Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs
The Boston Globe has a story that appears typical of religion in general, not just Judaism: At the Reform movement’s seminary, 60 percent of the rabbinical students and 84 percent of those studying to become cantors are female. Girls are outnumbering boys by as much as 2 to 1 among adolescents in youth group programs [...]
WaPo fronts a new poll they’ve commissioned in partnership with ABC News under the headline “3 in 10 Americans Admit to Race Bias Survey Shows Age, Too, May Affect Election Views.” While it’s somewhat surprising that nearly a third of Americans admit to “at least some feelings of racial prejudice” (30 percent of whites, 34 [...]
A Newsweek poll of registered voters shows Barack Obama with a whopping 15-point lead over John McCain, 51 to 36. Newsweek‘s Michael Hirsh is stoked. Barack finally has his bounce. For weeks many political experts and pollsters have been wondering why the race between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain had stayed so tight, [...]
Is there a statute of limitations on touting college degrees as a measure of achievement? I ask because I’ve noted quite a bit of chatter about the educational attainments of the presidential candidates and wonder why they matter so much to people all these years later. Barack Obama must be smart, after all he was [...]
Barack Obama’s latest ad spot has him explaining that, no, really, he’s an American. And, despite what you might have heard, he likes it here. And he’s not a Muslim, either. Here’s the video: The transcript: I’m Barack Obama. America is a country of strong families and strong values. My life’s been blessed by both. [...]
Tim Russert has died of a heart attack at the age of 58. Family members say NBC’s Tim Russert has died. They tell The New York Times that Russert died of an apparent heart attack. The host of NBC’s “Meet the Press” was 58. Longtime NBC anchor Tom Brokaw has now confirmed Russert’s death, in [...]
A private school professor who is also an adjunct community college English instructor discusses the joys of teaching required composition courses to the latter. Remarkably few of my students can do well in these classes. Students routinely fail; some fail multiple times, and some will never pass, because they cannot write a coherent sentence. In [...]
Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the graduating class of the Army War College to accept responsibility, listen to their subordinates, and broaden their horizons. He also signaled a radical transformation of the way the Defense Department does business. The chairman also called on a national discourse on defense. [...]
Had the 2004 election been held on May 29th, John Kerry would have won handily: Five years later, it’s Obama 266, McCain 248, Tie 24. Via Andrew Sullivan, who presumably is trying to illustrate that Obama doesn’t have it wrapped up quite yet and needs to keep pushing on, who in turn got it via [...]
The folks at the Christian Science Monitor argue that the division of America into Red and Blue states based on aggregate voting behavior is flawed. They propose, instead, that we’re a “Patchwork Nation” comprised of at least eleven different voter communities. Nearly 305 million people live in the United States, according to the US Census [...]
Spanish-only speakers have an easier time getting by in Miami than English-only speakers, AP reports. In many areas of Miami, Spanish has become the predominant language, replacing English in everyday life. Anyone from Latin America could feel at home on the streets, without having to pronounce a single word in English. In stores, shopkeepers wait [...]
Steven Malanga looks at the distribution of income in professional sports and finds interesting parallels with the economy at large. In the National Football League, which has a very rigid salary cap, teams spend upwards of 60 percent of their payroll on 20 percent of their players an 80 percent on their top 40 percent [...]
Reggie Love was a standout wide receiver and basketball player at Duke that the Dallas Cowboys, for some odd reason, unsuccessfully tried to turn into a pro linebacker. Love was occasionally flat on his back in his college days. He’s landed on his feet, working as the body man for the presumptive Democratic nominee for [...]
Wake Forest has become the first nationally ranked university to drop the requirement that applicants submit an SAT or other standardized test score, joining numerous liberal arts colleges. While Wake’s decision isn’t going to have the impact of such a move from a Harvard or Stanford, it is notable. Wake is No. 30 on the [...]
A couple of weeks ago on OTB Radio, I suggested that there’s a very real chance that, come October or so, the Democrats will have a bad bout of buyers’ remorse. Paul Lukasiak, guest posting on left-wing talk radio host Taylor Marsh’s blog, says that the real lesson of Hillary!’s primary performances the last several [...]
FDL’s Thers is piling on the “has conservatism run out of ideas” bandwagon and inadvertently helped demonstrate why conservatism will never die. The piece is entitled “The Autumn of Wingnuttia” and doesn’t disappoint. He dismisses “a belief in free markets, free people, and in the greatness of the American people and the American nation” as [...]
