Meritocracy and Its Discontents: Inequality in Higher Education
Ron Berger — In March 2019, the largest college-university admissions cheating scandal in US history hit the news. As a result of a law enforcement investigation called Operation Varsity Blues (OVB), more than fifty wealthy parents were charged with paying over $25 million between 2011 and 2018 to William “Rick” Singer to help their children fake their way into elite institutions of their choice. While the bulk of the offending parents included members of the business elite, the most high-profile names were actresses . . . . Continue reading
The Moral Poverty of Western Philosophy
Charles Cottle — In the western world we are children of the Enlightenment, that period of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Western Europe in which the philosophical and scientific outlook that most of us hold today was established. The view that is prevalent today, certainly in the United States, contains many contradictions and inconsistencies that are difficult, if not impossible, to defend in rational argument. . . . Continue reading
Teddy Ballgame
Mark Richardson — “Many experts believe that we are born to have heroes. A hero is some one who saves the day, they make a timely arrival, and do ‘deeds’ that other people can’t or won’t do.They exhibit a special kind of courage, fortitude, resiliency, especially in difficult, even dangerous circumstances. Heroes can inspire us to become better people.”– Dick Enberg Ted. The Kid. The . . . Continue reading
Whither the United States?: A Review of “Tailspin” by Steven Brill
Charles Cottle — In the past year and a half numerous articles have been written about how the novel coronavirus pandemic in the United States has highlighted the different economic situations of racial minorities, the poor, the middle class, and the economic elite. In the mainstream press one finds article after article about how life will change after the pandemic and how the pandemic has . . . Continue reading
The Soul of Black Folk: A Tribute to W.E.B. Du Bois
Jeff Berger — In this year that the Republican Party is hell-bent on trying to prevent schools from teaching about the history of racism in this country, I am perpetually in awe of what African Americans have had to endure. I think about what I was taught in school during the 1960s. I vaguely remembered something about Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) and Booker T. Washington (1856-1915), but . . . Continue reading
The Devolution of Conservatism: From Edmund Burke to Donald Trump
Ron Berger — There is much talk these days about the need to find unity and common ground in our politics so we can come together and “get things done” for the American people. But for this talk to be anything more than facile, we need to delineate the ideological viewpoints that are in need of communicative discourse. In this article I focus on conservatism, . . . Continue reading
Warren vs. Sanders: The Differences that Matter Going Forward
Ron Berger — Neither Elizabeth Warren nor Bernie Sanders are likely to run for president again. They are both in their seventies and Kamala Harris is undoubtedly the presumptive successor to Joe Biden. Nonetheless, for the near future Warren and Sanders will remain influential US Senators who command a national audience when they speak out about the central problem of our time: the untenable degree . . . Continue reading
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