Author Archives: Chris
Thought for the Day: 11 April 2015
Two snowmen are sharing a meal. One looks up and says, “Ugh. This tastes like boogers.” The other replies, “It’s carrot cake.”
Waiting for Hillary
A presidential candidate cannot run on being the first woman to be president, because that is not a platform. It does not tell the nation what she will do to respond to the nation’s needs. It also contradicts the underlying premise that a woman can do the job quite as well as a man and therefore gender should not matter. If gender should not matter, then, logically, a campaign cannot be based on gender. Hillary Clinton must make the case for why she should be president based on where she wants to lead the nation, and why, just as any man running for president must do. And that case must be made starting from the moment she declares her candidacy.
More from Reich here.
Thought for the Day: 10 April 2015
I should listen to Tavis Smiley more often – listen or watch.
Franzen on choice
Yesterday I quoted a paragraph from Jonathan Franzen’s recent New Yorker article which resonated with me. It’s a good paragraph but it’s simple and direct. After praising Franzen for his nuanced writing it’s appropriate to provide an example. One that comes to mind is something he wrote for Harper’s Magazine in 1992. It was part of a collection of pieces for an article, “She’s come for an abortion. What do you say?” The lead-in to the article was
Few arguments in America inspire as much passion as the one about abortion. In the twenty years since Roe v. Wade, the debate has degenerated into the vocabulary of rage-shouted insults, angry chants, bloody pictures. Politics requires starkly drawn lines: we must be either pro-life or pro-choice; an abortion is either murder or an insignificant procedure. But in our personal conversations about abortion, a more subtle dialogue is taking place-discussions of life and death, rights and responsibilities, hope and regret. Last June, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld most of Pennsylvania’s Abortion Control Act, including a provision that requires a woman seeking an abortion to listen to a doctor’s speech about the operation twenty-four hours before it can take place. But what if this moment were used not for the exchange of dry, clinical information but to help us see the deeper truths buried beneath the partisan slogans? With this in mind, the editors of Harper’s Magazine asked fourteen writers for the words they would speak to a woman who was a day away from her abortion.
Misguided criticism of Franzen’s New Yorker article
In this week’s Weekly Digest I linked to a recent article by Jonathan Franzen in The New Yorker, “Carbon Capture: Has climate change made it harder for people to care about conservation?” He made a few statements that I’d challenge but, overall, it’s a very thoughtful and nuanced piece. He speaks to the challenge that many of us feel in trying to make progress towards solving chronic problems while also dealing with acute ones. He tells a good “think globally, act locally” story. It’s a good read. Unfortunately, over the past few days I’ve read some really out-to-lunch criticisms of the piece by people whose opinions I generally respect. (Names omitted here to protect the guilty.) I don’t know what to say about that beyond, “Read it for yourself.”
Weekly Digest – April 5, 2015
Must Read
- Sabrina Tavernise (NYT), The Condition Cancer Research Is In [Ed.: Read this as much for observations on the condition scientific research is in as for cancer research in particular.]
- driftglass, 10 Years After: 2007 — SOTU FU [Ed.: Related tirades here and here.]
- BBC News, Are we tired of talking about climate change?
- Jonathan Franzen, Carbon Capture: Has climate change made it harder for people to care about conservation? [Ed.: Franzen’s piece is worth reading it’s own right but also in the context of Elizabeth Farnsworth’s “Is ‘New Conservation’ Still Conservation?“]
Should Read
- James Hansen, Makiko Sato, and Reto Ruedy, The New Climate Dice: Public Perception of Climate Change
- Adam Nagourney, Jack Healy, and Nelson D. Schwartz (NYT), California Drought Tests History of Endless Growth
- Scott Beauchamp, Military High Tech Leads to Big Graft
- Dean Baker, Generic Sovaldi Costs Less than $1,000 in India
- Lydia DePillis, Losing a job is always terrible. For workers over 50, it’s worse.
- Andrew Gelman, Regression: What’s it all about?
Environment
- Ari Phillips, Antarctica Recorded Its Hottest Temperature on Record This Week
- Justin Gillis (NYT), Climate Change Threatens to Kill Off More Aspen Forests by 2050s, Scientists Say
- Michael Oppenheimer, When Will Climate Change Become More Dangerous?
- Joe Romm, Long-Awaited ‘Jump’ In Global Warming Now Appears ‘Imminent’ [Ed.: The title suggests fear mongering but there’s actually a technical basis for the argument.]
The California Drought and Its Consequences Continue reading
Baseball story (must read)
From Sports Illustrated thirty years ago, George Plimpton and “The Curious Case of Sidd Finch“.
Baseball !!!
Opening Day is almost here.
Weekly Digest – March 29, 2015
Must Read
- Larry Mishel and Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Stark Choices: “People’s Budget” vs. Republican Plan
- Paul Krugman (NYT), Liberals, Conservatives, and Jobs
- Charlie Pierce, The Warren Effect: Here Is A Bluff That Needs To Be Called
- Boston Globe Editorial Board, Democrats need Elizabeth Warren’s voice in 2016 presidential race
Should Read
- Matt Taibbi, Hillary Clinton Is Turning Into Richard Nixon and Bill Belichick
- Robert Kuttner, 7 Reasons Why the 99 Percent Keeps Losing
- Robert Scott, What’s Wrong with the [Transpacific Partnership (TPP)]? This deal will lead to more job loss and downward pressures on the wages of most working Americans
- Brad Plumer, The Gulf Stream system may already be weakening. That’s not good.
- Adam Clark Estes, Missing Restricted Military Gear Keeps Popping Up on eBay
- Thomas Piketty, Student Loan Debt Is the Enemy of Meritocracy in the US [Ed.: See also Mike Konczal, The [University of North Carolina] Coup and the Second Limit of Economic Liberalism]
Education