The Audit Bureau of Circulation, which calculates newspaper circulation numbers in the United States, has released the totals for the six-month period from March-September. Let's just say they aren't very pretty.
When compared to the circulation numbers from March-September of 2008, only one of the top 25 newspapers in the United States has seen an increase an increase in circulation. That paper, the Wall Street Journal, is up a whopping 0.6 percent. As for the other 24, its not only that they are down, but how badly they are down. Here's a sampling:
USA Today: -17.2%
New York Times: -7.3%
Washington Post: -6.4%
New York Post: -18.8%
Houston Chronicle: -14.2%
Boston Globe: -18.5%
Dallas Morning News: -22.2%
San Francisco Chronicle: -25.9%
These aren't papers that no one cares about; these are some of the most important papers in the country. And some of them have lost one out of every five or six readers in the span of a year. Megan McArdle thinks this is more than just a bad stretch:
"I think we're witnessing the end of the newspaper business, full stop, not the end of the newspaper business as we know it. The economics just aren't there. At some point, industries enter a death spiral: too few consumers raises their average costs, meaning they eventually have to pass price increases onto their customers. That drives more customers away. Rinse and repeat . . ."
McArdle, who stood in front of me and about 40 other enterprising young journalists back in June and tried to assure us there would be some kind of future in the business, is not the only one who says newspapers are circling the drain.
Paul Gillin, of Newspaper Death Watch, says that newspaper circulation today is lower than it was in 1940, the first year for which data on circulation is available. Back then, 31 percent of people read a newspaper. Today, it's less than 13 percent. Even worse, in 1940 there were 118 newspapers published for every 100 households in the United States. Ten years ago, there were 53 per 100 households. Today, that total is less than 33 per 100 households.
On the plus side, the ABC also released the top 10 circulation gainers during the past year. Then again, I think it's a top 10 list because there weren't enough papers with positive numbers to make a full top 25.
Maybe it's time I read the writing on the wall and gave up on this kind of career.
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Thursday, October 29, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Mole Rats Defeat Cancer
File this one under proof that the Universe maintains some kind of balance. Take the Naked Mole Rat, for example. Sure, you might be one of the ugliest creatures on Earth, but on the plus side, you can't get cancer.
That's right, scientists have found that Naked Mole Rats have a unique gene that makes them immune to cancer by stopping the rampant proliferation of cells that makes the disease so deadly. Popular Science has the low-down:
"According to the scientists, the mole rat's cells express a gene that tells cells to stop dividing. The gene, called p16, forms a second ring of defense against cancer. Most mammals, including humans, only have one gene, p27, protecting cells from cancer. And while most cancers know a way around p27, p16 stops them cold."
Popular Science also runs a blog called "Science Confirms the Obvious", which, as the name might imply, details scientific studies that tell you what you already knew. It's actually funnier than it sounds.
That's right, scientists have found that Naked Mole Rats have a unique gene that makes them immune to cancer by stopping the rampant proliferation of cells that makes the disease so deadly. Popular Science has the low-down:
"According to the scientists, the mole rat's cells express a gene that tells cells to stop dividing. The gene, called p16, forms a second ring of defense against cancer. Most mammals, including humans, only have one gene, p27, protecting cells from cancer. And while most cancers know a way around p27, p16 stops them cold."
Popular Science also runs a blog called "Science Confirms the Obvious", which, as the name might imply, details scientific studies that tell you what you already knew. It's actually funnier than it sounds.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
A Deserving Nobel Prize Winner
With all the hoopla surrounding President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, we should not lose sight of the other award winners who have actually done something to earn their Prize. In the case of Elinor Ostrom, who won the Nobel Prize for Economics this year, that means proving that normal people are actually better at solving complicated economic problems than politicians and bureaucrats.
Ostrom is the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, and the 24th American to win that award since 1980. But it's what she did to earn the Prize that's really cool.
The Nobel selection committee had this to say:
"Elinor Ostrom has challenged the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatized. Based on numerous studies of user-managed fish stocks, pastures, woods, lakes, and groundwater basins, Ostrom concludes that the outcomes are, more often than not, better than predicted by standard theories. She observes that resource users frequently develop sophisticated mechanisms for decision-making and rule enforcement to handle conflicts of interest, and she characterizes the rules that promote successful outcomes."
