Month: April 2011

Kay Steiger calls not dating a man because he's too short a form of bigotry:

Height discrimination seems to be one of the last socially accepted irrational dating biases. If you’re short, there’s literally nothing you can do about that. When I say that I think women who refuse to date a man simply because of his height I usually get a litany of reasons defending this position—pretty much all of which are irrational.

But all attraction is irrational. That's part of the point. The idea that we should somehow stigmatize this, that people should refer to non-discrimination rules in their romantic and sex lives, seems absurdly over-wrought. Maybe it's stupid in terms of electing presidents; but not in the world of love, which is entirely about discrimination. And must be.

Nate Silver runs the odds:

The simple fact that Democrats have 23 senators up for re-election in 2012 — compared to just 10 for the Republicans — tilts the playing field in the G.O.P.’s favor. And although both parties have had their share of retirement announcements, the Democrats’ — particularly Kent Conrad’s in North Dakota and Jeff Bingaman’s in New Mexico — have tended to come in more vulnerable seats.

But as I’ll aim to demonstrate for you, I don’t think the Republicans are terribly heavy favorites: instead just a wee bit above 50 percent.

Many readers are pointing to Fung Wah's poor safety record in response to Reihan's praise of private, low-budget bus companies:

In 2005, the company was given a federal safety rating of 73 out of 100, 100 being the worst, and 75 or above considered at risk of being unsafe and subject to crashes. Ian Grossman of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration reported that Fung Wah drivers rated in the worst 2 percent of drivers nationwide based on regulator violations, and nine out of 71 Fung Wah drivers were suspended after inspection between 2004 and 2006.

One reader was at the scene of the burning bus featured in the above news report:

The last time I took a trip with Fung Wah we had to stop on the side of I-95 in SW Connecticut to pick up the passengers of an earlier bus that had caught on fire and was, literally, burning on the highway with the remaining passengers watching. Over the years, I’ve been on busses run by Fung Wah that have passed trucks on the shoulder of the highway, blown through red lights, and sped well over the generally acceptable speed limit. I was also bitten by one of a half-dozen chickens that an elderly woman had brought aboard and released from their cages, to the apparent indifference of the driver.

Another writes:

I am sure other readers will chime in with their own horror stories riding the Chinatown bus. My one ride to the Mohegan Sun Casino from Boston's Chinatown resulted in the bus breaking down 45 minutes into the trip and a wait on the side of the highway for well over an hour for a replacement bus. I'd estimate my college friends who used it more often recalled stories of unsafe speeds, suspected intoxication, and odd vehicle noises on more than 50 percent of their trips. Oh yes, as for pick up and drop off locations, don't expect anything as lavish as a bus station. You've got to find the right street corner. 

Another:

Of course, the Fung Wah buses are also a fine example of the dangers of UNREGULATED raw capitalism, as they tend to not observe passenger limits, cramming people in for an extremely grueling, uncomfortable ride to make as much money as they can, and the buses have had problems with poor maintenance (one caught fire mid-route; one lost a wheel) and poorly trained, tired, and/or inattentive drivers (there have been several notable accidents).

I admire the power of the free market to find and exploit a niche too, but I am convinced that capitalism demands supervision. And, incidentally, when I go to New York from Boston, I pay more and take the train.

Another:

I use the Fung Wah and other Chinatown bus services plenty, but I do it *despite* their customer service.  I know I have to arrive early, because if their buses fill up, they will not refund tickets, even if they've sold more tickets than they have seats.  Nor will they grab an extra bus, as Greyhound does.  You're just out of luck. And don't even try to get credit on another trip, much less a refund – they'll simply ignore you.

Fung Wah does indeed embody the genius of capitalism – testing just how much crap people will settle for if the price is really, really low.  When the economy's bad, or just when a lot of people are poor, the answer is "a whole lot".  But let's not pretend this is any kind of win-win outcome.  It's more like bitter scrabbling for crumbs – which is, coincidentally, what it looks like when people try to cram into the New York-Baltimore Fung Wah bus.

And another:

These cheap-o bus companies steal public resources by using the streets as bus stations, instead of paying to use public bus stations. They park illegally while they load and unload, block lanes, cause traffic problems, and create crowds of people standing around on streets with no facilities while they wait to board buses or meet up passengers who are arriving. Try getting through Herald Square by walking, city bus, or taxi while these "curbside" buses companies and their passengers are blocking large public areas.

One more:

The Chinatown buses were developed as a way for people to travel cheaply and anonymously between Chinatown districts on the East Coat. The riders are/were primarily immigrant (legal and otherwise), and therefore less likely to complain about the state of their travel.

Greenwald fesses up:

I don't think I'd be able to pay attention to political issues if I didn't have the outlet of my blog, like if I just had to keep all that anger and frustration inside and read about lies and have no means of addressing them and exposing them. It's a healthy way, ultimately, to expunge these negative emotions.

According to PPP:

Only 38% of Republican primary voters say they're willing to support a candidate for President next year who firmly rejects the birther theory and those folks want Mitt Romney to be their nominee for President next year. With the other 62% of Republicans- 23% of whom say they are only willing to vote for a birther and 39% of whom are not sure- Donald Trump is cleaning up. And as a result Trump's ridden the controversy about Barack Obama's place of birth to the highest level of support we've found for anyone in our national GOP polling so far in 2011.

Tom Jensen notes that even if Trump doesn't run "someone who taps into the same sort of hard, hard right sentiment he's appealing to right now will get their votes- it's hard to imagine these folks voting for a more centrist candidate like Romney or Pawlenty." Ben Smith dismisses the poll:

Who seriously thinks Republican primary voters spend much time thinking about whether birth certificate views disqualify a candidate, much less are going to vote on those purported views. It's really a great example of the deep irrelevance of most early polling.

