Essay topics An anthropological canvass of campus essay topics revealed that political scientists were focused on what they described as "old chestnuts", such as whether a constitution must be written down to be effective, which, naturally, brought up Bagehot (Badge-ut). An English prof asked her students to read Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language , and to comment on what Orwell meant by "sheer cloudy vagueness". In the bird courses, Soc (Sewsh) and Psych, no essays were assigned--and none were submitted.  Similar results were reported at Mount Royal College--MRC-k-e-y m-o-u-s-e. Spanish onions Apparently Henry Kissinger had distinguished leaders who were like onions (with many layers to peel back) from others who were more like marshmallows (whom you could push and push and never come up against anything solid).  It would be inflammatory to identify which dictators around the world were considered onions or marshmallows.  I thin...