In other words, free people work things out. Ostrom has shown that people who have a direct interest in solving problems do a better job than governmental agencies that follow prevailing theories on conflict of interest. Not only do they do a better job of handling disputes, but they produce more successful outcomes.
John Stossel takes a deeper look:
"Ostrom's work concentrates on common-pool resources (CPR) like pastures and fisheries. Policymakers assume that such situations are plagued by free-rider problems, where all individuals have a strong incentive to use the resource to the fullest and no incentive to invest in order to enhance it. Analysts across the political spectrum theorize that only bureaucrats or owners of privatized units can efficiently manage such resources.
Few scholars actually venture into the field to see what people actually do when faced with free-rider problems. Ostrom did. It turns out that free people are not as helpless as the theorists believed...
...Not only is government help often not needed, Ostrom says it usually screws things up because bureaucrats operate in an ivory tower ignorant of the local customs and the specific resource.
Political theorists assume away the problems of political control, but the problems are real. There is no reason to believe that bureaucrats and politicians, no matter how well meaning, are better at solving problems than the people on the spot, who have the strongest incentive to get the solution right. Unlike bureaucrats, they bear the costs of their mistakes."
It just makes sense, doesn't it? When people need to solve a problem, they usually do. But in this era of government-rides-to-the-rescue-again, it's great to see people like Dr. Ostrom (political scientist at Indiana University) rewarded for defending freedom. The 10-million Swedish kronor prize -- about $1.4 million -- that she'll share with University of California professor Oliver Williamson must be pretty sweet too.
Ostrom is the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, and the 24th American to win that award since 1980. But it's what she did to earn the Prize that's really cool.
The Nobel selection committee had this to say:
"Elinor Ostrom has challenged the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatized. Based on numerous studies of user-managed fish stocks, pastures, woods, lakes, and groundwater basins, Ostrom concludes that the outcomes are, more often than not, better than predicted by standard theories. She observes that resource users frequently develop sophisticated mechanisms for decision-making and rule enforcement to handle conflicts of interest, and she characterizes the rules that promote successful outcomes."
In other words, free people work things out. Ostrom has shown that people who have a direct interest in solving problems do a better job than governmental agencies that follow prevailing theories on conflict of interest. Not only do they do a better job of handling disputes, but they produce more successful outcomes.
John Stossel takes a deeper look:
"Ostrom's work concentrates on common-pool resources (CPR) like pastures and fisheries. Policymakers assume that such situations are plagued by free-rider problems, where all individuals have a strong incentive to use the resource to the fullest and no incentive to invest in order to enhance it. Analysts across the political spectrum theorize that only bureaucrats or owners of privatized units can efficiently manage such resources.
Few scholars actually venture into the field to see what people actually do when faced with free-rider problems. Ostrom did. It turns out that free people are not as helpless as the theorists believed...
...Not only is government help often not needed, Ostrom says it usually screws things up because bureaucrats operate in an ivory tower ignorant of the local customs and the specific resource.
Political theorists assume away the problems of political control, but the problems are real. There is no reason to believe that bureaucrats and politicians, no matter how well meaning, are better at solving problems than the people on the spot, who have the strongest incentive to get the solution right. Unlike bureaucrats, they bear the costs of their mistakes."
It just makes sense, doesn't it? When people need to solve a problem, they usually do. But in this era of government-rides-to-the-rescue-again, it's great to see people like Dr. Ostrom (political scientist at Indiana University) rewarded for defending freedom. The 10-million Swedish kronor prize -- about $1.4 million -- that she'll share with University of California professor Oliver Williamson must be pretty sweet too.
The European Stages of Life
The people who research this kind of thing believe that half of the babies born in America in 2007 will live to be 104. Maybe that means we need to redefine traditional ways of looking at the stages of life, so today the New York Times took a reflective look at how man has defined his own life throughout the centuries.
This one is without a doubt my favorite, from A.A. Gill in the London Times, July 2009:
"I've often thought that Europe is an allegory for the ages of man. You're born Italian. They're relentlessly infantile and mother-obsessed. In childhood, we're English: chronically shy, tongue-tied, cliquey, and only happy when kicking balls, pulling the legs off something, or sending someone to Coventry. Teenagers are French: pretentiously philosophical, embarrassingly vain, ridiculously romantic and insincere. Then, in middle age we become either Swiss or Irish. Old age is German: ponderous, pompous, and pedantic. Then, finally, we regress into being Belgian, with no idea who we are at all."