Kevin Drum, responding to Jonah Goldberg‘s argument that George Packer‘s “The Fall of Conservatism” erroneously conflates conservatism with the Republican Party, retorts: No political ideology lives in isolation. We judge communism by how Mao and Stalin implemented it, we judge 60s-era liberalism by how LBJ and the Democratic Party implemented it, and we judge social [...]
While much has been made of Barack Obama’s problems with white working class voters, especially in Appalachia, a more problematic trend may be signs of trouble with Jewish voters, a strong if relatively small part of the Democratic base. Today’s NYT features Jodi Kantor’s story, “Many Florida Jews Express Doubts on Obama.” On Thursday, Mr. [...]
Today’s Democratic primaries in Kentucky and Oregon provide something akin to a rematch of the recent Indiana-North Carolina pairing. Hillary Clinton should easily win Kentucky, where Barack Obama hasn’t even bothered to campaign, and Obama should take Oregon. The Polls The latest RealClearPolitics average has Clinton up a whopping 29 points in Kentucky and Obama [...]
Christopher Hitchens draws attention to a proposal by John McCain that received scant attention when announced last week: “I will ask Congress,” said the presumptive Republican nominee, “to grant me the privilege of coming before both houses to take questions, and address criticism, much the same as the prime minister of Great Britain appears regularly [...]
Clarence Page argues that Barack Obama’s failure to connect with white “working class” voters has more to do with culture than color. Democratic nominees have not won a majority of working-class white males at the ballot box since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, when Obama was still a preschooler. Since then, Bill Clinton came closest [...]
Jeralyn Merritt recounts a blogger call with Senator Hillary Clinton: She is staying in the race. She is ahead in the popular vote by 50,000 votes, counting Florida and Michigan which must be counted. She intends to continue to lead in the popular vote when June 3 comes around and everyone has voted. The number [...]
Slate‘s Dahlia Lithwick has an amusing if ultimately silly column on the gay marriage ban in California and people’s decrying of “activist judges”. She snarks about “activist citizens” and an “activist legislature” and concludes, “That makes everybody an activist in California, just by virtue of the fact that they are acting.” Ha! So clever! Let’s [...]
The third time is the charm for H.R. McMaster, who is the most recognizable name on the list of new one-star generals selected by a promotion board headed up by none other than David Petraeus. An Army board headed by Gen. David H. Petraeus has selected several combat-tested counterinsurgency experts for promotion to the rank [...]
Phil Carter, noting yet another month when the Marine Corps easily exceeded its recruiting goals, asks, “What is the Marine Corps doing that enables it to recruit so well during wartime — and can the other services do the same?” My immediate answer was along the lines that many of his commenters suggested: The Marine [...]
Matthew Yglesias observes, Here in Round 2 of the NBA playoffs we’re seeing once again that home court advantage matters a lot — out of eight total games, seven have been won by the home team. Which makes me wonder — is anyone aware of any good research on what the home court advantage consists [...]
Joseph Altonji, Prashant Bharadwaj, and Fabian Lange observe that, despite increasing economic incentives for people to obtain college degrees, the percentage of people graduating high school and college has been declining. They note several studies showing the high correlation between college attendance and parental educational attainment. They conclude, At this point we can only speculate [...]
As has been long expected, former Rep. Bob Barr has announced that he’s running for President as a Libertarian. Former Republican Rep. Bob Barr has announced that he’s running for president as a Libertarian. His candidacy would be a wild card in the White House race and many believe it would hurt Republican Sen. John [...]
A long, anecdote-laden New York Times Magazine feature, “The Uneven Playing Field,” examines the fact that, excluding football — which girls generally aren’t allowed to play — female athletes are getting injured far more frequently and seriously than their male counterparts. Girls and boys diverge in their physical abilities as they enter puberty and move [...]
In my Indiana-North Carolina postmortem, I noted my hatred for the term “working class” because “it implies that those putting in 60 hours a week at high paying jobs don’t work.” Recently promoted full professor Dan Drezner, who is about to enjoy three months off from work (“if you don’t count editing one book, writing [...]
Colonel David Hackworth had a legendary military career which he followed with decades as an author, commentator, and advocate for the American grunt. Like a lot of old soldiers who comment on military affairs, his views were eventually colored too much by the past and unenlightened by how modernization had rendered some old dogmas outmoded. [...]
A pacifist Quaker professor was refused a job because she refused to sign a loyalty oath pledging to defend the Constitution. When Wendy Gonaver was offered a job teaching American studies at Cal State Fullerton this academic year, she was pleased to be headed back to the classroom to talk about one of her favorite [...]
