HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Law School Applicants From Top Colleges Plunge 36%.
Archive for 2014
March 7, 2014
THESE GUYS JUST GET WEIRDER: Malaysia Bans Ultraman For Blasphemy. “The Ultraman character, born out of a 1960s Japanese television series, is a superhero with alien powers who protects the Earth from a variety of rampaging monsters. Malaysia’s image as a moderate Muslim nation has been undermined in recent years by a shift towards more conservative Islamic values. Authorities regularly ban movies or books deemed too vulgar, sexually explicit or religiously sensitive and have banned some foreign pop music stars from performing in the country.”
TRAIN WRECK UPDATE: Study: ObamaCare not reaching uninsured.
Old storyline: If you oppose ObamaCare, you want uninsured people to die!!!!
New storyline: Meh, there were always going to be a lot of people left uncovered, but most of ’em don’t want insurance anyway.
THEY NEVER APOLOGIZE: Jay Carney: No regrets about Team Obama’s dinging Mitt Romney on Russia.
In October 2012 Romney called Russia America’s “No. 1 geopolitical foe” and the Obama campaign immediately pounced, releasing an attack ad featuring former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright which accused Romney of being an out-of-touch cold warrior.
The campaign also published and circulated a poster employing a Soviet-style propaganda motif dismissing the “preposterous notion” that Russia is our “No. 1 Geopolitical Foe.”
“Mitt Romney talks like he’s only seen Russia by watching Rocky IV,” the poster proclaimed.
For Obama, it’s more like Mission to Moscow.
EUGENE VOLOKH: Are laws limiting magazine capacity to 10 rounds constitutional?
Personally, I think civilians and police should be able to carry the same kinds of weapons. That’s a useful check on the militarization of the police.
CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Obama administration faces FOIA fire over ambassador picks. “State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki faced a fusillade of questions from reporters Thursday asking why the agency has yet to respond to a request for documents showing proof that President Obama’s nominees for ambassadorships are qualified.” It’s nice to see the press asking tough questions. Though, to be fair, at the behest of a union.
March 6, 2014
RAPE CULTURE: Democrat-Controlled Senate Blocks Sexual Assault Bill. #headlineitlikepartieswerereversed
JUAN WILLIAMS: Rutgers rage against Condi Rice — why do liberals have so much hate for black conservatives? “Liberals are shockingly quick to demean and dismiss brilliant black people like Rice, Carson, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), Professor Walter E. Williams and economist Thomas Sowell because they don’t fit into the role they have carved out for a black person in America. Black Americans must be obedient liberals on all things or risk being called a race traitor or an Uncle Tom.”
BECAUSE THEY’RE BEING GOOD PROVIDERS? Male Executives Don’t Feel Guilt, See Work-Life Balance as a Women’s Problem. Actually, reading the article, I think this shows that people’s actions in their own lives are often more traditional/conservative than their beliefs in the public sphere. Harvard Business School students of both sexes may be horrified at these findings, but watch the choices they make themselves over the coming decade or two.
Related: How Serfdom Saved The Women’s Movement. “I have never once argued with my husband about which of us was going to change the sheets of the marriage bed, but then—to my certain knowledge —neither one of us ever has changed the sheets. Or scrubbed the bathtubs, or dusted the cobwebs off the top of the living-room bookcase, or used the special mop and the special noncorrosive cleanser on the hardwood floors. Two years ago our little boys got stomach flu, one right after the other, and there were ever so many loads of wash to do, but we did not do them. The nanny did. . . . Betty Friedan had a crack cleaning woman on staff when she was busy writing about the oppression of domestic work).” This offers insight into the immigration-reform debate, too. . . .
Plus:
The professional-class working mother—grateful inheritor of Betty Friedan’s realizations about domestic imprisonment and the happiness and autonomy offered by work—is oppressed by guilt about her decision to keep working, by a society that often questions her commitment to and even her love for her children, by the labor-intensive type of parenting currently in vogue, by children’s stalwart habit of falling deeply and unwaveringly in love with the person who provides their physical care, and by her uneasy knowledge that at-home mothers are giving their children much more time and personal attention than she is giving hers. She feels more than oppressed—she feels outraged! she wants something done about this!—by a corporate culture that refuses to let a working mother postpone an important meeting if it happens to coincide with the fourth-grade Spring Sing.
