Teaching Art I Love

by | Jun 28, 2010 | The Public Humanist

A lot of professors hate teaching survey courses. In art history, the typical survey would be something I took as an undergrad: from the Parthenon to Picasso. At Harvard, where I did graduate work, the class was traditionally scheduled at 12 pm and earned the nickname...

Reaping the Whirlwind

by | Jun 2, 2010 | Ten Gallon Liberal

Turns out courting certain elements of the tea party movement comes back to bite you. It’s going to be very interesting to see how this kind of struggle, which will almost certainly become more common as tea party-supported candidates push out standard GOP...

Of Pigeons and Men

by | Jun 4, 2010 | Ten Gallon Liberal

It’s hard to know what’s crazier–India’s pigeon spy suspect detention policy (how’s the pigeon going to testify?), or Obama’s policy of “we can’t prove they’re a threat, so we won’t try them” Kafka...

Rock you like a hurricane

by | Jun 8, 2010 | Ten Gallon Liberal

This NOAA map of Gulf hurricane paths near the BP disaster is the most terrifying graphic I’ve seen lately. The site of the oil leak (not spill, by gum–this is a leaking oil deposit) is marked by a red star, and the hurricane paths are from the last 100...