This one is without a doubt my favorite, from A.A. Gill in the London Times, July 2009:
"I've often thought that Europe is an allegory for the ages of man. You're born Italian. They're relentlessly infantile and mother-obsessed. In childhood, we're English: chronically shy, tongue-tied, cliquey, and only happy when kicking balls, pulling the legs off something, or sending someone to Coventry. Teenagers are French: pretentiously philosophical, embarrassingly vain, ridiculously romantic and insincere. Then, in middle age we become either Swiss or Irish. Old age is German: ponderous, pompous, and pedantic. Then, finally, we regress into being Belgian, with no idea who we are at all."
Monday, October 26, 2009
People Just Don't Care About News
At least that seems to be the message that has been sent by recent viewership totals of the four major cable news stations -- CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC, and HLN (formerly known as Headline News) -- during prime time.
CNN, which is by far the one that relies on actual news coverage (as opposed to talking heads and one-way opinion shows) to drive its audience numbers, came in dead last for the month of October for prime-time programming, reports the New York Times.
However, CNN still has the highest viewership numbers when you look at all the hours in the day, but when it comes to prime-time, the most important hours of the day in terms of advertising revenue, it looks like the American public has a much stronger taste for opinion. FoxNews has made a living on those types of programs (led by the "Papa Bear" himself, Bill O'Reilly, who grabs an average of 880,000 viewers a night), so it should be little surprise that Fox dominates almost every time slot of the prime time schedule.
Opposite 'O Reilly at 8 p.m. is MSNBC's Keith Olberman (the #1 pundit on my list of pundits I'd like to personally strangle) who pulls in less than 300,000 viewers a night, followed by HLN's Nancy Grace with roughly 270,00. In the same time slot, CNN's Campbell Brown gets only 162,000 viewers.
The story is pretty much the same at 7 p.m., with Fox's Shepard Smith grabbing the top spot with 465,000 viewers, while MSNBC's Chris Matthews (179,000), HLN's Jane Velez Mitchell (166,000), and CNN's Lou Dobbs (162,000) barely manage to get that many viewers combined.
The only CNN host not to finish in last place during prime time is the ancient one, Larry King, who managed to finish third at 9 p.m. with 224,00 viewers. That's still well behind Fox's Sean Hannity (659,000) and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow (242,000), but ahead of HLN's Joy Behar (181,000).
Maybe the saddest part for CNN is that their signature show, Anderson Cooper 360, also went to the bottom of the barrel in October. Cooper (who got 211,000 viewers) was beaten by RE-RUNS of Olberman (223,000) and Grace (222,000) during the 10 o'clock hour. Fox's Greta Van Sustern won with 538,000 viewers.
Sadder still - in three of the four time slots, CNN programs were beaten by HLN programs....and HLN is actually owned by CNN. Basically, that's like USA network getting better prime time ratings than NBC.
--
CNN, which is by far the one that relies on actual news coverage (as opposed to talking heads and one-way opinion shows) to drive its audience numbers, came in dead last for the month of October for prime-time programming, reports the New York Times.
However, CNN still has the highest viewership numbers when you look at all the hours in the day, but when it comes to prime-time, the most important hours of the day in terms of advertising revenue, it looks like the American public has a much stronger taste for opinion. FoxNews has made a living on those types of programs (led by the "Papa Bear" himself, Bill O'Reilly, who grabs an average of 880,000 viewers a night), so it should be little surprise that Fox dominates almost every time slot of the prime time schedule.
Opposite 'O Reilly at 8 p.m. is MSNBC's Keith Olberman (the #1 pundit on my list of pundits I'd like to personally strangle) who pulls in less than 300,000 viewers a night, followed by HLN's Nancy Grace with roughly 270,00. In the same time slot, CNN's Campbell Brown gets only 162,000 viewers.
The story is pretty much the same at 7 p.m., with Fox's Shepard Smith grabbing the top spot with 465,000 viewers, while MSNBC's Chris Matthews (179,000), HLN's Jane Velez Mitchell (166,000), and CNN's Lou Dobbs (162,000) barely manage to get that many viewers combined.
