I just read the fascinating novel by Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist. This dystopic story of elevator inspectors set the tone for my recent foray into a whirlwind of airports, urban hotels, metro and taxis. The central character in Whitehead’s novel, Lila Mae, intuitively senses the mechanical state of the machines she inspects. As I ran […]
Jano Justice Systems and Jury Selection
I was recently on jury duty and did some informal inquiry and observation about the current ways in which Champaign County (IL) finds jurors. On a Monday morning, about 35 of us showed up at the courthouse in downtown Urbana and had a brief orientation. The staff handed us badges with bar codes and our […]
iCollege and Educational Consumerism
I grew up in Minnesota and still have many relatives who live there, so I was intrigued by an interview with Tim Pawlenty, governor of Minnesota (“pawlenty of trouble,” according to my relatives), by Jon Stewart. Pawlenty is articulate and clear in his points, affable, even. But to equate education with other service deliveries, […]
The Blogosphere
I went to a brownbag talk by historian Ray Fouche this past week. He commented that he’d like to find more ways to communicate with “everyday folks,” rather than addressing academics all the time. So I asked him if he blogged. Then I inwardly laughed at myself, because I blog, but I don’t do it […]
