This fall has looked like the 1960s redivivus on many university campuses, with campus demonstrations, building occupations, strident demands, and student confrontations with, and even the toppling of, university officials. In the 1960s, the Vietnam War was the main trigger of the protests, and now it’s racial issues. Unhappy realities of higher education itself have … Read more
While students have caused a ruckus on several campuses in recent days, one particularly noisy and increasingly popular student coalition has made itself heard locally and nationally. Collectively called The University of Missouri’s “Student 1950,” they bear a name meant to commemorate the year the first black students were admitted to MU. While all of the … Read more
I teach first-year rhetoric and composition to freshmen at a fairly large university squarely in the center of the American Midwest. In September, as part of the introductory unit, we cover some basic rhetorical concepts, including the famous “triangle” of rhetorical appeals: logos, ethos, and pathos. Logos, I explain, is the appeal to reason: does … Read more
Graham Preston, a 56-year-old father from Queensland, Australia, went to jail recently for refusing to pay fines of roughly $8000 that have accumulated after 10 years of non-violently blocking the entrances of four abortion clinics around the state capital, Brisbane. He refuses to pay the fines on principle, arguing that trying to save the innocent … Read more
The Catholic community in America is at present politically adrift. In this presidential election year, candidates continue to strategize over how to win the Catholic vote despite any number of studies that continue to reveal that there is no Catholic vote. Catholics run the rather narrow American gamut from liberalism to conservatism, in percentages that … Read more