The only CNN host not to finish in last place during prime time is the ancient one, Larry King, who managed to finish third at 9 p.m. with 224,00 viewers. That's still well behind Fox's Sean Hannity (659,000) and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow (242,000), but ahead of HLN's Joy Behar (181,000).
Maybe the saddest part for CNN is that their signature show, Anderson Cooper 360, also went to the bottom of the barrel in October. Cooper (who got 211,000 viewers) was beaten by RE-RUNS of Olberman (223,000) and Grace (222,000) during the 10 o'clock hour. Fox's Greta Van Sustern won with 538,000 viewers.
Sadder still - in three of the four time slots, CNN programs were beaten by HLN programs....and HLN is actually owned by CNN. Basically, that's like USA network getting better prime time ratings than NBC.
--
Global Warming Now in Doubt, Americans Say
In the past six months, apparently 14 percent of Americans have changed their minds about the existence of global warming, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center. In April, the same survey said that 71 percent of people felt there was "solid evidence the Earth is warming", but in October's survey only 57 percent said that was true.
There was also an 11 percent decline (from 47 to 36) in respondents who said the Earth's warming was due to human activities. Also significant is a nine percent decline (44 to 35) in people who said global warming is a "serious problem". The decline goes across all political opinions, but it is most pronounced among independent voters.
So why is this? Could it be that health care and swine flu have replaced global warming as the biggest threat to life on Earth? Could it be, as Megan McArdle suggests, that "45 million Americans spent the last year reviewing the scientific evidence on Global Warming and changed their minds"? Or was it the unseasonably cool summer that most of North America experienced, combined with the earliest snowfall on record in many places in the Rocky Mountains, that has swayed opinion?
--
There was also an 11 percent decline (from 47 to 36) in respondents who said the Earth's warming was due to human activities. Also significant is a nine percent decline (44 to 35) in people who said global warming is a "serious problem". The decline goes across all political opinions, but it is most pronounced among independent voters.
So why is this? Could it be that health care and swine flu have replaced global warming as the biggest threat to life on Earth? Could it be, as Megan McArdle suggests, that "45 million Americans spent the last year reviewing the scientific evidence on Global Warming and changed their minds"? Or was it the unseasonably cool summer that most of North America experienced, combined with the earliest snowfall on record in many places in the Rocky Mountains, that has swayed opinion?
--
Monday, October 19, 2009
U.S. Navy: World Police
The U.S. Navy makes it official: this country's military is no longer for our own defense and protection. Now, we are a "global force for good".
Somehow, I don't see our generals and admirals sitting around to discuss the nature of "the good", but once they figure that out, I'm sure we'll have eternal peace on Earth. Then again, philosophers have been working on that idea for a long time without a lot of objective success, so we might have to fight a few hundred more wars first. So it goes.
In all honesty, I do kind of like the ad. It's cool, the editing is awesome, and I'm all for pumping up the history and spirit of the Armed Forces. I just wish they could change the slogan at the end of it to something that doesn't make my skin crawl.
Somehow, I don't see our generals and admirals sitting around to discuss the nature of "the good", but once they figure that out, I'm sure we'll have eternal peace on Earth. Then again, philosophers have been working on that idea for a long time without a lot of objective success, so we might have to fight a few hundred more wars first. So it goes.
In all honesty, I do kind of like the ad. It's cool, the editing is awesome, and I'm all for pumping up the history and spirit of the Armed Forces. I just wish they could change the slogan at the end of it to something that doesn't make my skin crawl.
If Failure is Impossible, What's the point of Success?
Walter Williams, of George Mason University's Economics department, wants to know.
According to a recent essay by Williams, the worth of a college degree is dropping almost by the day. While academic achievement scores are consistently dropping across the nation, our collective GPA seems to get better and better. Why?
"What is being labeled grade inflation is simply a euphemism for academic dishonesty. After all, it's dishonesty when a professor assigns a grade the student did not earn. When a university or college confers a degree upon a student who has not mastered critical thinking skills, writing and problem-solving, it's academic dishonesty. Of course, I might be in error calling it dishonesty. Perhaps academic standards have been set so low that idiots could earn A's and B's."
