American politics sometimes seems like a contest to see which group of partisans can take greater umbrage at the most recent outrageous remark from a member of the opposing tribe.  As a mild countermeasure, I offer a modest proposal for American universities. All freshmen should be required to take a course called “Offense 101,” where […]

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Conor Friedersdorf finds serial plagiarist Ben Domenech stroking his chin over the pernicious collapse of values that’s causing moderns to delay marriage and reproduction. But sometimes, two charts are worth a thousand words of wankery. 8 Health > Total fertility rate 1 1 Education > Average years of schooling of adults 12 26 People > […]

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Via erstwhile debate compatriot turned awesome academic Steve Maloney, I discover the “weak man” argument, which actually seems far more prevalent than the better-known straw man. Making a straw-man argument, of course, involves misrepresenting a position opposed to your own so that you can beat up on it easily. The Internet makes it somewhat harder […]

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Here’s one you’ve probably heard—and groaned at—before: You know how you can tell Parisians are the most worldly, sophisticated people in the world? Even the children there speak French! It’s a dumb joke, but I think it also goes a ways toward explaining why Dana Goldstein thinks the essay prompts on France’s college entrance exams […]

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Guesting over at Sully’s, Lane Wallace recounts how a crappy job taught him the value of a liberal arts education: In a flash, I grasped the true value of a college degree. It didn’t matter what I majored in. It didn’t even matter all that much what my grades were. What mattered was that I […]

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I could probably write a post running several thousand words just listing all the issues on which I disagree with legal/political theorist Cass Sunstein, but I was nevertheless pretty sanguine about news of his appointment to head the Office of Information an Regulatory Affairs. Via David Weinberger, I see that Sunstein is the latest victim […]

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What’s that? Barack Obama thinks that our schools should be as successful as those in other developed nations at ensuring that American students master a foreign language? Elitist! Next he’ll be suggesting that we try to teach math or reading as well as Canada and Japan. Not in my America, MENSA-boy! Update: Some folks piling […]

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Via PJ Doland, you really cannot make this stuff up: Priya Venkatesan taught English at Dartmouth College. She maintains that some of her students were so unreceptive of “French narrative theory” that it amounted to a hostile working environment. She is also readying lawsuits against her superiors, who she says papered over the harassment, as […]

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It’s a little depressing, on multiple levels, to see Jessica Valenti and Pam Spaulding celebrating because protesters at Smith College managed to shout down some bigoted halfwit who’d been invited to give a speech to the College Republican group on campus. Apparently, the “awesome feminists of Smith forced [anti-gay speaker Ryan] Sorba out after a […]

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The latest chapter in the hilarious misadventures of Concerned Woman for America Matt Barber involves blowing a fuse over an Illinois high school’s addition of the Tony- and Pulitzer-award winning play Angels in America to their curriculum.  Though Barber avers that it “takes a lot” to shock him, he writes (emphasis mine): The book is […]

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