Students learn math better if teachers stick to abstract equations rather than trying to bring in real world examples. [M]any educators in recent years have incorporated more and more examples from the real world to teach abstract concepts. The idea is that making math more relevant makes it easier to learn. That idea may be [...]
Hillary Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary by ten points [actually, 8.6* or whatever**], continuing her string of large state victories and thereby keeping her dim hopes for the presidency alive. Unfortunately for Clinton, the press is treating this is a foregone conclusion, despite inconsistent polls and a hard fought six week battle. ABC’s Jennifer Parker: [...]
Earlier this month, my collegue James expressed his bafflement that John McCain wasn’t supporting Jim Webb’s expanded GI Bill. At the time, McCain hadn’t expressed a reason for not supporting the bill, but now he has announced why: he is concerned that expanded educational benefits would lower overall retention rates. Sen. John McCain, the presumptive [...]
Three Members of Congress are claiming that the NCAA Bowl Championship Series is illegal and demanding a playoff. Forget government corruption or corporate fraud. Three members of Congress want the Justice Department to investigate whether college football’s Bowl Championship Series is an illegal enterprise. Reps. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., and Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, [...]
Some professors at Texas Tech are warning of dire consequences if the university goes forward with a massive increase in enrollment, especially if it is achieved by forcing teachers to teach more. Some of Texas Tech’s most prestigious professors are concerned about their chancellor’s drive to increase the student body from 28,000 to 40,000 by [...]
The Hotline On Call Quote Of The Day: “I want people to know when they look at me, to be clear that they see what an investment in public education can look like.” — Michelle Obama Now, I’m in favor of investment in public education. I went to seven different public schools growing up, including [...]
Another Iraqi unit has fled rather than fought, Michael Gordon reports. A company of Iraqi soldiers abandoned their positions on Tuesday night in Sadr City, defying American soldiers who implored them to hold the line against Shiite militias. The retreat left a crucial stretch of road on the front lines undefended for hours and led [...]
David Brooks makes two observations about education: An information revolution has increased the economic rewards of education and punished those who lack it. A pedagogical revolution has led to ferocious competition to get into the top universities but a decline in quality at the primary and secondary levels. For the first time in the nation’s [...]
Steven Metz has a useful primer on “21st Century Insurgency” in the new issue of Parameters, the professional journal of the Army War College. Particularly interesting is his analysis of the similarities between insurgencies and businesses: As in commercial markets, participants in a complex conflict may enter as small, personalistic companies. Some may resemble family [...]
Even though Americans are fatter than ever, we’re actually less tolerant of fat people. So say fat people. Led by Tatiana Andreyeva, a postdoctoral research associate at Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, a team of researchers questioned 1,100 subjects, aged 35 to 74, twice over a 10-year span (once between 1995 and [...]
Barack Obama’s foray into pop psychology, trying to explain why rural Pennsylvanians aren’t warming to him and are asking him to talk more about patriotism, is causing quite the stir in the blogosphere. “You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs [...]
The University of Southern California is at the cutting edge of what may be a trend: Making cutbacks in teaching non-English European languages in order to devote more resources to Arabic, Farsi, Chinese, and others thrust into the spotlight by world events. When the Modern Language Association released its study last year on trends in [...]
A John McCain-Condolezza Rice ticket would beat the Democratic “Dream Ticket” of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in Clinton’s “home” state of New York, a Marist College poll shows. A McCain/Rice ticket would edge out both a Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton ticket for New York’s 31, usually true blue, electoral votes: 49% of registered voters in [...]
Wes Clark and Jon Soltz take to the op-ed pages of the LAT to urge John McCain to support a massive increase in educational benefits for our veterans. The Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act, sponsored by Sens. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), will restore the promise of a cost-free education to those who [...]
A piece in today’s WSJ argues that “there is evidence of lingering damage” to Barack Obama from the controversy over pastor Jeremiah Wright’s videotaped tirades. The evidence is, to put it mildly, thin. “It has not been defused,” says David Parker, a North Carolina Democratic Party official and unpledged superdelegate. He says his worries about [...]
Bill Clinton says his wife, Hillary, tried to join the Army in the mid-1970s but was turned down. ABC’s Jake Tapper: “I remember when we were young, right out of law school, she went down and tried to join the Army and they said ‘Your eyes are so bad, nobody will take you,’” he said, [...]