Tax havens are not exotic, murky sideshows at the fringes of the world economy: they lie at its centre. Half of world trade flows, at least on paper, through tax havens. Every multinational corporation uses them routinely. The biggest users of tax havens by far are not terrorists, spivs, celebrities or Mafiosi – but banks. … More Nicholas Shaxon
For a great many poor people in America, particularly poor black men, prison is a destination that braids through an ordinary life, much as high school and college do for rich white ones. More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go to prison at some time in their lives. Mass incarceration … More Why criticism of the prison industrial complex is important
I am very happy, and I just finished something. Contrary to popular opinion, I think it is often necessary to just sit down and do something until it is finished, without thinking about anything else. Otherwise I lose my train of thought and spend a great deal of time retracing my steps. I wonder whether … More Yet More Contrarian Academic Advice
“But this is the United States!” is a manner of speaking; things are not supposed to be that way, I know. So one can use that phrase as an exasperated exclamation or, if one is idealistic, as the expression of a goal. Yet some appear to have believed things truly were not that way. Is … More “But this is the United States!”
“It is impossible to do, but it is what you must do to prove you are a minimally worthy person. It also the best/the worst thing in the world to do, but either way, it is the only way to prove you are worthy to live. “After making tenure at a place like Yale or … More Academic advice
These days, it’s hard to recognize that America. The wage stagnation that began in the late ’70s has since bestowed on us the kind of income inequality more typical of a third-world oligarchy. The real minimum wage is less than it was in 1968, and the richest 1 percent of Americans take home nearly 25 … More That America
There is no present or future, only the past, happening over and over again, now. EUGENE O’NEILL, A Moon for the Misbegotten. Axé.
Theme. I finally understand why the academic advisers keep saying to cut corners on teaching: they don’t teach beginning or general education courses, or if they do, they have TAs or at least graders. I know exactly how to do a good job on an upper division or a graduate course without overworking but there … More More fuming at academic advice and about curriculum
1- I wish people would realize how unoriginal this speech is. I wish they would realize that just because they think they are a Latin Lover, I am not entertained by the standard speech. I am bored and pained by it at this point, having heard it to0 many times, from so many over the … More New faculty, and/or their spouses II, or, I am an American Puritan. More on some pesky señoritos
This is what they always say: 1. The United States is terrible because it does not have the right kind of café, because it has more poverty than they expected in a rich country, because it is a world power with oppressive policies. 2. Driving is a terrible imposition, and traumatic. 3. Academia in US … More New faculty, and/or their spouses I
