Professor Robert William Elder came to Beloit College in 1989. From the beginning he demonstrated his capacity to make complex concepts in economics both clear and exciting. Students noticed and flooded to his classes. Few if any Elder courses have had small enrollments. The Nobel Prize winning James Tobin, Professor Elder’s mentor at Yale, once told this writer (in 1997) that Mr. Elder was the…
MISS MARPLE AND BTK Tom McBride Agatha Christie amateur detective Miss Marple is a doddering but commanding old lady who brings only a few weapons to the task. One of these is that she disbelieves most people and is suspicious of what they say.. Another is that she believes in evil, plus “everlasting life..” One thinks nowadays that these are both bad ideas. How can you live from day to day if you…
The Unofficial Beloit ZEITGIST LIST for the Class of 2029 by Tom McBride • August 17, 2025 The Unofficial Beloit Zeitgeist List–for the Class of 2029 Tom McBride (solely responsible for contents) (Original Concept by Ron Nief) Zeitgeist = The prevailing cultural climate Class of 2029 = born 2007; entering college this year This is The Zeitgeist speaking The Class of 2029 missed the Cold War, only…
How to Find the Meaning of Life By Making Your Father Stub His Toe Recently a close friend of mine gave a lovely devotional about Father’s Day. He said that life has enjoyed many blessings, and to God is owed thanks for them. He encourages his children to attend Mass daily to offer gratitude to God. He is right: gratitude is good and ingratitude is bad, in the way that modesty is good and…
–Tom McBride Against Love: Where It Comes From & Why it’s Overrated –Tom McBride We study weasels. They do not study us. Why? Because we have learned to love one another. That is the main advantage of love. We can study weasels. We can also build bridges and recite poetry to each other. We can even make war on each other. Everyone thinks love is grand. Putin loves Russia. Trump loves tariffs.…
Only After Human Beings Vanish Can the Problem of Consciousness Be Solved Tom McBride 1 Connection If you follow popular science at all, you know that two common themes are when the sun will run out of fuel, and how we can solve the problem of consciousness. The two are rarely if ever connected. It is time that they were. Scientists know that in a billion years the sun will transition to a red…
The Selfish: KEY : A New Theory of Music Genes are selfish. But so are piano keys. In 1976, Richard Dawkins transformed the popular conception of biology and of Darwin by proclaiming that genes are selfish but that nature honors them and nothing else. The bumper sticker version might read, “Nature likes selfishness.” This is a misconception of what Dawkins actually said. But in his still…
5 Quick Reasons to Believe in God–and 1 Reason Not To We know that God, so defined, knows all and can do all. But God has a way of not showing up the way someone does to teach a class or keep an appointment. Still, there are five reasons to believe God exists. 1. Insurance. This is an old idea from the philosopher Pascal. If God doesn’t exist and you believe in God, you’ve lost nothing. If God…
WAS SHAKESPEARE PRO-DEMOCRACY? By Tom McBride In exit polls after the 2024 election, many people said they’d voted for Trump though they don’t like him; but someone has to get prices down. Trump may be a corrupt liar, but there’s the price of bacon to worry about. Can Shakespeare help us understand what’s going on? Shakespeare had no idea of today’s mass democracy with political parties, rhetoric,…
WOULD SHAKESPEARE VOTE FOR TRUMP & VANCE? In a scene from Shakespeare’s first smash hit, Richard III, two professional killers are sent to murder Richard’s brother George, the Duke of Clarence. One of them says to the other that he is starting to have pangs of conscience about his work, while the other says that is a very bad idea if you are in the assasination line of work. They kill the Duke of…