidates, according to the Chicago Tribune’s editorial: Two years ago, we were encouraged to see a strong Republican candidate in the new and slightly less blue 9th Congressional District. Tim Wolfe, of Arlington Heights, provided some valuable counter-programming to... Read more

OK, I’ve never heard that expression, and I’m not really intentionally trying to coin a new phrase.  But you know what Ockham’s Razor is about — the idea that, all other things being equal, you should choose the explanation for an event that’s the simplest.  And why the situation with the vanished Malaysian flight feels like Ockham’s Razor in reverse is this: People have speculated that the pilots had planned a 9-11 type attack on some kind of target.  But... Read more

That’s the page 4 article in the Chicago Tribune today:  “Colleges admissions offices mine data on prospective students.”  Yes, I had known that colleges would google a prospective student, or look at a Facebook page open to the public.  But this article describes far more extensive data mining, with the sort of invasiveness that we’d associate with the NSA: Many testing companies, along with the Common Application, forward personal information to colleges. That, along with an IP address, is usually... Read more

So last weekend I was in the mood to write about college sports, and my wish that schools would stop dishonestly running minor league football and basketball teams. And today the Tribune has an article about obscure sports being a venue to scholarships for women to chose to specialize in them, “Women make college gains with low-profile sports.” College sports are booming, thanks to gargantuan TV contracts and the increasing use of athletics as a marketing tool, and women’s teams... Read more

This was something that was an instapundit.com link a couple days ago: “Universities Try a Cultural Bridge to Lure Foreign Students” — an article on the fact that foreign students have always been keen on the Ivies, but are now increasingly attending state schools such as the profiled Oregon State University, and joint ventures with private companies are aimed at helping these students integrate into university life, from understanding general cultural differences to the particularly difficult element of class participation.... Read more

So just catching up on the news over the weekend, including a report from multiple sources, but here from The Guardian, that the EU, as a part of the latest round of trade talks with the U.S., want to ban American cheesemakers from using traditional place-name based labels for their cheese, or, more specifically, place the same place-of-origin restrictions as currently exist for such items as Champagne.  Says The Guardian, The argument is that the American-made cheeses are shadows of... Read more

Putin is massing troops on the Ukrainian border??? I don’t understand this. What happened to Crimea voting for secession and trying to mollify everyone by in fact planning to remain independent? After all, the graphics I saw not long ago indicated that Crimea was the only province with a Russian majority, rather than a substantial minority. (Unless, within those Russia-bordering provinces, the frontier portion of those provinces is where the Russians are concentrated?) Is this just a show of force... Read more

So what do you make of this new campaign?  According to the website, When a little boy asserts himself, he’s called a “leader.” Yet when a little girl does the same, she risks being branded “bossy.” Words like bossy send a message: don’t raise your hand or speak up. By middle school, girls are less interested in leading than boys—a trend that continues into adulthood. Together we can encourage girls to lead. It’s sponsored by Sheryl Sandberg’s LeanIn.org and by... Read more