Bernie Sanders has recently posted a meme on Facebook saying that “The path to a free and open Internet is to reclassify it as a telecommunications service so that we can ensure equal access to and for all.” That may seem odd, given the high prices of some telecommunications today, such as cell phones. But…
In the truly remarkable seven-part HBO series on John Adams there is one of those defining moments that almost redeems the American movie-making industry, allowing us to forget for a moment that so many movies today are just technical display with no plot and maximum sex and violence. That moment occurs immediately after the representatives…
The NRA is at it again. They want the Supreme Court to read the Constitution the way they do, to agree that the Second Amendment permits minors to carry guns outside the home. The story reads, in part: The Second Amendment, at its core, spells out not one, but two, rights when it protects “the…
Order in the Court by Randall Auxier Here is Mitch McConnell pounding on a little piece of wood instead of a Democrat. A gavel is an interesting symbol. Obviously it symbolizes authority, but more importantly, it marks beginnings and endings. The flow of time is interrupted by the opening rap, and a finite and…
A Window in Your Heart by Randall Auxier A gas station in Pennsylvania, just north of Gettysburg. $3.45 a gallon. There is music beneath the canopy as we feed our machines. I know it well, and so do you. . . . The Mississippi Delta is shining like a National Guitar . . . .…
Consumables and the Swedish Summer by Randall Auxier I don’t think you would want to be here in February. They say in Minnesota that if you don’t endure the winters, you don’t deserve the summers. How typical of the stoics who occupy these climes in the States. But I’m nonesuch. If these brave endurers of…
Dawn of the Draculae by Randall Auxier Among the five worst movie-going experiences of my life I would list Dawn of the Dead. It was the first R-rated movie I saw on my own (and I sneaked in with my friend Anthony, because he was legal at 17, but I was still 16). I had…
O gentlemen, the time of life is short; To spend that shortness basely were too long, If life did ride upon a dial’s point, Still ending at the arrival of an hour. Shakespeare: Henry IV Jacques Barzun, the great humanist and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003, told us more than 50…
As much as I hate to admit it, there are some who would disagree with my take on the sad state of affairs in the world of American education. Indeed, there are a great many people — some of whom write books and many others who teach in that world — who insist that things…
I have always been skeptical about the claims of the technophiles regarding the educational value of computers and other electronic devices. It seems to me that these devices are terrific for gathering information but unless people could assimilate, coordinate, evaluate and assort the information, separating the relevant from the irrelevant, they might prove useless. But…