All of my class materials are now posted on Blackboard, not here.

For any grades that will be posted, please check Blackboard.

Misc. readings/blogging:

The Onion.

Þ Cost of living now outweighs benefits

Most recent winners of the Ig Nobel prize (click here)

The war on the middle class

The war on our kids

Was Martin Luther King, Jr. a Republican? If he were alive today, would he be a Republican? Aside from being filled with outrageous falsehoods, the race politics we see in the United States work by creating divisions between races and prejudice. It's destructive. This essay on Dr. King is controversial but worth reading. If the Democrats aren't engaging in the destructive politics of division by race, then why do so many people seem to assume that blacks must vote Democrat? Do they believe that blacks aren't allowed to have differing and complex opinions on the issues? Why is it that those prominent black politicians, who happen to be Republican, get smeared and called Aunt Jemima (as was done to Condoleezza Rice) or Uncle Tom (as was done to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas) or have Oreos thrown at them (as happened to Maryland Lieutenant Governor and U.S. Senate Candidate Michael Steele)? Are blacks somehow not "allowed" to be Republican? If so, then how does one "get beyond" race? Getting beyond race in politics would mean that blacks, in this case, would base their votes on issues other than race issues, and that we'd have no more expectation that blacks would vote as a block than we have for whites to vote as a block. Back in the 70s, it took a Nixon to go to China. Given today's crazy near prohibition of any discussion of race issues by white people, it seems that only strong black Republicans, like perhaps another Martin Luther King, will be able to "get us beyond" race in U.S. politics. I dearly hope that no political party succeeds in giving this same raw deal to the Latinos.

...Update on the above... now it appears that Working Women Aren't Allowed to Be Republican!!! I did not know there was such a rule... http://www.nypost.com/seven/09032008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/a_time_warped_sexist_assault_127183.htm