Eric Alterman chastises the media for buying what Breitbart has to sell them. Instead of eating crow and repenting for circulating the edited Sherrod tapes, they apologized for Breitbart and equated his lies with the Journolist controversy. Alterman is pissed.
And the MSM machers? Well, they can't help but notice that they got taken this time, but they prefer to chalk it up to "ideology." "There's been this proliferation of partisan media—whether it's MSNBC and Fox at night, or it's Breitbart on the right or Huffington Post on the left," complains Politico executive editor James VandeHei, and it makes honest folk like MSM reporters "overreact." Writing with Politico editor in chief John Harris, VandeHei pronounces the dawning of an "Age of Rage," equating Breitbart and company's perversion of the truth with the fact that some liberal journalists and academics participated in occasionally less than polite discussions about conservatives (and one another). The private discussions of this listserv, called "Journolist"—discussed in my previous column—were either hacked by or leaked to Tucker Carlson's right-wing website, The Daily Caller, and, as with the Sherrod tape, edited for the purposes of deception and false accusation. In the careless reasoning of the Politico honchos, these discussions deserved equation with Breitbart's nefarious techniques because both "featured sharp personal attacks against political opponents. Both revolved around indignant claims from people claiming to be victims of bias and the corrupt ideological agendas of their opponents—all the while stoking and profiting from the bias and conspiratorial instincts of partisans on their own side." As a result, they worry, "Responsible people in power and in the mainstream media are only beginning to grapple with this new environment—in which facts hardly matter except as they can be used as weapon or shield in a nonstop ideological war."
Instead, of demanding facts, the mainstream media is too cowed by charges of being liberal to check conservative hacks, like Breitbart. Excellent article.
Get ready for a big lawsuit, Mr. Breitbart.
One parting look at SpongeBob before the camp bus arrives.
I have a weakness for kids in extra large t-shirts.
I don't know if it's an Italian-American thing or an east coast thing, but wedding guests always black around here. I have rotated a handful of black sheath dresses to the past few weddings. Tonight, I'm branching out and going with an Easter egg skirt and a black t. Call me crazy.
I'm going to the wedding of my third cousin, John. It promises to be a big bash. I'll be disappointed if the black ice machine isn't involved. Also, the cherries jubilee.
With 500 million members, can Facebook be called a country?
I've been getting e-mails from family and friends to tell me to stop the anti-academic diatribes. I can't help it! The fodder keeps on coming. I really want to change the subject, but I can't.
Wendy just sent me a link to a blog post about Andrew Hacker's new book, Higher Education?: How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids---and What We Can Do About It
Andrew Hacker, who is professor emeritus at Queens College in New York, recalls the day a young political scientist walked into his department to interview for a job. Everything about the man's resume made him an ideal candidate. He was finishing his dissertation at a top university. His mentors had written effusive recommendations. But when the young superstar sat down with the department chair, he seemed to have only one goal: to land a tenure-track position that involved as many sabbaticals and as little teaching as possible. He was not invited back for a second interview.
She follows up with a great interview with Hacker.
Steve and I sometimes worry that we spend too much of our free time getting out of town. We're always packing up the car for trips to Manhattan or hikes in the mountain or day trips to quaint villages in upstate New York. Maybe we should be better about staying in one place and like barbeque and stuff. But then Steve gets grouchy at the swim club and I'm antsy after being stuck here all week, so the duffel bags are packed, the GPS gets set, and off we go.
We're going to DC at the end of August. I'm looking forward to checking out the Air and Space Museum's exhibit, “Beyond: Visions of Our Solar System”. The New York Times said that the exhibit has "148 photographs of moons and planets show these brave new worlds as extraordinary landscapes of mists, dunes, fissures and rocks." Perfect for restless roamers like us.
Eons ago, I used to walk to the subway after a long evening out with friends and link arms with Steve. Not because I wanted to be romantic or anything. I wanted him to help me navigate the sidewalk, so I could look into people's apartments. Nighttime is the prime time for checking out strangers' homes. They're all lit up and the shades are still open. You can get glimpses of their decor and the people milling about.
This is the view of our house at dusk. If you squint, you can see a couple of baskets of unfolded clothes, several Pokemon books and Steve yelling at the kids to go to bed.
Mrs. Werner. I can remember the name of my kindergartner teacher, but only the names of a handful of professors from college. I remember my orange juice can of thick crayons with the paper peeled off and singing songs as she played on the piano. She was a super nice lady.
