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Oklahoma is an oil state. Oklahomans vote for people like senators Inhofe and Coburn, who rail at the ‘myth’ of climate change. After all, there are millions and millions of dollars still to earn selling oil to burn: what more evidence does a reasonable Sooner need? People who think science is more than a political [...]
Archive for the ‘Handbasket, world going to hell in’ Category
May 20th, 2013
November 13th, 2012
An African friend asked me recently “What did Kim Kardashian DO?”. “Nothing” I said. “Then why is she so famous?”. How I cherish his innocence. The exchange made me want to go back and watched Clive James’ masterful documentary Fame in the 20th Century, but I discovered alas it is not available on DVD and [...]
October 18th, 2012
Category: Arts and Cultural Policy, Economics, Handbasket, world going to hell in, Journalism (Online and Otherwise), Policy briefs, Wayward press
Two significant pieces of news today: Google’s earnings (and stock price) are down, and Newsweek has given up on a paper edition.The Newsweek story is only the latest step down a path to oblivion, as the digital edition cannot survive financially either and will close down in turn. This is happening because the business models [...]
October 18th, 2012
Category: Handbasket, world going to hell in, Humor
The brilliant Flip Wilson once took a camera crew into the street and asked passers by whether the United States military should pull out of Provolone. Person after person gave their considered analysis of the situation. Jimmy Kimmel took a page from Flip’s book last night by interviewing people about the second Obama/Romney debate. Yes, [...]
August 29th, 2012
Category: Handbasket, world going to hell in
Gadzooks! Wearing blue jeans is now acceptable at the Yale Club in NYC. Apparently, the debate among the members was intense. The traditionalists are in my opinion fighting the good fight here, but the cultural tide is against them. The idea that experiences can become special in part because of the constraints everyone puts on [...]
July 31st, 2012
Category: Gay Rights, Handbasket, world going to hell in
I had a friend who as a young man was a macho, hard-drinking World War II hero. The surprise of his life came when he learned that his son was gay. The scene was every bit as awful as you would imagine, with hateful, scarring words uttered on both sides. But by the time I [...]
March 21st, 2012
Last week, I had a lively discussion about drug policy with a blazingly smart member of parliament. I explained that there is no true solution to drug problems. Rather, we use public policy to pick the particular sort of drug problem society will have. For example, different policy environments can make it a human rights [...]
August 26th, 2011
Category: Handbasket, world going to hell in, Teaching
Professor who closed the laptop of a student surfing the web during class acquitted of battery–and fired.
August 9th, 2011
Now would be a good time to have a charitable thought for pundits, bloggers, opinion columnists – yes, and policy professors – for whom the last month has been incredibly challenging, harder than any time in the last decade. When the world behaves like a parody of grownup affairs, and people with positional authority are [...]