Sixty years ago today, we started fixing something that was broken. AP file photo of Brooklyn Dodgers teammates (from left) John Jorgensen, Pee Wee Reese, Ed Stanky and Jackie Robinson on April 15, 1947. Read more
Sixty years ago today, we started fixing something that was broken. AP file photo of Brooklyn Dodgers teammates (from left) John Jorgensen, Pee Wee Reese, Ed Stanky and Jackie Robinson on April 15, 1947. Read more
Happily, big-time movie director John Rogers still finds time to do a bit of blogging, including yesterday's post clearing up the confusion on the Imus affair. Rogers' main point has to do with the way comedy "steals power": I think this is the key to understanding why the Rutgers incident suddenly brought the whole Imus parade to a halt. The guy's been a frikkin' cretin for years, and this was really not that different objectively — you really have to... Read more
This is what a waste of money looks like: That graph is Figure 1 in the final report, "Impacts of Four Title V, Section 510 Abstinence Education Programs (.pdf)." Mathematica Policy Research summarizes their findings: Findings indicate that youth in the program group were no more likely than control group youth to have abstained from sex and, among those who reported having had sex, they had similar numbers of sexual partners and had initiated sex at the same mean age.... Read more
Left Behind, pp. 263-265 Buck Williams and Steve "Duckie" Plank arrive at Buck's apartment so he can get ready for his big date midnight tryst interview with Nicolae Carpathia. Buck's been out of town for the past few days, so his answering machine is full. One of the first message on Buck's answering machine was from the flight attendant he had met the week before. "Mr. Williams, this is Hattie Durham," she said. "I'm in New York on another flight... Read more
Play along at home: 1. "I live too many miles from the ocean / And I'm getting older and odd" 2. "Darling when I was your age / I could do anything" 3. "Trust in your calling, make sure your calling's true" 4. "You said I should call you up / But I knew much better than that" 5. "With a tight grip on the short hairs / Of the public imagination" 6. "Now everybody do the propaganda / And... Read more
A classic from The Onion: "Cheney Returns to Camp Crystal Lake" Read more
"Our job is to enforce the rules," said Orlando police spokeswoman Sgt. Barbara Jones, following the first arrest under the city's homeless-feeding law. Sgt. Jones didn't elaborate, didn't attempt to defend "the rules" in this case. Probably wise on her part: Eric Montanez, 21, is the first to be arrested under the city's controversial ordinance that bars feeding large groups of people in downtown parks without a special permit. The rule was approved last summer after residents and businesses in... Read more
So the news comes on after House,* and the local Fox affiliate leads with a story about Rep. Chaka Fattah's first TV ad in his run for mayor of Philadelphia. This post isn't about local politics, but you'll need a quick sketch of the background here. The Philly mayor's race is decided in the Democratic primary. There are five candidates but nobody's really caught fire (see TheNextMayor.com for the full background). Last summer Rep. Fattah was leading in the polls,... Read more
Kevin Drum points out that a Washington Post experiment designed to show that people are Philistines who don't appreciate beauty does no such thing. Basically, [the Post's Gene Weingarten] took a world-class violinist (Joshua Bell) and had him play for about an hour at the entrance to a DC Metro stop to see if anyone would notice. To a good approximation, no one did. The tone of the story is a sort of artificially mournful tsk-tsking over our inability to... Read more
Jared Bernstein offers a fanciful take on the recent Circuit City layoffs: Short Circuit, including a link to the chain's own press release. The company's prose is as crooked as their twisted little hearts: The company has completed a wage management initiative that will result in the separation of approximately 3,400 store Associates. The separations, which are occurring today, focused on Associates who were paid well above the market-based salary range for their role. New Associates will be hired for... Read more
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