It looks like this blog will hit the big 100,000 unique visitors mark tomorrow.

It is hard to express how happy, excited, and proud this makes me. Tim and I have some big plans in line to celebrate this. Help us make it happen!

So I was listening to some music the other day and came upon I'd Love To Change The World by Ten Years After.

The magnificent thing about this song isn't that its catchy or has a particularly unique composition, rather, the thing I love is that it's about unintended consequences.

The singer laments how much he'd like to change the world for the better, but seems overwhelmed by the prospects of actually achieving that change.

You know how many baseball players have a song that plays as they come up to bat or come into pitch? This would probably be my song. Not because I like it, but because I love that someone actually wrote a rock song about how hard it is to craft effective policy in response to serious social, political, and environmental problems.

Of course, maybe I'm reading too much into it. I'm also convinced that Dave Matthews's Proudest Monkey is about Rousseau's Discourse on The Origin and The Foundations of Inequality Among Men, so you can take this all with a grain of salt.

Everyone dislikes Bill O'Reilly, but do you fear for those that live and work with him? This makes the Chris Berman videos seem pretty tame.

Labels: Bill O'Reilly, Chris Berman

As the new kid on the block, I thought I'd take the O-Week approach to things and come not by myself and not with a few choice friends, but rather with a small army of buck-toothed, mulleted companions. 19 3/20*, to be exact.

Meet the Duggars. You may recognize them from the Discovery Channel, where they were featured between specials on Alpine Whistling Tree Frogs and interior design. Michelle, of Little Rock, AR, has utilized her uterus and a couple other organs to produce 17 little Duggars, irreparably damaging the human gene pool forever. She just announced that she is pregnant with baby #18.

Note that her not being pregnant is referred to as "an in-between stage" and that when she announced that she was in fact pregnant again, #1 and #4 (#2 and #6?) seemed vaguely interested, but #2, #3, and #5-17 had no reaction whatsoever.

I personally recommend naming the new one Jesus and just getting it over with. Regardless, you can vote here.

*Joshua, Jana, Jennifer, John-David, Jill, Jessa, Jinger, Joseph, Josiah, Joy-Anna, Jeremiah, Jedidiah, Jason, James, Justin, Jackson, Johannah, J??? (fetus), Jim Bob, and Michelle.

The NYTimes reports: "In a sign of what could be an extremely unusual fall campaign, the two sides [McCain and Obama] said Saturday that they would be open to holding joint forums or unmoderated debates across the country in front of voters through the summer."

The two truly best candidates have won their respective nominations and the stage is set for the most substantive debates at the most critical of times that our country has seen in decades. I, for one, believe these United States of America to already be the better for it. Game on.

Our newest contributor to the Editors Blog has overcome debilitating cross-sightedness to write extensively about lost birds and feral cats. She is also the inspiration behind item #198 in this year's scav hunt: "Take down the Maroon [11 points]." Please give a warm welcome to Claire McNear.

Labels: feral cats

A lot of stuff happened night, some of which was important, but all of which pales in comparison to this:



Discuss.

Labels: bad music, famous minerals, great americans, Mike Gravel

Whew. It's been a long weekend over here at the Editors Blog as we all recover from our post-Scurvy Awareness Day hangovers. The problem with a Vitamin C overdose is that you can't get over it just by drinking lots of orange juice.

Anyway, apparently on her Stephanopolous-moderated town hall in Indiana this morning, Hillary Clinton just referred to anyone who knows anything about economics as "elites." As someone who once wikipediad "sunk-cost fallacy," I am indignant. Here's the quote:

"It's really odd to me that arguing to give relief to a vast majority of Americans creates this incredible pushback...Elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that don't benefit..."

For the record, she was asked to name one credible economist who supported her gas-tax plan (the one that no one supports). And that was her answer. There are some occupations where I think it is acceptable to make sweeping character judgments of everyone in the field. The first job that comes to mind is bounty hunter, but I'm sure I could think of others. Academia, however, is not one of these. Experts in a field almost never come to universal agreement on matters. 1500 years after the fact, historians still debate whether or not Rome actually fell (let alone what caused such a fall). You will find "elites" on both sides of every major policy issue, from poverty to Pakistan. There's an institutionalized contrarianism as well, where experts will adopt a dismissed policy and see if they can make an argument for it.

And yet the Clinton gas-tax plan has managed to unite the entire field of economics against one policy proposal. It'd be like discussing creationism at a convention of biologists. I had thought for ages that John McCain's admission that he knows nothing about economics would make him the candidate who knows the least about economics, but now I'm starting to second-guess things.

This really shouldn't matter, because politicians pander all the time, especially on economic issues. But there's a difference between speaking to the audience on the trail, and actually introducing legislation that everyone agrees is really bad, just for a few meaningless votes.

Last point on this: Apparently later in the program, this happened:

Stephanopoulos turned the mike over to a woman who said she supported Obama and said she makes less than $25,000 a year.

"I do feel pandered to when you talk about suspending the gas tax," the woman said, adding: "Call me crazy but I actually listen to economists because I think they know what they've studied."

aww shucks.