What value can be place on the Mrs. Werners of the world? Do the Mrs. Werners make a difference and how do we quantify their value? A group of economists led by Raj Chetty recently examined the impact of a quality kindergarten education on future life outcomes, not high school test scores. The Chetty study, not yet peer-reviewed, is worthy of the front page of the NYT, because I don't think anybody has had this kind of data before.
What they found was fascinating. A good kindergartner teacher means better test scores for her kindergarten students. Those benefits fade around junior high. (Other studies, including all the Head Start studies, have found that, as well.) However, the benefits of a good kindergarten education kicks in later in life in terms of higher earnings and life stability.
Students who had learned much more in kindergarten were more likely to go to college than students with otherwise similar backgrounds. Students who learned more were also less likely to become single parents. As adults, they were more likely to be saving for retirement. Perhaps most striking, they were earning more.
All else equal, they were making about an extra $100 a year at age 27 for every percentile they had moved up the test-score distribution over the course of kindergarten. A student who went from average to the 60th percentile — a typical jump for a 5-year-old with a good teacher — could expect to make about $1,000 more a year at age 27 than a student who remained at the average. Over time, the effect seems to grow, too.
They also found that rich kids benefit as much as poor kids from a good teacher.
This is tricky research to do. The Times doesn't give me quite enough information about how they controlled for a variety of factors. Still, these findings and the scope of their study are interesting. Gotta get my hands on that paper.
David Leonhardt, who wrote the article for the New York Times, ends the article with a long opinion section, which probably didn't belong in the article. He points out this research by educational economists is going to show people that good schools and good teacher do matter. He also adds that new merit pay policies and Michelle Rhee recent firing of bad teachers helps, too.
I'm ticking items off the vacation to-do list. We're heading down south next week, and we need new luggage. Our old K-Mart duffel bags disintegrated, so I just ordered some better ones from LL Bean. Hopefully, we can convince Ian that he's too old for his beloved Thomas the Tank Engine suitcase on wheels.
I would love to leave for vacation with four tidy duffel bags in the trunk and nothing more. No random plastic bags of last minute toys and sneakers that wouldn't fit in the bags. Yeah, that's not going to happen.
Question of the Day: Are you taking a summer vacation? Where are you going? (Or where did you go?)
I find it really annoying when journalists and academics examine the latest pop phenomenon and look for deeper meaning. Is Gaga a feminist hero or is she an anti-feminist? Sometimes a Lady Gaga is just a Lady Gaga. I blame Camille Paglia.
That said, I'm going to delve into Pop Feminism for a few minutes. The New York Times had articles this weekend about Lady Gaga and Snooki of the Jersey Shore that are garnering lots of attention.
John Caramanica writes that Lady Gaga and her imitators are attracting huge crowds, while earthy-crunchy female musicians like Sarah McLachlan have to cancel tour dates, because nobody is buying tickets. Caramanica thinks we're in a new era of feminism where curlers made out of soda cans trump short haircuts and sensible shoes.
Actually, while Gaga doing really well (she has more friends on Facebook than President Obama), the copycats aren't. Christina Aguilera's latest album bombed and she had to cancel her tour, because nobody was going. Caramanica is trying too hard.
Also in the Times this weekend was article about Snooki from the Jersey Shore. Cathy Horyn describes her as a turnip, an attention seeker and as talentless. She rocks the "pouf." Jezebel says this article reeks with snobbery.
I'm not quite sure why the Times loves the attention-seeking and body exposure of Lady Gaga, but finds it repellent in Snooki.
OK, now I'm mildly embarrassed for wading into these waters. I'm going to have to redeem myself with a wikileaks post or something.
... I take them to art museums.
I was flipping through my links of things that I've read this week and in a weird juxtaposition, I have two posts about two very different, older women.
First, this blog post from Perez Hilton about Judge Judge who is going to make $45 million dollars next year. Hilton can't help add that this is incredible for a woman in her late sixties. Yeah, that comment pissed me off, but it is sort of true. Hollywood throws its women out after their thirtieth birthday.
Then I've got this article about a 70-year old woman in remote village in Northern India who is from a community that used to practice polyandry. She was married at age 14 to a 12-year old boy and promised to his younger brother. It's a very poor part of the world; the lines on her face tell a story of toil and hardship. But the article also says that in her society, women ruled the family.
Is a polyandrous society better for women than a polygamous society? Megan wonders what happened to the leftover girls.
I'm struggling to find a connection between these two very different women and come up with a snappy conclusion. Perhaps there is none.
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