science

 A day or so after Sonia Sotomayor’s biography, “My Beloved World” was released, I got a call from a New York Times reporter asking me how well the book would sell. She jumped in to the first question: “Why don’t Latinos read?”

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois have introduced a new DREAM Act. Oh boy. I really wish they hadn’t done that.

 My brother-in-law, a volunteer constable in a small Arkansas town, once said that the answer to the tensions and violence between motorists of color and the police was for law enforcement to treat those they are sworn to protect with respect and politeness.

Argentine reporter Leila Guerriero knows how to deal with writing feature stories, that style often being used in Latin America to write about conflict and more marginal stories, but she is now bringing that kind of writing to science and innovation.

 A broad spectrum of curious minds and lovers of scientific exploration are attending a fair for independent creators held in Miami that is proving to be a showcase for creativity and inventiveness with a Latin American stamp.

Past a chalkboard that says, “Come inside to read a good book,” on one side and “Don’t be an asshole!” on the other, you come across a tattered SEPTA Union Strike poster from the early twentieth century, preserved underneath an equally withered-away lamination. A few cautious inches deep inside of this surreal time machine, a pillar manages to stand from the 1890s home of an anarchist feminist writer and speaker who lived near Drexel University.

We do not yet have the official agenda for next month’s meeting at Mar-a-Lago between Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. But after 75 years of American leadership on the world stage, we might be watching the beginning of a handover of power from the United States to China.

The U.S. Census Bureau has been experimenting with alternate versions of the race and ethnicity section of its National Content Test Research Study. The bureau hopes that by the next census in 2020, it can more accurately tally Hispanics and other newly prominent minority groups.

”We have met the enemy and he is us.”

- the comic-strip character Pogo by Walt Kelly, 1970

The same may be true of the economy. So says Tyler Cowen, author of the new book “The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream.”

Although we’ve recovered from the Great Recession, there are widespread fears that the economy will stagnate or grow only slowly. Government won’t be able to handle the next crisis, whether a war, financial meltdown or pandemic.

By now it is settled wisdom that we are witnessing the rise of radical forces on the left and right around the globe. Populists of both varieties, who share a disdain for globalization, are energized, and certain that the future is going their way. But the center is rising again, even in the heart of the old world.

My students know I care deeply about them. They know I love to joke around and keep things interesting as we investigate topics they might find dry. But they also know I am waging a one-woman crusade against “fun.”

It’s not that I don’t like to have fun, it’s just that young people moving from high school to college and, ultimately, into adult life have to understand that achievement -- be it academic or career-related -- is hard work. And hard work is many things, like character-building, but rarely is it giggles-all-day fun.