Williams goes on to point out specific instances where grade-inflation has weakened the meaning of a degree -- even from some of the most prestigious schools in the country.
"In October 2001, the Boston Globe published an article entitled "Harvard's Quiet Secret: Rampant Grade Inflation." The article reported that a record 91 percent of Harvard University students were awarded honors during the spring graduation. The newspaper called Harvard's grading practices "the laughing stock of the Ivy League."
Harvard is by no means unique. For example, 80 percent of the grades given at the University of Illinois are A's and B's. Fifty percent of students at Columbia University are on the Dean's list. At Stanford University, where F grades used to be banned, only 6 percent of student grades were as low as a C. In the 1930s, the average GPA at American colleges and universities was 2.35, about a C plus; today the national average GPA is 3.2, more than a B."
The reason why colleges would be willing to let academic standards fall so low? In Williams' opinion, it mostly has to do with the "rankings" of schools that have become so important in the eyes of some administrators.
And this is a problem throughout the college system, not just at the upper-most tier. In four years at Fairfield University, I saw plenty of people, many of whom probably shouldn't have been admitted in the first place, passing classes with the kind of ease that made me question the value of my own success. What significance is a college degree, even a college degree with honors, if it is simply handed out to anyone who paid the money and stuck around for four years? The only thing colleges can really control is their academic standards, but it appears that far too many of them have let other considerations get in the way.
Regardless of the reason, this trend has destroyed the value of a bachelor's degree (while the price of said degree has gone through the roof), and that's bad for everyone involved.
According to a recent essay by Williams, the worth of a college degree is dropping almost by the day. While academic achievement scores are consistently dropping across the nation, our collective GPA seems to get better and better. Why?
"What is being labeled grade inflation is simply a euphemism for academic dishonesty. After all, it's dishonesty when a professor assigns a grade the student did not earn. When a university or college confers a degree upon a student who has not mastered critical thinking skills, writing and problem-solving, it's academic dishonesty. Of course, I might be in error calling it dishonesty. Perhaps academic standards have been set so low that idiots could earn A's and B's."
Williams goes on to point out specific instances where grade-inflation has weakened the meaning of a degree -- even from some of the most prestigious schools in the country.
"In October 2001, the Boston Globe published an article entitled "Harvard's Quiet Secret: Rampant Grade Inflation." The article reported that a record 91 percent of Harvard University students were awarded honors during the spring graduation. The newspaper called Harvard's grading practices "the laughing stock of the Ivy League."
Harvard is by no means unique. For example, 80 percent of the grades given at the University of Illinois are A's and B's. Fifty percent of students at Columbia University are on the Dean's list. At Stanford University, where F grades used to be banned, only 6 percent of student grades were as low as a C. In the 1930s, the average GPA at American colleges and universities was 2.35, about a C plus; today the national average GPA is 3.2, more than a B."
The reason why colleges would be willing to let academic standards fall so low? In Williams' opinion, it mostly has to do with the "rankings" of schools that have become so important in the eyes of some administrators.
And this is a problem throughout the college system, not just at the upper-most tier. In four years at Fairfield University, I saw plenty of people, many of whom probably shouldn't have been admitted in the first place, passing classes with the kind of ease that made me question the value of my own success. What significance is a college degree, even a college degree with honors, if it is simply handed out to anyone who paid the money and stuck around for four years? The only thing colleges can really control is their academic standards, but it appears that far too many of them have let other considerations get in the way.
Regardless of the reason, this trend has destroyed the value of a bachelor's degree (while the price of said degree has gone through the roof), and that's bad for everyone involved.
Friday, October 16, 2009
The Morality of Blackmail
Lizzie Widdicombe, of The New Yorker (doesn't that just sound like the name of someone who would write for The New Yorker?), has an interesting piece about the moral-reasoning behind the idea that blackmail is wrong.
Consider the following example:
"There’s a film coming out—a thinly disguised portrayal of a media mogul—and word is that if it’s released it will hurt the mogul’s reputation. Powerful people intervene: they call a meeting and offer the movie studio money—eight hundred and forty-two thousand dollars—to scrap the movie and destroy the negatives. Would it be wrong for the studio to take the money?...
