Did you know that Mitt Romney is poor? Well, he is at least from the point of view of the IRS. Romney guesses his rate is "probably closer to the 15 per cent rate than anything else." Well, the poorest income earners, those who make between $8,000 and $34,000 annually,...

The Chronicle of Higher Education carried a story concerning the fault lines that appear when tenure and adjunct faculty unionize. The biggest problem seems to be that adjunct faculty doesn't get the attention it deserves even though such faculty members make up almost two-thirds of the teaching staff...

It's been a tough week for Republicans, and they are crying. President Obama has decided to get tough and go after millionaires, nailing them to the financial cross by having them pay taxes at the rate that everyone else has to. And what exactly are the Republicans crying?

In upstate New York, where I am living, there is a class of citizens protected from chemicals and harmful substances in drinking water, and then there are the vast majority of people like me, my family, and friends, who are experimental subjects being tested to see if known carcinogens like...

Ohio's Senate just passed legislation that would eliminate collective bargaining for public university faculty because they are now to be seen as management.

The legislation declares all public college faculty members who either "participate in decisions with respect to courses, curriculum, personnel, or other matters of academic...

The genius of the Republican Party has been to convince workers that it is better to support business interests than it is to defend the rights of workers. Republicans have convinced citizens to vote for the GOP largely by focusing on social issues instead of economic ones -- gay marriage...

According to the New York Times, the Department of Finance of New York City is aggressively laying off workers to meet the November modification to the budget. The city has been been particularly brutal in eliminating an entire type of worker -- office machine aides, a group that...

You have to wonder about the uproar around enhanced pat-downs and body-imaging machines. Libertarians are seeing the sanctioned search as an infringement of our inherent right to remain undisturbed by governmental hands. Leftists see the imaging machines as yet another example of increasing surveillance by the military-industrial complex. Social conservatives...

Does anyone really believe that Sarah Palin wrote by herself two full-length books? Neither of these books print on the cover or inside any acknowledgment of a ghost writer. Going Rogue, it turns out was written by ghostwriter, Lynn Vincent, but the book doesn't acknowledge a ghostwriter. Could someone like...

Have you heard? The Tea Party is angry. America is angry. Anger is the watchword of the election season. When pundits wax eloquent, they speak of this ire with reverent awe. When commentators comment, they seem to be squeezing themselves with delight every time they mention voter rage.

Is anyone...

Since when did the media switch from calling Tea Party members "Tea Baggers" to "activists?" Well, certainly the term "tea bagger" immediately became a joke when people began to realize it referred to a sexual practice of gay men. But why did the term "activist" come about rather than "follower"...

Remember how we all grew up reading about the United States being the home of religious tolerance? We learned that the separation between church and state was built into our country's democratic heritage because of those pilgrims who landed on Plymouth Rock and those non-conformists who founded Pennsylvania? Wasn't that...

It's Saturday morning, and I've got the radio tuned to a classical music station. I want to hear Vivaldi or Mozart or Bach, and instead I am hearing two wonks discussing the minutiae of musical performance. They are talking about the advantage of a diminished seventh over D minor sharp,....

Crains Business Chicago carries an interesting story pointing out that the University of Illinois is $16 million dollars in the black. While this may be cause for celebration among faculty and students of this beleaguered system, it will strike many as bittersweet news. The faculty at the University...

It has been a difficult year at the University of Illinois. Faculty were forced to take mandatory furlough days (a nice way of saying that there was a 5 per cent pay cut) and students will have to pay higher tuition...

Hippocrates is turning over in his grave.

Oklahoma just passed a series of laws best described as anti-patient and anti-doctor in the name of being "pro-life." In addition to requiring pregnant women to have an ultrasound and requiring the doctor who does this to describe the fetus...

Why is it that when the Tea Baggers violently interrupt a Democratic senator or congressperson that is a robust and raucous exercise of freedom of speech, but when a heckler or two interrupt a Sarah Palin speech at a John McCain rally, that...

The latest dust up in the Sarah-Palin-Stands-Up-For-Disabled-People controversy involves the Valentine's Day episode of "Family Guy" in which Chris falls in love with a young woman with Down syndrome.

On a date, he asks what her parents do. She...

It's Valentine's Day and you are looking across the table at your beloved who is opening the tasty box of chocolates you've bought as a token of your love. What should you be thinking? About the wild sex you are about to have? Of your undying devotion? Of your happy...

In the spring of 1983, I was Barack Obama's professor at Columbia University. Barack, or Barry as he was known then, was a senior in my class on "The Novel and Ideology." I understand from reliable sources that he liked the class and was intrigued by what I was teaching....