New Survey of Campus COVID Concerns

‘Inside Higher Ed’ sample chart for its third Covid survey   Inside Higher Ed and Hanover Research have released a new survey about COVID-19 concerns on campuses. Respondents were 97 presidents or chancellors at private (about 70%) and public universities, as well as some two-year public institutions. The…

Ups, Downs, Nitpickers

    My friend Larry is an either-or guy. He buys only ground beef or filet mignon. He is a former middle-manager turned entrepreneur and actor, who thinks about what he wants, makes multi-year plans, and methodically works for them. He is doing well. We have known each other…

The Evolution of Ricky Gervais

    Ricky Gervais has made six or seven series for television, depending on how you count them, including The [BBC] Office, Extras, Derek, and Life’s Too Short. His most recent is After Life, for Netflix, with one season (six episodes) in 2019, one season…

Look at Me. I Am Your Dad Now (and Always)

Image from Wikipedia CC.     Higher education in the United States is a big ship, with a well-established route and trade. I was a paying passenger, for the usual time, then served as a line officer for two decades. One day, in some backwater in the Horse Latitudes, I…

The True Lies of Werner Herzog’s Family Romance

A still from the Q&A after Herzog’s latest feature film.     Director Werner Herzog’s latest feature film is now available, which always gives me cause for relief and surprise. In a world of Netflix fast-food, a Herzog film is a bowl of Bavarian leberknödelsuppe—something interesting and nourishing, with…

Never Half-Ass Two Things; Whole-Ass One Thing

    The character Ron Swanson on Parks and Recreation is likable because we understand he is better than the sum of the parts he wants to present to the world. Actor Nick Offerman uses his Ron Swanson persona a little in the new CuriosityStream series The History of…

Pythons on Netflix

The Pythons: Terry Jones, Graham Chapman. John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, and Michael Palin. Wikimedia promotional images.   The documentary series Monty Python: Almost the Truth (Lawyer’s Cut) is available on Netflix. Originally airing on BBC and the Independent Film Channel, in 2009, it is just six episodes, a…

Dave Chappelle’s 8:46 A Rush to Condemn Murder

    Netflix, which uses the odd tagline “Netflix is a joke,” released Dave Chappelle’s new standup special yesterday on YouTube. As I have written before, standup as an art continues to become something other than jokes, and Chappelle, who won the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor…

Get with the Team

Grocery shoppers in St. Louis, Missouri, have begun making their choices, this Dairy Freedom Week, for the kind of milk they like best. Red Team Milk and Blue Team Milk appeared, over the weekend, in separate refrigerated cases in six of the largest supermarkets in the region. The milk…

The Blood Is at the Doorstep Applies to This Moment

    The 2017 documentary The Blood Is at the Doorstep is getting new attention during the George Floyd protests, and for a brief time is available on YouTube for free. Blood is directed and produced by Erik Ljung, a filmmaker and Director of Photography who has produced…

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