...The mogul in question was William Randolph Hearst, and the movie was Orson Welles’s “Citizen Kane.” The studio turned down the offer, but, (Northwestern law professor James) Lindgren asked, “had they given in and taken the money, could the studio have been prosecuted for extortion?”"
Widdicombe goes on to ask if the same reasoning can be applied to the current situation with David Letterman, or, more specifically, with Robert Halderman (the CBS executive who is being prosecuted for attempting to get Letterman to pay him money to keep Letterman's affairs with female staffers a secret).
As Widdicombe puts it:
"The thinking goes like this: It’s perfectly legal for Halderman to write, or threaten to write, a screenplay (or an e-mail to TMZ) exposing the fact that David Letterman had flings with “Late Show” employees. It’s also legal for Halderman to ask Letterman for money as part of a business transaction. So why are the two things illegal when you put them together? In other words,...Why is it illegal to threaten to do what you can do legally anyway?"
The only way you can really defend blackmail as being wrong is to judge the motives of the individual (or individuals) who are engaging in it. If you're asking someone for money to provide a service for them in terms of a business deal, its okay, but if you ask them for money for more nefarious reasons, that's wrong.
The problem is that our justice system is not set up to judge guilt and innocence on the basis of motives alone (although motivation can have an impact on the degree to which a convicted criminal is punished), so there has to be a more objective standard. It's just very difficult to find, apparently.
Maybe the only real reason to make blackmail illegal is as a deterrent against doing something that is legal, but not very nice, says Erin Smith of Business Insider. But that doesn't sound like a very good foundation for making something against the law. After all, there are plenty of mean/annoying/irritating things that are perfectly legal. It seems that Libertarian economist Walter Block, quoted in the New Yorker article, would agree. He says that blackmail, "like smoking, is "yucky", but should be legal."
Your Thoughts?
Consider the following example:
"There’s a film coming out—a thinly disguised portrayal of a media mogul—and word is that if it’s released it will hurt the mogul’s reputation. Powerful people intervene: they call a meeting and offer the movie studio money—eight hundred and forty-two thousand dollars—to scrap the movie and destroy the negatives. Would it be wrong for the studio to take the money?...
...The mogul in question was William Randolph Hearst, and the movie was Orson Welles’s “Citizen Kane.” The studio turned down the offer, but, (Northwestern law professor James) Lindgren asked, “had they given in and taken the money, could the studio have been prosecuted for extortion?”"
Widdicombe goes on to ask if the same reasoning can be applied to the current situation with David Letterman, or, more specifically, with Robert Halderman (the CBS executive who is being prosecuted for attempting to get Letterman to pay him money to keep Letterman's affairs with female staffers a secret).
As Widdicombe puts it:
"The thinking goes like this: It’s perfectly legal for Halderman to write, or threaten to write, a screenplay (or an e-mail to TMZ) exposing the fact that David Letterman had flings with “Late Show” employees. It’s also legal for Halderman to ask Letterman for money as part of a business transaction. So why are the two things illegal when you put them together? In other words,...Why is it illegal to threaten to do what you can do legally anyway?"
The only way you can really defend blackmail as being wrong is to judge the motives of the individual (or individuals) who are engaging in it. If you're asking someone for money to provide a service for them in terms of a business deal, its okay, but if you ask them for money for more nefarious reasons, that's wrong.
The problem is that our justice system is not set up to judge guilt and innocence on the basis of motives alone (although motivation can have an impact on the degree to which a convicted criminal is punished), so there has to be a more objective standard. It's just very difficult to find, apparently.
Maybe the only real reason to make blackmail illegal is as a deterrent against doing something that is legal, but not very nice, says Erin Smith of Business Insider. But that doesn't sound like a very good foundation for making something against the law. After all, there are plenty of mean/annoying/irritating things that are perfectly legal. It seems that Libertarian economist Walter Block, quoted in the New Yorker article, would agree. He says that blackmail, "like smoking, is "yucky", but should be legal."
Your Thoughts?
Thursday, October 15, 2009
What About Mississippi?
Today, Obama is making his first trip to New Orleans as President. I'm not sure why more people aren't upset about this. Remember all the anger there was about Bush taking a week to get to New Orleans after Katrina? Well, it's taken this President nearly nine months to get there.
Then again, he sure has been busy with all that he's accomplished since taking office, so I guess its understandable.
