Category Archives: Media Criticism

Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

An Open Letter To Davis Guggenheim

2 Comments

Don’t go back over to the Dark Side:

Guggenheim was right to make unions the villains of his film. But now that he’s starting to backpedal about collective bargaining, he’s getting heat from the reform community. There’s a bit of a mutiny on the “Waiting for ‘Superman’” Facebook page. The comments are decidedly opposed to Guggenheim’s view, with some supporters going so far as to say they’ll no longer promote the film.

Perhaps they’ll gravitate towards “Kids Aren’t Cars,” a film series that pulls no punches and shows the ugly impact collective bargaining has had on American public education.

It’s not too late to stop going wobbly.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

Vanity Press

20 Comments

I see that Mark Whittington has found a new place to self-publish his ever-illogical ignorance.

Note that the commenters are unremittingly clueless as well.

[Sunday afternoon update]

Just in case anyone ever bothers to read Mark’s web site, he is now (as often, and hilariously stupidly) claiming that I have “leaped the length of my” (imaginary, just like the “Internet Rocketeers Club”) “chain,” once again demonstrating his complete inability to accurately discern human emotions. He also accused me of lying, with zero basis, since I never claimed that he wasn’t being paid. But then, as always, reading comprehension has never been been his strong suit, either.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Programs To Cut

22 Comments

How about Head Start?

I know that discussing the elimination of a government program is heresy, and that all government programs once initiated become sacrosanct, and the only permissible discussion about them is the budget level, but I just find it amazing that, given our fiscal straits, we aren’t having a serious discussion about a) what should the federal government be doing, b) even if the goals of the program are constitutionally legit, is it doing them in the most cost-effective way possible? We should be talking about eliminating programs entirely, and not just arguing about how much money we should be wasting on them. Planned Parenthood and CPB/NPR are obvious examples, particularly given the results of recent stings, but even those run by people who are well intentioned, and not duplicitous, should on the block as well, if they’re not federal responsibilities, or if they are not effective. When our monthly deficit is larger than any of George Bush’s annual ones, it’s time to get serious.

By the way, this principle would apply to NASA as well. Certainly SLS/Orion are prime candidates for elimination, and the only thing keeping them alive is their constituencies for the pork.

[Update a few minutes later]

The Democrats’ dull budget scissors.

Economics, Media Criticism, Science And Society, Social Commentary

Traffic Jams

23 Comments

…the science.

This had me scratching my head, though. It lists the top ten most congested highways (not sure how they measure that), and I found a couple of surprises.

First, that none of them were in southern California. I would have thought that the 405 through West LA and over Sepulveda Pass into the Valley would have been a prime candidate.

Second, that they list the merge between northbound US-23 and northbound I-75, in Detroit. Only one problem. Those two highways merge in Flint, sixty miles northwest of Detroit (and my home town). And while I haven’t spent much time there lately, I have been there some, and I’m quite surprised that it beats all of the Detroit freeways for congestion. The only time I can imagine it would be a big problem is on holiday weekends with people coming from the Detroit area heading up north. Even then, it can be avoided by taking I-475 through town. I’d like to know how it got so designated. It makes me question the validity of the rest of them as well.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Dispatch From The Bizarro World

12 Comments

…of Democrats:

Thanks to this bill — which doesn’t touch any of the civil service protections afforded public workers, nor any private-sector unions — public sector workers will have a choice over whether to join a union. Thanks to this bill, public workers who elect not to join a union won’t be forced to pay dues anyway. Thanks to this bill, elected officials won’t be negotiating away taxpayer dollars with the people who finance their campaigns. So, naturally, the Democrats call it the the undoing of fifty years of “civil rights.”

Naturally.