Monday Evening Open Thread
(Scott Meyer’s website)
__
And (speaking of John Wayne Gacy) why does every article about Zynga’s Mark Pincus make him sound like a creepy Borg-wannabe imitation of a human being? Is it just jealousy, or are the beings behind Facebook just that weird?
__
So… apart from buying fun over the internet, what’s on everybody’s agenda for the evening?
a little advice
Read Matt Yglesias on the value of college, and the David Leonhardt column he links to. For all of our disagreements, I’ll continue to say: when Yglesias gets it right, I do think he’s as good as there is. (And when he’s wrong, I think he’s usually catastrophically wrong, but you knew I felt that way.)
Since the vogue for “college isn’t worth it” articles and blog post appears to be resistant to logic, argument, and evidence, and shows no sign of abating, I’d like to give you a little advice for assessing them. Note that almost universally– in fact without exception as far as the ones I’ve read, and I’ve read a lot– these articles are written by people who went to college. And! I know that because they continue to make that information publicly available, in the same space as their arguments against going to college! I think that there’s a tension there. Why, if a college degree is worthless, do those who argue such still find it necessary to announce their credentials, either in a bio attached to their argument, or (as is common) in the text of the piece itself? It is not difficult to find the value added in a self-contained argument posted online. You can read the argument and decide if it has value for itself. In other words, the value is easier to gauge than that of a bridge or a prescription or a piece of software code, the creation of all of which usually requires higher education and credentials. Yet even in this context, where the quality of the work in question is immediate and fairly obvious, those crafting it find it necessary to announce their credentials, both to the audience of their pieces and the editors that commission them. I would argue that all three sides– the authors, the editors, the audiences– find easy access to this information non-trivial and valuable.
So I would simply say that you should at your most generous take such pieces with a grain of salt, and at your least generous, skip reading them altogether. If you’re reading a piece where someone at once announces that they attended the Iowa Writers Workshop and have an MFA, and they claim that such degrees are irrelevant and unnecessary, it is perfectly rational to find the author’s credibility lacking.
Pelosi: Strong Women Don’t Quit
Good piece on “Nancy Pelosi’s Big Comeback” in the Washington Post:
… In the corridor where the House minority leader greets visitors hangs but one decoration: a photo of her at the front of the House chamber, lifting the gavel in triumph, on Jan. 5, 2007. That was the day she was sworn in as the nation’s first female speaker, arguably the most powerful post any woman has held in the nation’s history.
__
The fact that the pale-yellow walls remain bare suggests that Pelosi has no intention of getting settled in her new offices. What drives her these days is the realization that, with the party’s upset victory in last month’s special election in a heavily Republican Upstate New York district, Democrats need just two dozen seats to take back their majority.
__
“I feel comfortable about our ability to win it back,” Pelosi said in an interview, as she approached the six-month mark of being in the minority again. “I have a sense of responsibility to win it back, a plan to do so, and a confidence that it is very much possible to do so.” […] __
The speakership used to be a post with job security. But that is no longer true in an era in which voters are more restive and the political culture is rougher on those who hold power. In the past 21 years, five speakers have been forced out, either by scandal or by political upheaval.
__
What makes Pelosi different is not that she lost that cherished gavel — but that she didn’t head for the exit when she did. Pelosi is the first former speaker since Sam Rayburn, more than half a century ago, to remain in the House as the head of her party and to fight to get her majority back.
__
She calls it her “faith-based initiative,” and it is indeed an endeavor to make her fellow Democrats believe again. […]
Early Morning Open Thread: Space Invader!
I’ve already written in detail about my beautiful and vicious Ali.
__
A few mornings ago I was puttering around getting ready for work when I hear Ali’s loud cobra-like hissssssssss coupled with a pitiful wailing sound. I run to the bedroom expecting some kind of disaster and I find Ali sitting in the window fuming and on the other side is a little kitten obviously terrified and crying as if to say “please let me in!”. Did I mention my apartment is on the fifth floor and the outside window ledge is about 3-4 inches width? No idea how this little guy got there. My best guess is he crawled up or down the fire escape, which was outside the adjacent window, and then crossed over to the next window.
__
So I shoo Ali away and let the poor kitten in. No collar, although he appeared to be clean and well-fed. With no time to figure out where the hell he came from and after a quick check of his ears and for fleas, I set him up with some food and a cat litter pan and locked him in the bedroom to protect him from the wrath of Ali. Ali is at least 3x his size and she was fur-i-ous, pacing all over the rest of the apartment in a palpable state of agita, tail whipping back and forth so hard it could have snapped right off.
__
After arriving home that evening I brought him around to some neighbors to see if anyone recognized him. No such luck. I looked out for word or sign of a missing kitten, nothing. Frankly I had no interest in pursuing that search because anyone who’d let a little fearless kitten out with no collar in a very busy NYC neighborhood frankly isn’t worth the effort.
__
I got him to the vet pretty quickly. No microchip and a broken tail tip. All tests came back negative. Turns out he’s a very healthy little guy and rather than being a tiny 9ish month old as I’d first guessed he in fact is a HUGE 4 month old! He’s going to be a very big boy and is already scheduled for neutering.
__
He’s a cute and very active little guy. He eats like an absolute pig and wants to play constantly. So much so that I’ve named him Pita (as in Pain In The Ass–the vet liked it so much she’s stealing the name for her next pet). Unfortunately I can’t keep him. My loyalty is to Ali and I can’t live with her constant state of agita or the neverending fear I will come upon a bloody mangled mass of white and gray fur at Ali’s feet while she looks up at me with a look of pure smug satisfaction.
Early Morning Open Thread: Space Invader!Post + Comments (19)
Open Thread
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!
Open Thread
Somehow I don’t think this is what you had in mind.
(backposting so as not to step all over Kay’s thread.)