Timely Snow

This was a somewhat odd article contra “interdisciplinarity” by a sociologist at Penn, and this was a more interesting takedown of the original piece. I, particularly from my status as a professor at one of the places cited as drinking deeply from the interdisciplinary Kool-aid, fall somewhere in between.

Before commenting on the article, let me [...]

It’s the time of the year when academic debts come due, and the chaos of some students’ lives crash against the demands of schooling. I thought that this was a very good reflection on the problems this creates for both students and professors. Over time, I think I’ve grown more hardhearted and policy-oriented, although I’ve [...]

But this was kind of amazing to me: In Italy, Eating Gets Graded.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thought this was interesting. Maybe because I’m just on the cusp of being ok on that dimension, after being far, far beyond it for about the last decade. I also flew through Salt Lake City airport last night, and was struck by how many thin people there are compared to the Detroit metro area where [...]

I just finished reading a most remarkable book, Christopher Macdougall’s Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen.

The book has received a lot of publicity for its discussion of the Tarahumara in Mexico, an indigenous group of amazing runners. I found a few other aspects of the [...]