Texas Flood
William Heise | November 30, 2009
No Polar Bears Were Injured in the Making of This Video
William Heise | November 24, 2009
The History of European Empires
William Heise | November 23, 2009
Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for this “fascinating” way to look at history of empire: This diagrammatic portrayal of the history of empire would argue against the Leninist-Machiavellian position that “he who grabs more is greater.” There appear to be extra-national forces that operate on historical events. For instance, Portugal (circa1970) has the largest empire in [...]
Taxman
William Heise | November 23, 2009
Remember when America was the destination for the world’s people were looking for a haven from excessive taxation? Candidate Obama ran on a platform in which no one making over $250K would have their taxes raised. This weekend, Harry Reid put that campaign promise on hold. I will be curious how Obama will run having [...]
My Answer to the Skeptics
William Heise | November 22, 2009
I recently had a debate with someone on FB on the subject of Sarah Palin’s new book. He was saying that she was a hater (one of “them”) and that unfortunately some people (meaning me, I think) were like ostriches, who have their head in the sand and their asses in the air, and they [...]
Why I want to be cremated
William Heise | November 21, 2009
I found this in the news today: Two fingers and a tooth removed from Galileo Galilei’s corpse in the 18th century and given up for lost have been found again and will soon be put on display, a Florence museum said Friday. (Full story here) What’s wrong with people? We inter people, but only for [...]
The Moral Dimension of Music
William Heise | November 2, 2009
20 years ago, when I first started teaching, I used to question my students about what sort of music they liked. And an overwhelming number of them said that they liked all of music. I found this hard to believe, and so I would question them. Do they know about opera? Did they like country [...]
Thoughts on The Lost Generation
William Heise | November 1, 2009
The Lost Generation with Curmudgeonly Response This is clever. More than that, it is heartwarming. But….there are other opinions, like this: Cynical people exist, and a cynical person wrote the second video. The idealists among us probably feel that the person who wrote the second video is curmudgeonly. That’s because they are. But having curmudgeonly [...]
