Subscribe to Excerpts
Subscribe by Email
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 ‘California Politics’ Category
November 25th, 2009
Category: California Politics, Education policy, Policy Analysis, Policy briefs, Political Science, Politics and Leadership
September 25th, 2009
Category: California Politics, Climate change, Energy and Environment, Schwarzenegger, Watching Conservatives
Does Arnold Schwarzenegger care more about Tea Partiers or the planet?
September 24th, 2009
Tonight was the big Cal teach-in before tomorrow’s day of walkout/protest/demonstration scheduled for all University of California campuses….Back in the day, a teach-in was teaching: faculty who knew something about an issue tried to explain it, sometimes just propagandizing but preferably illuminating complications and subtleties of the state of affairs (Vietnam War, racial injustice, etc.) triggering the state of protest. Tonight, not so much; the six speakers were earnest and lively, but the critical thinking of which we’re supposed to be a veritable factory had mostly left the building.
September 21st, 2009
On Wednesday evening I attended a “teach-in” sponsored by the local chapter of student “government” at Berkeley, the Senate of Associated Students of the University of California. A half-dozen faculty (not me) offered ten-minute perspectives on current events, which are heading to a university-wide walkout on Sept. 24; Friday the Senate voted unanimously to support [...]
August 27th, 2009
Category: California Politics, Teaching
Pay cuts are better than layoffs.
In the situation faced by UC faculty, calling them “furloughs” is better than calling them pay cuts.
So I don’t see any moral imperative to act out the idea of a furlough by teaching less.
July 28th, 2009
Schwarzenegger cuts programs for abused and neglected kids in order to protect Hummer drivers. Ladies and gentlemen: compassionate conservatism.
July 7th, 2009
Category: California Politics, Crime Control
Since Viriginia Postrel was kind enough to point people to this space for ideas about how California might deal with the hole our insanely expensive correctional system puts in the state budget, I suppose it’s time for a post on that topic. (Though this is the first time I’ve heard about a link drawing [...]
May 28th, 2009
How could the California Supreme Court have overturned Prop 8 yet allowed the voters to ban same-sex marriage through a ballot measure — and done so in a principled way? Here’s how.
May 18th, 2009
Category: California Politics
Yes on 1A (extending tax increases).
Maybe on 1B (restoring school funding).
No on 1C (borrowing against future lottery revenues).
Yes on 1D and 1E (cancelling guaranteed funding streams for children’s programs and mental health).
No on 1F (a meaningless insult directed at the legislature.)
March 17th, 2009
Category: California Politics
The face is the face of a sportswear model, but the mind is the mind of a wonk.
