the New York Times Magazine has a cover story this week about Barack Obama’s efforts to reach working-class voters. The headline writers did it no favors by tagging it “Will gun-toting, churchgoing white guys pull the lever for Obama?,” which makes it sound like the worst sort of demographic electoral college nonsense. The actual article,… Continue reading Working for the Working Class Vote
Category: Class Issues
Alumni News Update
At my 15th class reunion this past June, I agreed to become the class secretary for the next few years, writing up little news updates for the Cult of the Purple Cow Quarterly, so my classmates can read about the achievements of their fellows. In that spirit, I feel I should note an accolade that… Continue reading Alumni News Update
The Liberal Media Hasten the Red Revolution
… at least, that’s the only reason I can think of for ABC News to run a story on the effects of the financial crisis containing the following: “A lot of those people will have to sell their homes, they’re going to cut back on the private jets and the vacations. They may even have… Continue reading The Liberal Media Hasten the Red Revolution
At the Kitchen Table: An Ad in One Act
Fade in on an Old, Balding White Man reading the paper at the breakfast table. OBWM: I don’t know. I’m really worried about the economy. Rising fuel prices, increasing costs of everything… Cut to his Younger Blond Wife, sipping tea YBW: I know. And the mortgage crisis, all these home foreclosures. It’s terrible. Cut to… Continue reading At the Kitchen Table: An Ad in One Act
A Look on the Bright Side
As much as I complain about the relatively low status of science and science writing, it could be worse. As Kevin Drum reminds us, media treatment of economic issues is even more toxic: Question for the folks who populate our newsrooms: Why is it that a 0.8% rise in inflation, the biggest since 1991, is… Continue reading A Look on the Bright Side
Joe Bageant, Deer Hunting With Jesus [Library of Babel]
Yesterday, I had an appointment at the local orthopedic associates to get my dislocated thumb looked at. The receptionist escorted me to a curtained-off corner of a big room, where I got to spend ten or fifteen minutes listening to the physician’s assistant on call dealing with other patients. One of them, a women distressingly… Continue reading Joe Bageant, Deer Hunting With Jesus [Library of Babel]
The Self-Justification of Elite Nerds
A bunch of academic bloggers have been talking about the American Scholar essay by William Deresiewicz. The always-perceptive Timothy Burke offers some insightful comments about the general problems of elite education. Burke is also a lot kinder to Deresiewicz than I’m inclined to be. Because, frankly, the piece pisses me off, from the very first… Continue reading The Self-Justification of Elite Nerds
Cities in Their Old Age
Continuing the morning’s theme of “crushingly depressing stories from the New York Times,” there’s also a downer article about cities where there are more deaths than births: What demographers call a natural decrease has been occurring for years in tiny rural towns and in some retirement meccas in the South. But the phenomenon is relatively… Continue reading Cities in Their Old Age
On the Bitterness of Academics
Jake Young points to a Bloggingheads conversation between Dan Drezner and Megan McArdle about, among other things, whether academics are bitter and why. This mostly comes out of a post Megan wrote (link is a leap of faith– the site is down as I type this), and serves as a lead-in to a discussion of… Continue reading On the Bitterness of Academics
The Class Project
Lawrence Watt-Evans is reposting some old Usenet essays on the subject of class, which regular readers will recognize as a hot-button issues for me. So far, he’s up to part four of six. The list: Defining Terms Who I Am Attitudes & Money On the Job It’s excellent stuff. A sample, from Part 4: Work… Continue reading The Class Project