By Matt Reed. About fifty years ago, the sociologist David Riesman -- famed for The Lonely Crowd -- published a compilation of essays he titled “Abundance for What?” It’s hard for contemporary readers to imagine, but at the time, serious American scholars were focused on what they considered the dangers of affluence. More...

By Matt Reed. One of the tougher parts of parenthood is seeing your own kids whenever you see footage of something awful. I was too shattered to write Wednesday night after having seen clips from Parkland. Those kids are my son’s age. There but for the grace of God. More...

By Matt Reed. Wednesday was uncharacteristically hot for a Northeastern state in February. A few of the classrooms actually become uncomfortably hot, and we couldn’t turn on the air conditioning because the college had previously decided -- reasonably -- that February should be a good time to take the cooling towers offline to repair them. More...

By Matt Reed. Folks on my home campus may be relieved to know that sometimes I read innovative, out-of-the-box ideas and actually _don’t_ like them. This is one. More...

By Matt Reed. Okay, by now we’ve probably all heard about the professor at SNHU who penalized a student for identifying Australia as a country. Apparently the student failed the assignment because the instructor didn’t accept that Australia was a country, and the student had to jump through some hoops to appeal the grade. More...

By Matt Reed. We all have our “pet” ideas. They’re the little observations or thoughts that stick in your head for years because you don’t understand how other people don’t see them. Sometimes they come true, which brings a kind of gratification (“I knew it!”). More...