January 2011
43 posts
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A question of preferences
Recently, in response to a question about why oil prices fluctuate so much, I offered a side comment (as I am wont to do): “I’d bring one more thing up, though. A gallon of gas (in the US, at least), is still a lot cheaper than a gallon of water (if you buy it in bottles from vending machines), and a lot lower than a gallon of Starbuck’s coffee (or some other fancy brand). I do find it...
personainprogress asked: Hello!
I know you're a politics professor, but I think that you're somehow stuck with dealing with the economy and how it functions as well. Would you explain what makes the price of gas fluctuate so much? I get different answers (including speculation, OPEC, treaties, and Obama) from just about anyone I ask. I'd really appreciate it :)
I know you're a politics professor, but I think that you're somehow stuck with dealing with the economy and how it functions as well. Would you explain what makes the price of gas fluctuate so much? I get different answers (including speculation, OPEC, treaties, and Obama) from just about anyone I ask. I'd really appreciate it :)
Random Thought #67
I am a bit staggered by the “Twitter and Facebook caused the revolutions in the Middle East” meme running around right now. It’s akin to the “Reagan crushed the Soviet Union” fantasy. It assumes that the explanation for what has happened lies in western efforts and western technology rather than the efforts of the people actually enacting the revolutions.
Have these...
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Something to think about regarding the economic...
It wasn’t the middling middle that wrecked the world economy. It was what David Halberstam, in his analysis of how America got lost in Vietnam, called “The Best and the Brightest.”
The financial games that led to the meltdown of the global economy were invented by people with PhDs and MBAs, usually from schools so elite they’d make the rest of our noses bleed if we got...
A great city in decline →
This photo series graphically demonstrates the decline of one of America’s once-great manufacturing cities, Detroit. It’s haunting, and speaks to lots of the pathologies that face us: deindustrialization; the urbanization of poverty; the question of what to do with so much real estate in places that have stopped being socially relevant. It’s quite a set.
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I Have Met the Enemy
So it turns out that I serve on a committee associated with an organization that (sort of) coordinates the higher education system in Illinois. The committee I am on contains faculty representatives from four-year public, four-year private, for-profit private, and community colleges. We meet through most of the academic year, holding meetings once a month at various institutions around the state....
Random Thought #371
It should be remembered that no one—and I mean no one, of any party—who advocates more tax cuts for Americans, whether businesses or individuals, is serious about solving the American national deficit. The only reasonable response to anyone who follows a statement about the need to reduce or cure the United States’ national debt with a statement about the importance of more tax...
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Everything wrong with America pretty much...
Three things came across my desk today that seem to me to pretty much summarize my feelings about what’s wrong with America these days—or at least one part of my feelings.
First, it turns out the State of Texas, the low tax, pro-business allegedly miracle model state many conservatives would have everyone else emulate, is now running massive budget deficits and is responding in part...
About a year ago ...
I started this blog about a year ago, and in addition to those Facebook friends who have responded to it, I’ve had about 400 Tumblr followers (not including all those who started following me on tumblr but quit).Thanks, everyone!
“… we will not stop until we repeal a president and put a president in the...”
– Michele Bachmann (R-MN), on the House vote to repeal health care reform. Edited from Lemkin.
Robert Reich: The Real Economic Lesson China Could... →
robertreich:
Highlighting today’s summit between Chinese President Hu Jintao and President Obama is China’s agreement to buy $45 billion of American exports. The President says this will create more American jobs. That’s not exactly right. It will create more profits for American companies but relatively few…
Glenn Beck's Jewish Problem →
kohenari:
It’s entirely possible that I am just overly sensitive to anti-Semitism and that others would view Glenn Beck’s seeming obssession with Nazism, George Soros, and Jews in general as less problematic than I do.
But, since I think it’s not just me and that more people should be wary of Beck’s rhetoric, I’ll share Jeffrey Goldberg’s thoughts from yesterday in The Atlantic:
This is a...
“There was one observation that was made this week I just have to pass on to you...”
– Mark Shields, PBS
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The Distraction Engine
It turns out that George Orwell is wrong. Trapped in his time of totalitarian governments manipulating media to achieve evil goals before a compliant, propagandized people, he could not imagine that there was no need for Big Brother to control information to deceive his people.
We’ve figured out a much better way: give people access to everything, and allow them to respond to it instantly,...