On the other hand, the nonprofessional-class working mother—unhappy inheritor of changes in the American economy that have thrust her unenthusiastically into the labor market—is oppressed by very different forces. She is oppressed by the fact that her work is oftentimes physically exhausting, ill-paid, and devoid of benefits such as health insurance and paid sick leave. She is oppressed by the fact that it is impossible to put a small child in licensed day care if you make minimum wage, and she is oppressed by the harrowing child-care options that are available on an unlicensed, inexpensive basis. She is oppressed by the fact that she has no safety net: if she falls out of work and her child needs a visit to the doctor and antibiotics, she may not be able to afford those things and will have to treat her sick child with over-the-counter medications, which themselves are far from cheap. She is oppressed by the fact that—another feminist gain—single motherhood has been so championed in our culture, along with the sexual liberation of women and the notion that a woman doesn’t really need a man. In this climate she is often left shouldering the immense burden of parenthood alone.
Fish, meet bicycle. But, then, while “you can know chapter and verse about the psychology of oppressed peoples and still not get a man to turn out a nice meal,” if he should somehow happen to do so, women in the pages of The Atlantic will call him a “kitchen bitch.” So maybe staying at the office late doesn’t look half-bad.
SEXISM IN AMERICA: The War On Boys:
The reason for the disparity between boys and girls isn’t exactly pinned down. [Harvard professor Ronald] Kessler points to various factors — community perception, interpersonal skills — as major points of influence: “We had an anthropologist working with us, and the anthropologist went and talked to and watched the kids in the old neighborhoods and the new neighborhoods, and their perception was that when the boys came into the new neighborhood they were coded as these juvenile delinquents,” says Kessler. “Whereas with the girls, it was exactly the opposite. They were embraced by the community—‘you poor little disadvantaged thing, let me help you.’”
Christina Hoff Sommers, call your office.
AL JAZEERA AMERICA: Looking enviously at InstaVision’s audience? “The latest Nielsen ratings show that the network, owned by the government of Qatar, averages only 15,000 total primetime viewers, which is effectively negligible.”
UPDATE: Link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry!
SO THE BREASTFEEDING THING IS MOSTLY JUST FEMALE STATUS-COMPETITION AND MOMMY-SHAMING? Sibling Study Finds No Long-Term Breastfeeding Benefits For Kids.
THE WORD ON HARRY REID: “If he were a conservative Republican, and not a liberal Democrat, he would be almost universally known as a McCarthyite.”
In 2012, Reid said the following on the Senate floor, about Mitt Romney: “So the word’s out that he hasn’t paid any taxes for ten years. Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn’t.” The word’s out — and you know about “the word.” To reporters from his home state of Nevada, Reid said, “I don’t think the burden should be on me. The burden should be on him. He’s the one I’ve alleged has not paid any taxes.” Bear in mind, this is the majority leader of the U.S. Senate speaking, not a comedian, not a right-wing satirist.
The other day, Reid was tearing into the Koch brothers, backers of causes Reid does not like. He said these guys were “about as un-American as anyone that I can imagine.” Wasn’t Tailgunner Joe supposed to have rendered such language verboten? Have the rules changed?
There are many damning things about today’s Democrats, in my view. None is more damning than that Harry Reid is their choice to lead them in the Senate.
Indeed. Say, how did he become so rich, after a lifetime spent in “public service?”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Colleges Need to Act Like Startups — Or Risk Becoming Obsolete.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: NRA Chief: ‘We are on Our Own, That Is a Certainty.’
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: This Is Not A Frame From A Science Fiction Movie. “It’s an actual image from the successful Morpheus vehicle test completed today at the Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility. There’s great video too.” At the link.
HEH: Responding to senator’s bid to ban Bitcoin, congressman calls for cash ban. “Dollar bills are present in nearly all major drug busts in the United States.” Don’t give ’em any ideas. . . .
WAIT, I THOUGHT THIS SORT OF THING WAS JUST A GOP MYTH: Vote-Buying Scandal Rattles Valley Politics: The FBI investigates the use of politiqueras in Valley elections. Actually, what’s really amazing is that the Holder Justice Department is investigating.
FASTER, PLEASE: Can Gene Therapy Cure HIV?
READER BOOK PLUG: From John Riesinger, Death In Unlikely Places.