IN THE BOSTON BOMBING INVESTIGATION, “substantial progress.” “Investigators believe they have identified a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, a source who has been briefed on the investigation told CNN’s John King.”
Archive for 2013
April 17, 2013
RON LIPSMAN: Who Runs Our Colleges– Administrators or Faculty? “The number of campus administrators has exploded. Instead of a single dean of an all-encompassing college of arts and sciences, we see a host of deans spearheading numerous units into which the large college has been split. These deans enjoy the support of a gaggle of assistant and associate deans, dragging in tow scores more chairs, heads and directors.”
TERRY ANDERSON: The Grand Canyon Of Property Rights.
LUCIAN BEBCHUK: The Myth that Insulating Boards Serves Long-Term Value.
IN THE MAIL: The Wisdom of the Christian Faith.
WHY OBAMA IS LOSING ON GUNS: “It is a misnomer, then, to blame the ‘gun lobby’ for the difficulty in passing legislation. The red-state Democrats, like most of their Republican colleagues, are reflecting their own constituents’ views.”
Also, support for gun control is weak — it’s a much lower priority to voters than jobs, the economy, etc. Only a priority for the political/journalistic class. Because, you know, they have jobs.
SOCIAL MEDIA: China sees the best and worst of America in Boston bombing. “Chinese Web users seemed to draw two general conclusions: that China would be more effective at preventing a Boston-style attack, but that the U.S. is better equipped to respond to and cope such an event. They portrayed China as a formidable security state that privileges safety and secrecy, but the U.S. as a place where officials, police and citizens work together in harmony and cooperation.”
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: No One’s Crying About The Decline Of Men.
Since 1979, inflation-adjusted hourly wages fell 20 percent for men ages 25–39 with only a high school diploma, while wages for their female counterparts rose by one percent. In the same timeframe, the number of male high school graduates with jobs fell by nine percent and rose for women by nine percent.
Part of this is due to the evaporation of jobs in industries that were previously filled by less educated men, like manufacturing and construction. But women have adapted much more quickly to a world in which a bachelor’s degree is increasingly important for landing a job. In 2010, among 35 year olds, women were 17 percent more likely than men to have attended college. Lower- and middle-class men lag behind women in their social class in education, employment, and wages.
If the gender roles were reversed here and a generation of women has suffered huge setbacks, we would have a great hue and cry with blue-ribbon panels, academic roundtables, and a lot of national soul-searching. But men’s problems don’t seem to interest anyone much, not even men.
Could that possibly be a mistake?
Yes, and the Insta-Wife has a book on the subject coming out soon.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: 7 Reasons to Worry About North Korea’s Weapons.
AT AMAZON, deals on DeWalt 20-volt power tools.
Also, bestsellers in Men’s Sandals. Summer is coming.
And, today only: Scooby Doo, Where Are You? The complete series, $31.99 (64% off).
JAMES TARANTO: The Banality of Bias: Journalists are awfully liberal, Arendt they?
What an amazing headline that is. The editors of the New York Times declare that they’re covering the trial under protest, yielding their news judgment to an angry online mob. It’s probably the most honest thing they’ve ever published.
(As an aside, the “online furor” was sparked by a Kirsten Powers op-ed in USA Today. Although USA Today is a website, it is also a newspaper with a circulation of 1.8 million, second only to The Wall Street Journal.)
And, ahem, ahead of the New York Times.
MANCHIN: We Don’t Have The Votes. “Potential GOP supporters out front on immigration won’t risk second battle with conservative base on guns, Manchin tells NBC News.”
REMINDER: Boston Marathon bombs similar to Bill Ayers’ Weather Underground nail bomb. “That device was intended to be detonated at a soldiers’ dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey.”
CHANGE: Roofers union calls for Obamacare’s repeal.
The United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers is reportedly the first union to officially call for repeal of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. The health care law is prompting some serious buyer’s remorse in Big Labor, which worked hard on behalf of the administration to pass it.
Statement at the link.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Catholic University Imposes 20% Budget Cut Due to Declining Law School Enrollment. “The law school accounts for about 10% of the university’s overall enrollment, so the mind reels at the extent to which the rest of the university has been depending for its solvency on encouraging the law school to produce massively indebted graduates who are unable to get any sort of legal job in what is at present the worst place in the country to try to get a job as a lawyer (Washington DC).”
Yes, law schools are the canary in the coal mine for the higher education bubble — but because they’re also cash cows that subsidize the rest of the campus, their problems are also part of the bubble bursting elsewhere. The notion that the law schools’ problems won’t affect the rest of the university is wishful thinking.
RAND PAUL: The GOP Must Evolve, Or Die.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: At EconBrowser, A Look At Growing Student Loan Debt.
RUSHING TO BAD LAWS IS WHAT THEY DO: The Rush To A Bad Gun-Control Law.
ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: “Am I right that her argument is that something is only bad if it hurts women?”
MOST PEOPLE ARE SURPRISINGLY DECENT. EVEN THE CRAZY ONES. Why Are Attacks Like Boston So Rare?
THE TOP 50 Social Media Power Influencers.
MARCO RUBIO not persuading Mickey Kaus.
THE HILL: Harry Reid Rolls Dice On Gun Bill: “Even though he doesn’t have the votes, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will move ahead on legislation Wednesday to expand background checks for gun sales. Democrats are confident they will have a potent political issue if Republicans block the bipartisan measure, noting high public support in a variety of polls.”
If you look at those polls, you’ll also see that jobs and the economy rank way ahead of Congress’s pet legislative issues, guns and immigration.
Related: Gun Bill Still Needs as Many as 8 Votes. “Emotional pleas from former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and her husband, Mark Kelly, on Tuesday tugged at senators both for and against a bipartisan proposal on background checks for gun purchases. It’s not clear whether they turned any votes, however, as negotiators were still scrambling to clear a 60-vote hurdle necessary for passage.” I believe that should read “the AR-15 buying Mark Kelly.”