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A Culture of Violence
At least part of the reason that I have rejected the “right wing radical talk caused the shootings in Arizona” meme is that I think it lets the United States off the hook far too easily. The United States has used, valorized and enculcated a culture of violence that far transcends the specific context of any shooting in Arizona. Martin Luther King knew this, and pushed for peace as a...
Random Thought #414
Illinois and Sudan look a lot alike. Fortunately, for all our flaws, I’d still say the politics in Illinois are better than those in Sudan. So we have that going for us.
“Jared Loughner was considered too mentally unstable to attend community college....”
– Nicholas Kristof (via azspot). Said about as well as it can be said.
redlightpolitics asked: You mentioned Tom DeLay in your last post, and, if you haven't yet seen it, I would recommend you watch Casino Jack. I really don't know how much truth there is in it (i.e. the veracity of the narrative) but even if only 10% of what is depicted is true, it is a chilling account of certain kind of American politics. Also, it is damn entertaining.
Random Thought #186
So Tom DeLay, the former Republican leader of the US House of Representatives known as “the Hammer” for his aggressive fund raising and political strong arming tactics, has blamed his recent conviction for illegally funneling campaign contributions from private corporations to political candidates on a “liberal jury.” (This in Texas, of all places.)
Maybe now he knows how...
“But what we can’t do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on...”
– President Barack Obama, January 12, 2011
Random Thought #832
Can we all not agree that we’d all be better off if no one ever started a statement with, “because of event A, we need to enact agenda B (that I have supported since well before event A ever happened”? Seriously?
“From the Glenn Beck Program, May 17, 2005:
BECK: Hang on, let me just tell you...”
– Glenn Beck, The Glenn Beck Program, May 17, 2005.
http://mediamatters.org/research/200505180008
Watchkohenari:
From the New York Times:
The term blood libel is generally used to mean the false accusation that Jews murder Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals, in particular the baking of matzos for passover. That false claim was circulated for centuries to incite anti-Semitism and justify violent pogroms against Jews. Ms. Palin’s use of the phrase in her video, which...
“Back to us for a moment, our credibility, Mr. Limbaugh, comes from actually...”
– Motor Trend, in response to Rush Limbaugh complaining that MT had named the Chevrolet Volt the car of the year. Posted because it represents a rare kind of discussion in modern life: in response to Limbaugh’s absurd complaint, the magazine reacted based on empirical knowledge about the issue....
Random Thoughts #s 306, 307 and 308
#306: Does anyone believe that the tragedy in Arizona would have been less dangerous and less tragic if 20 people had pulled out their guns and started firing at the shooter?
#307: Did anyone else notice that in Arizona, one of the most gun-friendly states in the United States, that the shooter was subdued by people who hit him and jumped on him? Not by armed vigilantes who wielded their guns?
...
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What to do about crazy guys with guns
In the aftermath of the shooting of US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, a federal judge, and many private citizens, an intense debate has broken out in the United States. People on the political left see the shooting as the result of angry, usually right wing rhetoric about “second amendment” solutions to the Democratic Party/Barack HUSSEIN Obama socialist takeover of the United...
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kohenari asked: Where did you see, by the way, that the Gov. said he's sign the Illinois death penalty abolition bill?
asilentsorites-deactivated20120 asked: I would just like to express my appreciation for the insights you provide on this site. It's refreshing to read works from an individual who speaks intellectually and not with pure political jargon, if you understand what I mean.
“Grant me thirty years of equal division of inheritances and a free press, and I...”
– Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1840
phillipamerica asked: I found your article on the stock market to be very solid and informational. However, I never quite understood what people meant when they said that they were making money off of money. Also, I don't understand what you mean when you say they would place bets and buy insurance on their investments. Obviously, I know what betting and insurance are, but I don't understand how it works...
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The Problem With the Modern Stock Market
Americans are understandably angry at Wall Street. The allegedly brilliant minds that have worked there for the last decade concocted schemes that took a decade’s worth of wealth off the US economy in 6 months in 2007-08, and now that we collectively bailed their arrogant butts out of the impending disaster of a global banking collapse, and as we continue to subsidize their existence with...
“In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of...”
– Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1840
“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt...”
– Cicero, 55 BC.
Second verse, same as the first.
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An Actually Random Observation
As I was working to keep myself awake on my recent seven state (each way), 2400 miles in 12 days winter break driving odyssey, I had one of those “I wonder why?” moments we are all prone to.
Why, I asked myself, are there no luxury gas stations?
I didn’t want to stop at one or anything, but think about it: if you have the money (and wish to spend it), you can fly first class....