Or Die Trying
I wrote an entire book on the life of the mind, if you can imagine that. A significant portion of the book was dedicated to the importance of a liberal education, and I've written about that topic in this space,…
A Parent’s Dilemma: Preparing a Child for an Uncertain Future
by Jeff Sties When our son Ben was born in 1999, my wife Stacy and I decided that one child was enough. For starters, there was her obvious discomfort during the pregnancy. Financially, we knew that we could not afford…
Mike and Karen’s Excellent Adventure
by Mike Sliwa and Karen Sliwa We are retiring so we can travel. That’s the official story we generally tell people if we don’t feel like explaining the whole collapse of civilization spiel. Our close friends and those sympathetic to…
Cleaning Up
My office, that is. I was asked to move out of my office the same month one of my articles graced the cover of the premier journal in my field Although faculty members are fleeing my department like fleas from…
Liberal Education in a Neocon Nation
What does it mean to teach liberally? The obvious answer, which might even be correct, is found in the dictionary, where we find that liberal means "broad-minded" (among other things). I agree with the dictionary but I don't think it…
Mac and Jack: Roughing it in the Sandwich Islands
I'm just back at the mud hut after a too-short trip to the big island of Hawaii, where I visited a former student from the University of Arizona honors program. James was visiting Zimbabwe when the economy there headed south…
Is terminating the industrial economy a moral act?
People often accuse me of inappropriate behavior because I propose bringing down the industrial economy. Interestingly, nobody seems too concerned about the morality of the big banks as they devise ways to profit from economic collapse (to be fair, some…