A 19th Century Woman of Science
Elizabeth Gilbert’s recent novel The Signature of All Things (2013) is, among other things, a very easy-to-read guide to the intellectual history of the 19th century, especially that branch of thought in which …
Women Needed in Aviation and Aerospace Technology Fields
Recently members of the Lewis University Aviation and Transportation Dept. were asked by a major carrier to come up with some contemporary research questions. The air carrier representatives did not specify what discipline of…
The Magritte Exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago
There’s plenty of time to attend the Magritte exhibition (Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938) at the Art Institute of Chicago; it runs through October 13th. Cost should be no obstacle. On the…
Creating Meaningful Computer Science Summer Camps
The Department of Mathematics and Computer Science held two summer camps this past week for high school students. The first, Camp Code, introduced students to the programming language Python and taught them how to think like…
Another Critic Scales the Ivory Tower – Gets Only Halfway Up
Ivory Tower, a CNN documentary about higher education directed by Andrew Rossi, is currently playing at the Century Cinema Theatre in Chicago. [Rossi has done films on Al Jazeera (2004) and on the New…
Let’s Not Take a Recess from Focusing on Small Classes and Nearby Playgrounds for Every Child
On July 6, 2014, Mayor of Chicago opened another park in a Chicago neighborhood. This is part of a continued effort by Rahm Emmanuel to achieve the goal that” every child within the city of…
Need a Soccer Fix Between World Cup Games? : Read Aleksander Hemon
Just as I was experiencing the delirium tremens during the first day on which World Cup games weren’t scheduled, I found relief in the writings of Aleksander Hemon. Hemon is a Bosnian-American fiction writer…
What Did You Do in the Cold War, Daddy?
2014 is a year of important historical anniversaries. We recently observed the 100th anniversary of the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, an event that ignited World War I. We have marked the…
The Composite Question
Aviation and Aerospace technology is a funny thing. Frequently, the newest and most innovative technologies seem much like fashion. For instance, a brand or style of jean becomes fashionable for a duration of time and…
Personal Investments – Economic Memo #33
I’ve always had an interest in investments. In high school my math teacher sold me $50 worth of United Home Life and a sail boat he owned. I’ve relayed my disastrous experience with the sailboat…