You know, I used to shop at Target fairly regularly, back when we lived in a somewhat closer part of town.  Now, not so much; I pick up my everyday sort of “discount store” items at Meijer, the original “one-stop shopping” where I can grab a package of socks along with my weekly grocery shopping.  And even when I’m running errands in the vicinity of the Target, they’re on my list much less often than they used to be, partly... Read more

Here’s a Nicholas Kristof column in the Times today, “Are You Smarter Than an 8th Grader?” The Educational Testing Service released a global report finding that young adults from the United States rank poorly in reading but are even worse in math — the worst of all countries tested. This is the generation that will be in the labor force for the next half-century, struggling to compete with citizens of other countries. It’s not just that American results are dragged... Read more

[what follows is incomplete; I’m working through trying to put the Armenian Genocide into context.  Comments welcomed!] Earlier today, via Twitter, journalist Nicholas Kristof had this to say, Obama is wrong on 2 counts to describe Armenian slaughter as first mass atrocity of 20th century. 1st, it was genocide, not just atrocity. Second, first mass atrocity in 20th century was probably the earlier slaughter of civilians in Philippines in Philippine-American war. which is interesting to chew on. Kristof is referring... Read more

[Update below.] That’s not a rhetorical question. I just finished reading the article in wikipedia on the Armenian Genocide.  You should read it — it provides, so far as I can tell, a pretty good overview, both of the actions of the Ottoman Turkish government at the time, a combination of massacring Armenians in their towns and deporting them to concentration camps in the deserts of Syria with provision for neither food nor water, and of the insistence of the... Read more

I’m going to throw some ideas out, half-formed, while I’m thinking of them, and pose some questions, even though I don’t really have any answers. But right now I’m in the middle of Our Kids by Robert Putnam, which will merit a separate post once I finish the book.  Here is the quote I want to think about with you, though, from page 205, describing a girl (contrary to stereotype, a white girl) who became ensnared in substance abuse, until... Read more

Yesterday I wrote about funding woes in the Detroit Public Schools.  And what should be in the paper today but an article on a projected budget deficit in Chicago that makes Detroit’s problems seem like nothing more than chump change? The past few years have already seen thousands of layoffs at CPS, and more cuts will likely be a part of any plan forward. But no matter how much the district carves out of its budget of almost $6 billion,... Read more

Many years ago, in studying for actuarial exams, I recall a reading on public pensions, which argued that fully funding (or even funding at all) such pensions was unnecessary because, unlike private plans, a public entity would never “go out of business” or even see a decrease in its overall size, so that legacy costs, such as shrinking employers such as General Motors face(d), were a non-issue.  Any given state might not grow at the same pace as any other... Read more

Here’s my ah-ha moment from this weekend: Earlier this week, Megan McArdle had a post on free range parenting.  Then on Friday, she wrote about the declining number of new-construction starter homes, leading to some interesting discussions in the comments on changing expectations.  And this is what I’m thinking, mashing those two pieces together: The growth of suburbanization made tight-leash parenting possible.  (Can I coin a term and say that the opposite of free-range parenting is “tight-leash parenting”?  Because I... Read more

Earlier this week, I asked, “Who Supports Hillary?” and I’ve been reading bits and pieces of related articles since then.  How do her supporters respond to her “baggage”?  It’s manufactured, they say. Today, there was a Ross Douthat column in the Times, about her approach to this campaign. His bottom line: But on the evidence of her opening gambit [the video featuring her coalition/voting blocs more than HRC herself], her strategists’ first preference is to stick with the basic Obama gameplan and... Read more