What's less understandable is why he is only visiting New Orleans and not taking a couple of extra hours to stop by some of the towns in rural Mississippi that were actually more severely damaged than the city of New Orleans. (Remember, Katrina actually made landfall just across the border in Mississippi, about 50 miles east of New Orleans)
The mayor of Waveland, Mississippi, told the AP he's "greatly disappointed" that Obama is skipping the Mississippi altogether. In the same article, U.S. Representative Gene Taylor (D) of the 4th Congressional District, which includes all of the state's Gulf Coast, said he wrote a letter to Obama this week "that began by pointing out the president hasn’t visited the area."
"Taylor criticized the administration for opposing legislation to reform the National Flood Insurance Program, which Taylor believes would prevent gaps in coverage for millions of people who live areas vulnerable to hurricanes.
Then again, he sure has been busy with all that he's accomplished since taking office, so I guess its understandable.
What's less understandable is why he is only visiting New Orleans and not taking a couple of extra hours to stop by some of the towns in rural Mississippi that were actually more severely damaged than the city of New Orleans. (Remember, Katrina actually made landfall just across the border in Mississippi, about 50 miles east of New Orleans)
The mayor of Waveland, Mississippi, told the AP he's "greatly disappointed" that Obama is skipping the Mississippi altogether. In the same article, U.S. Representative Gene Taylor (D) of the 4th Congressional District, which includes all of the state's Gulf Coast, said he wrote a letter to Obama this week "that began by pointing out the president hasn’t visited the area."
"Taylor criticized the administration for opposing legislation to reform the National Flood Insurance Program, which Taylor believes would prevent gaps in coverage for millions of people who live areas vulnerable to hurricanes.
“If you visited the Mississippi Gulf Coast today, you would find that some areas have recovered, but in the cities of Waveland, Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian and in portions of other cities and counties, only one-half to two-thirds of the homes have been rebuilt,” Taylor wrote."
Of course, a photo opp and speech in the center of the Ninth Ward is a more powerful image than, say, in Pascagoula or Waveland, but that doesn't mean you get to ignore the people there either. It seems to be another example of how this Administration is more interested in its image than in actually doing something positive.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
What if you're having sex WITH your roommate?
Tufts University (just outside of Boston) has instituted a new policy that bans "sexual activity while your roommate is present in the room", the AP reports.
So, having sex in a Tufts dorm room is perfectly okay as far as the school is concerned, but your buddy can't watch. Or, you know, have to try and sleep through it.
Here's what Kim Thurler, a spokeswoman for the University, had to say:
""It's really about respect and consideration, and it's a question of how roommates utilized their space," Thurler said....Thurler maintains the new policy is not about regulating students' behavior, rather getting roommates talking about the issue of space with each other. She said the policy is aimed at the school's 5,000 undergraduates."
Freshman Jon Levinson, perhaps a budding libertarian, gave the perspective of the rational part of the student body:
""I don't believe it's the university's place to determine what goes on in a room," said Levinson. "Personally, I wouldn't want to have sex in front of my roommate, and my roommate wouldn't want to have sex in front of me."
So, having sex in a Tufts dorm room is perfectly okay as far as the school is concerned, but your buddy can't watch. Or, you know, have to try and sleep through it.
Here's what Kim Thurler, a spokeswoman for the University, had to say:
""It's really about respect and consideration, and it's a question of how roommates utilized their space," Thurler said....Thurler maintains the new policy is not about regulating students' behavior, rather getting roommates talking about the issue of space with each other. She said the policy is aimed at the school's 5,000 undergraduates."
Freshman Jon Levinson, perhaps a budding libertarian, gave the perspective of the rational part of the student body:
""I don't believe it's the university's place to determine what goes on in a room," said Levinson. "Personally, I wouldn't want to have sex in front of my roommate, and my roommate wouldn't want to have sex in front of me."
Levinson said he didn't think it that many students viewed it as a problem and wondered why the school came up with the policy with just a handful of cases."
