The following is from Chapter 18 of Melville’s Typee. The character Marnoo is a “tabu” person who can travel relatively freely among all the tribes without eliciting historical animosities due to his “exceptional” qualities (one being his ability to speak English after being aboard a ship for several years and then returning to the island). [...]
Tag Archives: j. s. mill
Tenure’s Just Another Word for Liberty, So Dump It!
Paul Thomas today at Schools Matter: K-12 Teaching: A Service Industry At The New Republic, “Making the Grade” poses this about the difference between college professors (notice that term “professor,” as in “one who professes”) and K-12 teachers: “The vast majority of states have long granted public school teachers tenure. The way it works is [...]
Diagnosing Ownership, or Why Would You Believe Them?
This piece by Michael Lind in Salon, “Why do Republicans nominate blue bloods,” asks why Republicans pose as the party of the “Self-Made Man” when they are nearly wholly (in the upper register) “rentiers” or “people who make money in their sleep.” The mystery deepens even further. In the 19th century, the Republican Party was [...]
