A new irregular feature: Etc., where I feature political cartoons that don’t fit into a major topic but that I found interesting or amusing. The risk is that I won’t have much to say beyond “Wow,” and posting cartoons without commentary does not qualify as “fair use.” Not that I’d be alone in doing that, […]

I was always skeptical of teachers who said, “I’m tough, but fair.” I knew teachers who were tough but fair, but none of them ever said so and they didn’t have to, because we knew it. The ones who proclaimed it were, instead, rigidly harsh and felt “fair” meant having everything go their way.It is […]

Today is May Day, which is International Workers Day, aka Labour Day, marking the Haymarket Square Riots, which began May 1, 1886, and culminated in the explosion four days later.Whamond notes the calls this year for a general strike, but I don’t think America is a general-striking sort of country. I recall that the Mai-Juin […]