English classes important for all students
Duck Harris, I’m the science professor who you think would get defensive at the suggestion that English is valuable because it teaches critical thinking and writing in your column “Writing skills needed in every major” published Feb. 4. You are so wrong. You see, even though I’m a science professor, I wouldn’t be here at [...]
Stimulus plan lacks important element
Is it a stimulus package, or is it the other white meat – pork? That’s the question, as President Barack Obama and Congressional Republicans fight it out over how to jump-start the nation’s economy with upwards of $1 trillion in spending. There’s been plenty of complaining about items included in the stimulus package that won’t have much economic impact.
Lessons learned from recent months
After weathering the craziest autumn in economics and politics in untold decades, Americans have a right to ask: what should we learn from it all? The last time so much changed so rapidly in our country, the 9-11 Commission was appointed to explain the run-up to disaster and point us in a new direction.
Dead Bear still controls Alabama
Wondering why the Bulldogs lost their offensive coordinator Neil Callaway? It’s a tangled tale of intrigue and sibling rivalry from our neighboring state to the west. Once upon a time, in Tuscaloosa at the University of Alabama, there was Bear Bryant. The Bear won national football championships.
Gov’t bungled response to Katrina
What a week. Hurricane Katrina’s flood now is lapping at our doorsteps in metaphorical ways small and large, and it’s growing by the hour. The magnitude of this disaster still is beyond the comprehension of many of us. As a meteorologist, I have shared my views over the past few days with a candidate for [...]
Task force tips winning game plan
Sports. Academics. There are useful analogies between the two. Let’s compare Georgia football with the beginning of this fall semester. There’s lots of pre-season talk and preparation, with juggling of both depth charts and teaching loads. We endlessly debate the national rankings — thanks to ESPN and U.S. News. There is one piece of pre-game [...]
Sports make money, not morals
My grandfather Byrne Evans coached college sports and served as a Southern Conference (now SEC) referee. He was so renowned for fairness that he was once asked by a coach to officiate a game in which the coach’s opposition included Byrne Evans, Jr. In those days, sports were about character-building. Today, they’re about the bottom [...]
Fuzzy math shrouds NCAA hoops
It’s that time of year, when a sports fan’s fancy turns to … math. Mathematics helps determine which teams get invited to the Big Dance, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Here’s how it works: Unless your team gets an automatic slot (generally by winning a conference tournament), you need an at-large bid. The NCAA handles [...]
The smell of @*#! surrounds you
“Ooooh that smell/Can’t you smell that smell?” I often hum that old Lynyrd Skynyrd song as I drive to and from campus on College Station Road near the Loop. Ronnie Van Zant smelled death. I smell something more fecal than funeral. Russell McLendon, one of this paper’s cartoonists, calls it the “East Campus @*#! Smell.” [...]
Journalism bias is a human failing
Is journalism biased? Absolutely. I come from a four-generation family of journalists. My grandparents owned and published a weekly newspaper in Kentucky for nearly 40 years, starting in the 1920s. My mom, aunt and other relatives wrote and laid out the copy, ran the presses and kept the books for our newspaper. Today, my brother [...]