I'm not sure if Tufts has mixed housing or not, but regardless, I still have one really obvious question (the title of the post). Also, I have to wonder if this is the first institutionally-enforced "sex-ile" rule.Monday, October 12, 2009
Zero Tolerance for Zero-Tolerance Laws
Zero-tolerance laws (much like Three-Strike Laws, and any other kind of law that can be described as a basic blanket statement) don't really make much sense to me. Why? Because they punish all violators as equals, even if the crimes committed are not in any way equal in terms of intention, motivation, or execution.
Case in point, a 6-year-old in Delaware has been suspended by his local school district because he brought a three-piece camping utensil into school with him. Zachary Christie was apparently "so excited about recently joining the Cub Scouts" that he wanted to eat lunch with his new camping thingy (perhaps this counts as a "Splayd"?).
Does it make sense to treat little Zachary like the re-incarnation of Dylan Klebold? Probably not, but that's not going to stop the Christina School District from throwing the book at him because the school's code of conduct clearly states that "knives are banned, regardless of the possessor's intent".
On the plus side, at least this ridiculous suspension is getting Delaware to take another look at these absurd laws. Last year, Delaware lawmakers decided that it's not okay to expel kids over these types of incidents after this happened:
"...a third-grade girl was expelled for a year because her grandmother had sent a birthday cake to school, along with a knife to cut it. The teacher called the principal — but not before using the knife to cut and serve the cake."
Zachary and his parents continue to fight this suspension while they homeschool him temporarily. Here's to hoping the Delaware legislature (and other states too) comes to it's senses soon.
Case in point, a 6-year-old in Delaware has been suspended by his local school district because he brought a three-piece camping utensil into school with him. Zachary Christie was apparently "so excited about recently joining the Cub Scouts" that he wanted to eat lunch with his new camping thingy (perhaps this counts as a "Splayd"?).
Does it make sense to treat little Zachary like the re-incarnation of Dylan Klebold? Probably not, but that's not going to stop the Christina School District from throwing the book at him because the school's code of conduct clearly states that "knives are banned, regardless of the possessor's intent".
On the plus side, at least this ridiculous suspension is getting Delaware to take another look at these absurd laws. Last year, Delaware lawmakers decided that it's not okay to expel kids over these types of incidents after this happened:
"...a third-grade girl was expelled for a year because her grandmother had sent a birthday cake to school, along with a knife to cut it. The teacher called the principal — but not before using the knife to cut and serve the cake."
Zachary and his parents continue to fight this suspension while they homeschool him temporarily. Here's to hoping the Delaware legislature (and other states too) comes to it's senses soon.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Pseudepigraphic Victories
I've been away from blogging for a little more than a week, in part because I've been away from home and in part because it feels like that I've been writing about an article per night for the Town and Country on the nights that I have been home.
Anyway, maybe taking that time off was just my way of letting the media catch-up with this blog. That's right, Pseudepigraphic Epistemology has once again beaten the professionals on a story. Actually two stories.
Today, the Associated Press has this story about the "stop-and-frisk" program in New York, a subject that was the focus of my latest post on "Why I Hate New York City", back on September 30.
Thanks to reader Meg for bringing it to my attention. She writes:
"+1 to you for picking up on this story in September."
Then, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but this story on Yahoo! news about NASA's plans to smash a $79 million probe into the side of the Moon. And yes, they are doing it on purpose. I got all sorts of angry (appropriately, I would think) about that idea way back in June.
I think that's +2 for me.
But seriously, wouldn't we be better off if they simply burned (literally) that $79 million. At least then we could use it for warmth. So what if there is ice under the surface of the Moon? Where does that leave us?
Anyway, maybe taking that time off was just my way of letting the media catch-up with this blog. That's right, Pseudepigraphic Epistemology has once again beaten the professionals on a story. Actually two stories.
Today, the Associated Press has this story about the "stop-and-frisk" program in New York, a subject that was the focus of my latest post on "Why I Hate New York City", back on September 30.
Thanks to reader Meg for bringing it to my attention. She writes:
"+1 to you for picking up on this story in September."
Then, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but this story on Yahoo! news about NASA's plans to smash a $79 million probe into the side of the Moon. And yes, they are doing it on purpose. I got all sorts of angry (appropriately, I would think) about that idea way back in June.
I think that's +2 for me.
But seriously, wouldn't we be better off if they simply burned (literally) that $79 million. At least then we could use it for warmth. So what if there is ice under the surface of the Moon? Where does that leave us?
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