Word: algerism
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...Jonathan Alger, counsel for the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which opposes the Ohio law, says that employees of the state--including professors at state schools--generally have the right to collective bargaining...
...state law attempted to mandate increased teaching loads without a corresponding decrease in other responsibilities," Alger says...
According to Alger, this is a low threshold for judging measures that establish exceptions to federal law--in this case, the employees' right of equal protection...
East-coast intellectuals, like Appalachian mountain folk, are famous for their feuds. When Whittaker Chambers accused Alger Hiss of being a Soviet spy in the 1950s, the political elite chose sides, and some still aren't speaking. After novelist Mary McCarthy called playwright Lillian Hellman a liar--or, more precisely, said, "Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'"--the literary crowd split in two. They're at it again. That rumbling out of Washington is the sound of a new chattering class feud--and unaligned wordsmiths had better head for the hills...
This Puritan disdain for ostentation is a cherished tradition. After all, Thomas Paine penned Common Sense hoping to liberate Americans from the grip of ostentatious English aristocrats. In fact, the most poignant lesson in U.S. history teaches that today's Horatio Alger (see Andrew Carnegie) is tomorrow's robber baron (see Andrew Carnegie)--unless, of course, the baron performs a useful public service, such as owning a pro sports team or three, like 60-year-old Ted Turner, who also recently gave a billion dollars to the United Nations for humanitarian causes. Turner was following the tradition of the Astors...