Three years ago, I was smeared before all the students, professors, and staff members of Providence College, where I had taught since 1990. That was some 5,000 people. The authors of the smear were the president of the college, whose final term expires next spring, and the vice president, who will be taking over for
Whenever leftists are charged with not loving or even with hating America, they respond angrily, labeling the question absurd, mean-spirited and an example of right-wing McCarthyism. But there can be little doubt that the left has no love for America, just as there can be little doubt that liberals and conservatives love America. Love of
Despite the adage about Carnegie Hall, the rule about practice does not apply to that musician of language known as Tom Friedman. Because Friedman, whose walrus mustache makes him look like a king among burghers and the in-house philosopher of Burger King, also looks like a 19th-century soldier in a 21st-century world. He looks like
Ever since the “Theory Revolution” of the 1970s, my colleagues in the humanities have prided themselves on their vigilant critical temper. Marx’s famous pledge in 1843 was everybody’s motto: “a ruthless criticism of all that exists.” By 1980, after the wave of Theodor Adorno, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and other radical analysts
CRESCO, Iowa—If you come to this rural Iowa town, you'll learn about a problem that may sound familiar. In The New York Times, for instance, you've learned that many residents in Newark, New Jersey, have gone nearly two years without being able to turn on the faucets in their homes to take a drink of
Politicians can be amazingly adept at blowing smoke, especially while electioneering. With the 2020 presidential race unfolding, there is no better example of the phenomenon than the Democrats’ mantra of “Medicare for All.” Healthcare is certainly top-of-mind for many seniors, who are projected to make up nearly a quarter of the electorate in 2020, the
“You’re really not that bright, are you, Emina?” said Mira M., my elementary school math teacher. She looked at me with contempt, the kind even a 7-year-old could understand. I understood, but had not yet experienced, adult rejection on that scale. In the days of Yugoslavian Communism, we used to address individual teachers as “comrade
By now, only a person living in Alternate Universe One could fail to understand that the past three years have precisely nothing to do with Russian collusion or Ukraine corruption and everything to do with who makes decisions about American policy: the duly elected president of the United States or the administrative state. That is
Call me Mr. Unicorn. I have degrees in political science, English, and classics—and I have done extensive work both in ethnic studies and classics. In Los Angeles I found myself teaching at an über-liberal California college that loved my multicultural work though it viewed my work in classics with suspicion. They suspected at first, then
To hear Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tell it, the wildfires that ravaged California throughout October were the result of climate change. And nothing else. “This is what climate change looks like,” the whangdoodle freshman New York Democrat tweeted. “The GOP like (sic) to mock scientific warnings about climate change as exaggeration. But just look around: it’s already
