For this weekend’s reading list we have articles on right-to-work for less laws, the benefits of regulations, the brutal crackdown on the democracy movement in Syria, how progressives can improve their use of social media, and the deleterious impact of the high proportion of low wage jobs in the US.
If you have any feedback on [...]

I grump about my roving reporter job, but it’s not that bad. Yes, I sometimes have to travel and I hate traveling, but I’ve been home on family leave since the Nancy and Michelle were born last fall. Yes, my pay is free tuition at an institution that doesn’t charge tuition, but I also get [...]

For this weekend’s reading list, we have articles on the historic importance of passing and protecting health care reform, whether Israel will strike Iran this year, President Obama’s populist State of the Union address, a detailed look at economic inequality, and whether the 2012 elections will reflect the will of the people.
If you have any [...]

The Faculty Senate assigned me to live-tweet President Obama’s State of the Union Address last night, and I did. I was, so far as I know, the first squirrel to perform this important civic duty. I feel … exceptional.
I’m not sure I feel exceptional enough, though. I didn’t live-tweet the Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels’ Republican [...]

While the rumors that Socratails invented the idea of debate are not entirely true, squirrels do enjoy debating. That may be why Regis enjoys the long scene at the end of Act One in The Gardener’s Lament, where he and the Gardener debate the pros and cons of foraging vs. agriculture. Regis’ character, a squirrel, [...]

I’m glad Regis dumped TailBook for Chitter. I realize that animals wanted our own social media site, but TailBook was not the ideal choice of names. My cousins, the site developers, said they considered calling it TuftsBook, but thought that too limiting as most animals don’t have ear tufts. I understand their point, but the [...]

For this weekend’s reading list we have articles on the benefits of energy efficiency, the efficiency of federal safety net programs, President Obama’s focus on long term strategy, how austerity is killing European economies, and how Occupy Wall Street has gotten economic inequality onto the political agenda.
If you have any feedback on these articles, or [...]

Calling someone a racist doesn’t further the conversation. Even if it’s true it tends to cause all sorts of defenses to engage. It stops the conversation rather than engaging the listener to consider the facts. I am proposing the term AAA White Guy as a way to get people to keep talking.
Another Angry Arrogant White [...]

The web is quiet today. It’s dark. It’s lonely. It’s desolate. It resembles a post-apocalyptic movie landscape, but it’s on the internet.
Today websites across the web, big and small, have blacked out some or all of their content in protest against the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House and the Protect IP [...]

For this weekend’s reading list we have a collection of documents by and about Dr. King, an evaluation of coming demographic and economic changes in the US, and reports on why Finland’s schools are successful, US schools are increasingly criminalizing childhood behavior, and why we ignore the civilian victims of American wars.
If you have any [...]