Dana Goldstein encourages "providing young teenagers–in middle schools and high schools–with much savvier college and career counseling":

Half of all college drop-outs have borrowed some money for tuition. And consider this depressing statistic: One in five students who drop out of college leave only after accumulating $20,000 or more in debt. These are the folks most unable to pay back their loans; the rhetoric of "college for all" simply does not match the reality of their lives.

Judith Scott-Clayton's student debt cost-benefit calculation includes related points and the above chart.

A reader writes:

Please watch your apples and oranges, Andrew. "HuffPo bloggers – the more high-profile and high-trafficked ones" are not analogous to "an occasional uploader … to YouTube." Compare YouTube stars to HuffPo stars or YouTube dabblers with HuffPo dabblers.

Would I have liked to be paid by HuffPo? Yes. Did I ask to be paid? No.  Whose fault is that? Mine. People tend to forget one non-monetary way HuffPo pays its bloggers. The site handled all comment moderation on my posts – a task I find about as appealing as panning for fool's gold in an open sewer.

Which is why the Dish doesn't have a comments section. Another writes:

I'm enjoying your new blog digs, but I have to take issue with your comments on the "HuffPo vs Tasini" fight. 

As a professional music journalist with material featured in hundreds of publications over the past 40 years, I can admit that a majority of the articles/interviews/album reviews that I've had published were written for free. Even as a precocious 15-year-old spamming music publications listed in the annual Writer's Guide, I knew exactly what I was getting into, and often swapped my dubious insights for free albums, books, concert tickets, and other swag.

As an adult, I still write for free for a couple of publications, as a supplement to my regular (paid) writing gig. Sometimes it's for exposure in a certain market, sometimes it's quid pro quo for publicity for a new book project, sometimes it's still for free CDs or books. The thing is, I freely give of my time and talents for my own reasons, to further my reputation, raise my professional profile, and hopefully lead to paid assignments in the future.

I have no doubt that, Tasini aside, many of the bloggers for HuffPo write for free for their own reasons. Personally, given the number of eyeballs that content on HuffPo attracts, I'd gladly write for the site any day of the week (and maybe even on weekends). The exposure and publicity given your words would be priceless, and could certainly be exploited into paid gigs and potential book deals if pursued. As for Arianna, et al making big bank off the AOL buy-out, welcome to the real world Antony! In the words of the great Jello Biafra, "work like a bitch so you can get rich, but your boss gets richer off you." He knew what he was getting into from the beginning, and it's too late now to have buyer's remorse. He should suck it up and go write something.

A U.N. study announced earlier this week found the Palestinian Authority is ready for statehood. Joshua Keating notes "the often arbitrary criteria applied to international sovereignty": 

There are more than a handful of U.N. member states with lower standards of governance, economic development, and healthcare than the Palestinian Territories. The U.N. has welcomed South Sudan's vote for independence, but is there any chance that one of the world's least developed regions would make the cut for sovereignty if it had to demonstrate the kind of economic and political progress seen on the West Bank in recent years?

I might add I can see no reason why the US shouldn't vote for recognition of Palestine. It's long been US policy; it's an important reward for real progress in governance by the PA; it will nudge Israel to get real. But somehow I suspect that once again, the US will balk.

(Photo: Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak attends the weekly cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on April 10, 2011 in Jerusalem, Israel. Both Israel and Hamas have expressed a willingness to call a truce to cross-border violence that in the past few days has claimed at least 19 Palestinian lives in retaliatory Israeli air strikes. By Jim Hollander/Getty Images)

Larison suspects that we were hoodwinked:

Supporters of the Libyan war are annoyed whenever anyone makes comparisons with Iraq, but there is one thing that the two wars definitely have in common: both of them initially relied very heavily on how the respective dictators wanted their enemies and the rest of the world to perceive them. Both wars are the product of taking dictatorial bombast and saber-rattling as if they are reliable indicators of future behavior. Despite having no WMDs, Hussein wanted to cultivate the suspicion and fear that he did have them to exaggerate his government’s power. It is conceivable that Gaddafi was engaged in a similar bluff. As in Iraq, outside governments may have reacted to an empty threat.

Related thoughts here.

A columnist, Julia O'Malley, tries to debunk all the questions about Palin's last pregnancy and child. She says the pregnancy was obvious before Palin even announced she was having Trig and it's absurd that anyone would still be asking for evidence. She also actually opposes Palin providing some easily available evidence, like a birth certificate or (my long request) some simple medical records of her pregnancy.

Sure, given the information we have, it seems Palin made a risky, even reckless, decision to fly when she suspected her water was breaking, but that doesn't mean that she wasn't really pregnant. She could just produce a birth certificate. But then I'm not certain that would make this story go away. Some people just want to believe, even when it's baseless. Just look at the birth certificate conspiracy about the president that Palin won't let go of.

But the president has produced his birth certificate, thereby doing what he had to do to define the continued question as conspiracy nuttery. Palin has actually said on the record that she has released Trig's (another truly odd lie) and subsequently proffered only her stretch marks to prove it. When Palin has said something untrue like this in public, and when she has told a completely incredible tale in "Going Rogue", and has repeatedly addressed the Trig question in speeches, do you really think the proper reaction of journalists is to insist that no questions should be asked at all. Not even a request to see evidence that would end the story for all sane people once and for all?

After all, O'Malley's own editor, Pat Dougherty, did try to clear this up in the winter of 2008-2009. Does O'Malley think that was inappropriate? She also seems to believe that the job of journalists is to adjudicate not just what's fit to print, but also what's fit to report. Based on what her friends say they saw in a gym.

Actually the job of journalists is to seek factual resolution of legitimate empirical questions. This should be easy. Why has it been so insanely hard?