16 January 2010: Beware of Professors!

Having spent nearly forty years of my life teaching in classrooms at the University of Kansas and elsewhere, it puzzles me that, on the one hand, Americans in general seem to believe in the virtues of a good education but, on the other hand, they ultimately also seem to distrust their teachers. Barack Obama was…

The Beastly Beatitudes of the Chinese Zodiac

After over half a century of reading and collecting paper place mats from Chinese restaurants all over the world, I’ve decided to collate my collection and share the Wisdom of the East with anyone who believes that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of by western horoscopes. As you probably…

7 November 2009: Play It Again, Uncle Sam

In Billy Wilder’s wonderfully wacky 1961 political satire One, Two, Three, there is a hilarious scene which shows the young East Berlin communist spy (Horst Buchholz) being “tortured” by American CIA interrogators. Their secret method is to play a hit song from the period, “Itsy, Bitsy, Teenie, Weenie, Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini,” over and over, until…

30 October 2009: Halloween, Part One

Students at the University of Kansas frequently tell me that, on first meeting me, they find me intimidating and scary.  And so, with Halloween coming up, I guess there is no need for me to look for Sarah Palin, Michael Steele, Michele Bachmann, Joe Lieberman, or Liz and Dick Cheney “two-for-the-price-of-one”  face masks.  I’ll just…