While surfing the Web one morning, I came across a headline that included the words “laying in bed.” Rather than going off like a troll in the comments, I shared the following snarky wisdom with my social networks: “LIE. You LIE in bed. You don’t LAY in bed. #lostcauses.” Almost immediately I received a flurry […] … learn more→

Central to the current controversy about Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks is the fact that Snowden was a “private contractor.” In fact, over this past weekend, various commentators have asserted that 30% to 70% of the national security personnel are now “private contractors”: that is, employees of corporations—and typically multinational corporations—and not of the federal government. […] … learn more→

Last week, Laurie Shrage caused a bit of a stir on the blogosphere with her controversial article on the Stone, a New York Times philosophy blog, entitled “Is Forced Fatherhood Fair?” In the article, Shrage challenges the prevailing notion that unwilling fathers should be forced by the state to pay child support. This is unfair, […] … learn more→

Australians are getting fatter and there’s no dispute over how this increasing weight is affecting our health. Different methods of assessing body fat can give different interpretations of just how much excess weight a person is carrying, but all methods point in the same direction when applied over time. The most common measure of body […] … learn more→

For most of my professional career, I have believed that institutions, more or less, happen upon a seminal moment in their evolution. Indeed, when approached about consulting or management opportunities I typically first begin by looking at some combination of ethos, culture, board and management leadership, and cold, hard numbers to determine the possible. It […] … learn more→

In Jesuit schools we were urged to strengthen our faith by spending time in monasteries. We were assigned spiritual exercises to be dutifully written in little notebooks that were supposed to renew the promises made at baptism and to celebrate the virtues of Christian love and succor for the weak. It wasn\’t enough just to […] … learn more→

A recent article in the Observer features two pieces about human enhancement in the prospect of the FutureFest festival in London in September (see here and here). The articles mention Bertolt Meyer, a Swiss man born without a left hand who was recently fitted with a state-of-the-art bionic one (which he controls from his iPhone), […] … learn more→

This is my first visit back to China in 20 years. The last visit was a vacation with my wife and her parents. This visit focuses on establishing exchange programs with first tier Chinese universities. Two of the cities that I visited during this trip are the same cities that I visited twenty years ago. […] … learn more→

On June 15, the American Association of University Professors at its annual meeting voted unanimously to place National Louis University of Illinois and Southern University, Baton Rouge on its list of censured institutions for violations of academic freedom and tenure. AAUP First Vice-President Henry Reichman declared, “What happened at National Louis was ominous.” The AAUP […] … learn more→

In a 2002 book the anthropologist David D. Gilmore explored our culture’s fascination with monsters. He noted that most monsters are a sort of hybrid. They defy simple explanation because they tend to straddle categories. They might be part human and part animal (like a werewolf) or part living and part dead (like a vampire). […] … learn more→