Sorry I've been out of touch (as if you cared).  We have had a busy time here in our Compound, with flooding and various other things.  I'm sure you'll wince when I tell you, I should be posting more henceforward.

Community college dean responds to a (former) private college president who argued that the Biden administration should not try to support public colleges but instead support private colleges. He responds forcefully, and I think entirely correctly.  Also, the private college president is a tremendous ass-hat for saying this.

Declines in religion majors set in around 2004, and MAs begin to decline around then too.  (In relative terms—in absolute terms, because of the expansion of BAs through 2010, it takes almost a decade to make this palpable.)  I suspect that the Hout & Fischer argument about younger people disaffiliating from religion is also having an effect here too.

The “Crisis of Happiness” in America, and the rise of the “care industry” to help alleviate that crisis.  Is this a political issue?  This piece suggests it might be.  Seems a bit paranoid, but it highlights an interesting cultural shift that bears attending to.

Good piece on Fernand Braudel, Annales historian who really took “historiography” down to the studs and rebuilt it on securer foundations—geologic, even.

Interesting piece on struggles within the USCCB.

Dave Grohl is right to be in awe of Stewart Copeland.  Grohl is pretty amazing too, of course.

Terrific and terrifying.  “This is the inside story of the conspiracy to save the 2020 election, based on access to the group’s inner workings, never-before-seen documents and interviews with dozens of those involved from across the political spectrum. It is the story of an unprecedented, creative and determined campaign whose success also reveals how close the nation came to disaster.” 

Be well, everybody!  Vaccines are coming, and so is the Spring . . .