January 2011
1 post
December 2010
5 posts
October 2010
1 post
July 2010
15 posts
Krauthammer: “Don’t Underestimate Barack Obama”... →
Dissent Magazine: a defense of Obama, and critique... →
MY object is to defend Barack Obama against attacks on him by what has been his liberal constituency. Again and again he is accused of timidity and excessive caution for not fighting for their agenda. The assumption is that his agenda and theirs coincide, and that he lacks the courage and force to fight for its enactment. Could it be that he simply differs from his critics about policy and...
“There is a hugely important role for our democracy in independent, fact-based,...”
– Bill Grueskin, dean of academic affairs, Columbia University’s J-School, on the question of newspaper paywalls I’m a big fan of Prof. Grueskin. I’m torn on the paywall stuff, but I agree with him it won’t solve all of journalism’s financial woes. It will, I think, be part of an intricate puzzle....
Constitutional Dictators (Dissent Magazine) →
AS THINGS stand today… power has replaced law, usurpation has replaced amendment, and executive fiat has replaced constitutionalism.” Strong words indeed! What may surprise some readers is that they were written by political scientist David Gray Adler at the conclusion of a dour article on “Clinton, the Constitution, and the War Power” that amply documented a number of unilateral actions, in...
Community Colleges and Degrees →
robot-heart-politics:
inascaldingjoy:popnihilism:adailyriot:abbyjean:
A 2001 studyfound that 71 percent of students who enrolled in community colleges wanted a bachelor’s degree, but only about a quarter ended up transferring to a four-year college. Those who were more likely to do so were those who had a specific plan from the beginning: those pursuing an academic major and taking bachelor’s...
Back to the Future: Coffee Shop Newsrooms →
sasquatchmedia:
My fantasy newsroom is one where the public comes and goes (within reason, of course) and story ideas flow freely in all directions. In England in the 1600s, news grew out of coffeehouses this way. Decades later in the U.S. colonies, the venue of choice switched to pubs. (I like that journalism in America is tied up with drinking. Explains a lot.)
Here’s a big shout-out to the...
June 2010
9 posts
Watch
May 2010
31 posts
Against Juristocracy →
Writing for National Review Online, Robert F. Nagel offers a critique of the right-wing hope that the Supreme Court will overturn Obamacare, and a brief against the judicial usurpation of politics in general. Here are some of the arguments he musters for a judicial system that knows when to leave well enough alone …
Journalism as a Conversation: Conversational... →
Sally McMillan: If Sheizaf Rafaeli begged scholars to take interactivity seriously, McMillan helped give them tools to do so. In an oft-cited essay in the book* pictured here, she catalogued the different ways scholars use “interactivity” and defined distinct traditions of…
In Dreams Begin Responsibilities
James Atlas on Elmore Leonard’s short story:
Those of us who read it at the time really did experience a shock of recognition. […] Many people I know remembered the story long after forgetting everything else in the issue. We were charmed by the story’s invention, though this could hardly explain the intensity of our response, since you didn’t have to be a New Yorker, you could as...
Obama's first year, Dissent Magazine →
“After outrage, disappointment is probably the easiest emotion of the left. I am always disappointed before the fact, so as not to be too disappointed afterwards. Right now, though, I am resisting disappointment. Granted, Obama’s first year has not seen a radical transformation of American society—not even the transformation that Roosevelt wrought in his first one hundred days. But there is...
