Back when Hubby was president of United Faculty of Florida, he used to say that Jeb Bush’s 1998 election as governor turned out to be the best recruitment tool that academic unionism ever had: Membership shot up after professors saw reason to fear partisanship and personal attacks as Jeb! consolidated power by creating dozens of new college and university boards of trustees, giving himself hundreds of political appointments to reward his donors. Anyone think that follows the Republican creed of small government?  Read More 

We were busy recovering from the hurricane on Tuesday the 12th, when special elections occurred for vacant legislative seats in New Hampshire and Oklahoma. Up in New England, the incumbent resigned after being caught posting “deeply misogynistic” material on a website he founded called “The Red Pill.” I’ve thought about looking it up for research purposes, but don’t want my computer to think that I want advertising from such sites. (There ought to be a way to hide searches from our electronic brains. I suppose it can be done, but e-things are sufficiently complicated.) Anyway, voters punished this incumbent’s increasingly anti-woman party, and the Republican nominee lost in a 28-point swing from last fall.  Read More 

Or at least the first part of it. Rather than continue to drive myself crazy with constant weather updates, I decided to write this column on Sunday afternoon, rather than my usual Monday. As you know, it was a loooong week, filled with apprehension and anxiety. But already now I’m diverted, as the computer told me “apprehension” was misspelled, but didn’t offer any suggestions to correct it. I went to my tattered old red Word Book that is neither a dictionary nor thesaurus, but simply a list of correct spellings of words. You make your best guesstimate and run down the page until you spy the right one.  Read More 

I’d like to be a pollster in South Texas right now, asking people if they prefer that billions be spent on building a wall to keep Mexicans out -- or if they would rather spend those billions hiring hardworking Hispanics to rebuild their homes and businesses. I think very, very few would opt for a wall. Instead, Texans will be eager to hire plumbers and carpenters and other laborers willing to do the work that few Americans want to do.  Read More