Classes begin today: one section of Rhodes College's celebrated great books course, The Search for Values in the Light of Western History and Religion, and two sections of a new course for me and (surprisingly) for Rhodes, Southern Politics. Today, as on subsequent Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for the next 14 weeks, I'll begin at noon with Search and keep going until 2:50 with my other two classes. Over the years I've found that it's easier (not easy, but easier) to teach my classes back-to-back-to-back than to pump myself up for a class, come down afterward, and have to climb that motivational hill again before meeting the next one.