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Debate in California about the funding cuts for higher education has become quite perplexing, partly because some of the parties are not thinking very clearly about it, partly because the question is fairly complicated, partly because the politics of California budgeting have become so pathological. In response to relentless nagging from David Schutz (well, he [...]
Archive for the ‘Politics and Leadership’ Category
November 25th, 2009
Category: California Politics, Education policy, Policy Analysis, Policy briefs, Political Science, Politics and Leadership
October 16th, 2009
Category: Arts and Cultural Policy, Crime Control, Policy Analysis, Politics and Leadership, Prisons and penal policy, Reviews
Want law enforcement that’s really tough on Mexicans? Try Mexico’s. Only seven years until accused there are presumed innocent, and meanwhile the cops aren’t afraid to do what’s needed to get the job done. Like lie under oath.
Roberto and Layda are students in my shop (Roberto is my PhD advisee), and I am over-the-top [...]
October 14th, 2009
Category: Climate change, Energy and Environment, Middle East Politics, Moral philosophy, Nationalism, Politics and Leadership, Uncategorized
If you’re still collecting evidence that a society built on extractive wealth is liable to moral pathology, put this one in your dossier. The Saudis are demanding that if we use less of their climate-toxic export, we should pay them (and the other oil-exporting countries) for what we don’t buy.
Let us pause in awe at [...]
October 12th, 2009
Category: Don't ask, don't tell, Politics and Leadership
Obama could in fact repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in many (although not all) circumstances.
September 29th, 2009
…a prima facie case of chronic educational malpractice at Berkeley. Apparently we have close to 3000 alumni who learned (from us?) that the most important thing they can do for Cal now is to buy a fifty-year football ticket for the price of a small house.
….One might ask, so what if it does make money? We could probably make a fortune with a modeling agency renting out good-looking undergraduates who got a custom-greased ride through their academics and beauty scholarships instead of pay; would that make it a good idea? It’s about as mission-relevant as our football program.
September 25th, 2009
I hate even to link to this, because it’s so embarrassing, just a national shanda. But there it is: the president of the University of California willingly trivialized by Deborah Solomon when his press is uniformly terrible and he (and we) are teetering on a cliff.
September 11th, 2009
Category: Politics and Leadership
All this discussion of Congressional decorum will seem quaint to people in…just about anywhere else. Forget the harsh questioning the British PM is subjected to–parliamentarians around the world routinely behave like Jerry Springer guests. In 1972, an MP punched the Home Secretary during a debate over Bloody Sunday. To find such a ruckus in [...]
September 9th, 2009
Category: Politics and Leadership, Watching Conservatives
Joe Wilson is really a scum, but not because he called out the President of the United States.
