What I Believe: Manifesto
I haven’t gotten here because I’m an ideologue.
Read moreTag Archives: Education
What I Believe, Part III: The Roadmap
Three core values inform everything I believe.
Read moreWhat I Believe, Part II: The Manifesto
Three core values inform everything I believe.
Read moreUnemployable: My Final Résumé
I feel like I’ve earned the right to say a few words on my way out the door.
Read moreGOP convention spared, God turns his judgment on Louisiana: what the hell is He mad about THIS time?
A few days it looked like The Lord Thy God was a’fixin’ to smite the Republican National Convention. Now, though, His Wrath has veered out over open water, picking up steam and drawing a bead on … no, seriously? Again? … New Orleans. Now, I don’t want to get ahead of Him here – The Lord, in His infinite wisdom, works
Read moreAn important life lesson, courtesy of Facebook and Amendment One
Facebook reminded me of an important lesson this morning. When I was young, I was an idiot. A well-intentioned idiot, to be sure. And in my defense, it must be said that I was probably less of an idiot than most kids my age. But still, I look back on the things I did, the things I believed, the insecurities
Read moreWhy America has more education and less to show for it than ever before
I hope you made the time to read Wufnik’s post from Friday. Entitled “Surrounded by people ‘educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought,’” his analysis of our culture’s “active willingness to be deceived” represents one of the iconic moments in S&R’s history. If you didn’t see it yet, go read it now. In addition to the questions the
Read moreWhen professors attack (each other): a response to “What exactly is a doctorate?”
A friend and colleague passed along a Gizmodo article today entitled “What exactly is a doctorate?” First, take a second to look it over, and make sure you sift through the comments, as well, because I think they’re important to the point I want to make. I’ll begin by acknowledging three important things. First, the writer (Dr. Matt Might of
Read moreFixing America
We rarely do link-throughs, but I came across an interesting conversation yesterday. It began with Don Peck’s Atlantic essay on “How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America,” and then quickly moved on to our friend Ian Welsh’s thought-provoking reply. A snippet: Because any economic growth right now increases the prices of oil, which then strangles the economy, you must
Read moreDemocracy & Elitism 4: equality, opportunity and leveling up the playing field
Pulitzer- and Emmy-winner William Henry‘s famous polemic, In Defense of Elitism (1994), argues that societies can be ranked along a spectrum with “egalitarianism” on one end and “elitism” on the other. He concludes that America, to its detriment, has slid too far in the direction of egalitarianism, and in the process that it has abandoned the elitist impulse that made
Read moreDemocracy & Elitism 2: performance elitism vs privilege elitism, and why the difference matters
Part two in a series. “Elite” hasn’t always been an epithet. In fact, if we consider what the dictionary has to say about it, it still signifies something potentially worthy. Potentially. For instance: e·lit·ism or é·lit·ism (-ltzm, -l-) n. 1. The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived
Read moreAndre Agassi: What a rich man’s discontent can teach us all about living an authentic life
They say money can’t buy happiness. The same also goes for celebrity, and even the status that accompanies being among the best in the world at your profession. We’ve had ample demonstration of this in recent days. Robert Enke, the goaltender for Hannover 96 (who currently hover in the middle of the German Bundesliga standings) and a potential member of
Read moreWhy American media has such a signal-to-noise problem, pt. 2
Part 2 of a series; Previously: What Bell Labs and French Intellectuals Can Tell Us About Cronkite and Couric The Signal-to-Noise Journey of American Media The 20th Century represented a Golden Age of Institutional Journalism. The Yellow Journalism wars of the late 19th Century gave way to a more responsible mode of reporting built on ethical and professional codes that
Read moreProof that Socialists have infiltrated Congress: “I have in my hand a list…”
Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) likes the fact that Barack Obama is a better listener than Dubya, but says “Some of the men and women I work with in Congress are socialists.” Asked to clarify his comments after the breakfast speech at the Trussville Civic Center, Bachus said 17 members of the U.S. House are socialists. Not 16, not 18. 17.
Read moreObama tackles America’s real number one issue
Almost 50 days into his administration President Obama made his way around to what strikes me as America’s #1 long-term issue, education. The soundbite is pretty catchy: he wants to overhaul the system “from the cradle up through a career.” A compelling sentiment, that is. Our educational system couldn’t be much more broken, and a righteous keelhauling overhauling is certainly
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