Michael O'Hare

I filled up my car for just under $3 a US gallon yesterday and got a short-lived sugar high, followed by the predictable crash. Gasoline in the US retails for about half what it should counting its climate effects and the taxes it should carry for road use, so this is overall, and importantly, a […]

The torture report hit the streets today, and John Yoo is teaching in my university, with a named chair.  I have a real problem that we are putting him in front of a classroom, especially a law classroom, no matter whether the course is international criminal law, constitutional law, or even civil procedure. That the […]

Some things are central to being a Real American, things that make us the best country; others are not.  In the first category, as any RBC reader will agree, are driving alone anywhere I want;  with light traffic, few stoplights, and no tolls, pedestrians, or bicycles; parking free when I get there; and two-dollar gasoline.  […]

Mark says alcohol creates more social cost than all other drugs combined.  I work for a university that has a persistent alcohol problem among its students. It also has a sideline in big-time athletics, but that operation has made some very bad decisions in recent years and is genuinely desperate for money.  Three years ago, […]

Some educators think the point of school is to get students to do their own thinking.   Others, not so much: the little Caesars in Bucks County seem to think their school is about sports and (for example) the school newspaper is there to gin up pep rallies so the high school players can do their […]

In late spring, big-time sports at Berkeley hit bottom on several dimensions, but things may be turning around. In the last few anni horribili,  the Intercollegiate Athletics program saddled the campus with about $400m in debt to rebuild the stadium and construct an accessory building that is about a third conditioning space for athletes, a […]

The remarkably inept response of the NFL and three of its teams to players in trouble for various kinds of violent behavior has triggered an important but somewhat confused debate. Football is intrinsically a violent sport, where most of the action is big strong men trying to impose their will on other big strong men […]

Inquiring minds want to know, what will the British flag look like if the Scots scoot? Well, it will look like this: The reason involves one of the most famous creative heraldic hacks in history. If you look at paintings of British battles and ships before 1808, you will see that the Union Jack had […]

There’s a legend about the first day of school of Carl Friedrich Gauss, that shows how it should be done. The kids are aged seven or eight, and are supposed to have already learned at dame school to read, write and do simple addition. The teacher checks this – they all say, yes Sir, we […]

I think we are now up to three flights diverted because of tiffs between passengers over reclining seats.  Discussion, in the air and in print, has mostly been in assertive mode: “I paid for this seat and you have no right to recline into it!/I paid for this seat including the  space above your knees; […]