At Least He’s Honest?

The topic sucking up all blogospheric oxygen at the moment is the great elevator incident. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can find lots of good summaries and explanations, including from Phil Plait and Josh Rosenau. The core of the story is that Rebecca Watson was propositioned in an elevator by a… Continue reading At Least He’s Honest?

Is College Worth It?

As I noted the other day, we’re entering graduation season, one of the two month-long periods (the other being “back to school” time in August/September) when everybody pretends to care deeply about education. Accordingly, the people at the Pew Research Center have released a new report on the opinions of the general public and college… Continue reading Is College Worth It?

Identifying the Real Source of Student Entitlement

College graduation season is upon us, at least for institutions running on a semester calendar (sadly, Union’s trimester system means we have another month to go). This means the start of the annual surge of Very Serious op-eds about what education means, giving advice to graduates, etc. The New York Times gets things rolling with… Continue reading Identifying the Real Source of Student Entitlement

Problematic Tigers

SteelyKid is, as I have noted previously, half Korean, a quarter Polish, and an eighth each Irish and German. Her parents are irreligious, the extended family is Catholic (more so on my side than Kate’s), and she goes to day care at the Jewish Community Center. In other words, a thoroughly American sort of upbringing.… Continue reading Problematic Tigers

Education Reform Is Slow

Kevin Drum notes a growing backlash against education reform, citing Diane Ravitch, Emily Yoffe and this Newsweek (which is really this private foundation report in disguise) as examples. The last of these, about the failed attempts of several billionaires to improve education through foundation grants, is really kind of maddening. It makes the billionaires in… Continue reading Education Reform Is Slow

The Physics of Finding Osama bin Laden (As Mis-Reported on NPR)

Over in Scientopia, Janet notes an interesting mis-statement from NPR, where Dina Temple-Raston said of the now-dead terrorist: [O]ne intelligence officials told us that nothing with an electron actually passed close to him, which in a way is one of the ways they actually caught him. As Janet notes, this would be quite a feat,… Continue reading The Physics of Finding Osama bin Laden (As Mis-Reported on NPR)