Labels: Hillary, l337 hax0rz, pointless legislation

When it comes to fighting scurvy, 4 out of 5 doctors recommend a healthy intake of Vitamin C. The other doctor recommended watching this video:



So. Sappy.

Labels: bad music, holidays, scurvy awareness day

It's Scurvy Awareness Day. By now, the festivities have been going for hours, with no end in sight. To mix things up, we thought we'd hold a contest of our own.

Everyone knows it's impossible to drink one gallon of milk in an hour. But what about a gallon of orange juice? We have no idea, but we'd like to find out. Here's what you can do:

Step 1.) Run down to your corner store and grab yourself a gallon of the finest OJ you can find. It doesn't matter if it's pulp-free or homestyle, although for accuracy's sake you should make a note of which kind and which brand you choose. (For the purposes of this challenge, Sunny D is off limits).

Step 2.) Consume. Remember to set your timer with initial swig of juice.

Step 3.) Report back to us after an hour. Ideally there would be video evidence, but we'll accept compelling anecdotes as well.

The winner will be receive immortality, and possibly an IgNoble prize. All in the name of science. Good luck!

Labels: holidays, OJ, The Editors Blog challenge

I've given Bloomberg a hard time lately, but after this, he seems kinda bad ass to me. In response to questions about the McCain-Clinton gas tax moritorium Bloomberg said this:

It’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard in an awful long time from an economic point of view.

Oh snap.

Today, as most of you are surely aware, is the most wonderful day of the year: International Scurvy Awareness Day. It's a day to drink orange juice and reflect on how great it is to have gums that don't bleed. We'll be commemorating the event with a full day of blogging. It should be fun.

Labels: holidays, OJ

I don't know what art is, but at least I know this. This sort of self awareness seems to be lost on Yale College Dean Peter Salovey (a psychologist by training) who has thoroughly bungled the handling of a controversial senior art project that I discussed here.

It just seems like Yale is more concerned with political correctness or not offending anyone than protecting any sort of conception of academic freedom. Interestingly we've seen no insurrection from the faculty on this. If something like this went down at the U of C there would be protests from students and faculty alike calling for the admin to respect academic freedom.

The best part, though, has been the silence from conservatives. Every time an elite university silences the work of conservatives they scream out in agony about the importance of academic freedom. They also tend to throw in a reference to Allan Bloom.

Where is the outrage this time around? This will undoubtedly be the topic of my next column.

It's Kentucky Derby season so you know what that means: More remembrances of Barbaro.

The New York Times's has an interview with Barbaro's jockey on the top of its website right now.

The jockey also has a book out called, My Guy Barbaro.

All of this is basically an excuse for me to link to Tim's legendary remembrance of Barbaro titled, "A Million Little Pieces: The legend of Barbaro":

Now is a time to remember and celebrate what this steed stood for: hope. Barbaro may have been euthanized, but his ideals still roam free.

You know why Shadowfax could gallop so fast with Gandalf on his back? Because he was trying to catch up with Barbaro. The Ford Mustang GT500 has a 500-horsepower engine. But if you read the fine print, you’ll see that 500 horsepower is equal to roughly one Barbaro. You couldn’t feed Barbaro oats like every other horse. He would take a mouthful and spit it right back out. Barbaro ate only chocolate cake. People claim that Barbaro is Spanish for “badass.” The truth is the other way around: “badass” is English for Barbaro.

Had he survived the treacherous care of his caretakers, Barbaro would be looking forward to a lifetime of studding with the choicest mares in all the land. He could have fathered more offspring than Brigham Young and Shawn Kemp combined, all without any of the entangling legal responsibilities. Let’s see Jack Bauer do that.

Publishing this column was, without a doubt, the single greatest accomplishment of my tenure as Viewpoints Editor.

Labels: Barbaro

Wonkette has the find of the week today with this screengrab from Fox and Friends. Look, even the Chicago Maroon makes mistakes every once in a while, but there's a difference between, say, misspelling "public" as "pubic," and thinking that Frederick Douglass debated Abraham Lincoln. (Not that I wouldn't have paid to watch that debate).

On an unrelated note, I've been meaning to clarify my earlier post on Jeremiah Wright. My point is not that Jeremiah Wright is an entirely rational, sane individual—I think he's got crazy streak, as his press conference Monday displayed. It's just that in order for that to actually be exploited politically it needs to be distorted to an extent that's unfair to the Pastor, Trinity, Obama, and just about everyone else within six degrees of seperation. If you take issue with his sermons, by all means, take issue with his sermons. But just don't assume that it's at all relevant to Barack Obama.

Labels: alumni, FOX News, Jeremiah Wright, slavery

A lot of people are bitching about how high gas prices are. I don't drive so I think I have a pretty objective view on this issue: Gas prices aren't too high. If anything, taxes on gas should be higher. This way the cost of gas can better line up with the cost of consuming gas (here is Steven Levitt on all the negative externalities that low gas prices impose).

This, however, seems lost on Hillary and McCain. Both are proposing to temporarily reduce the federal gas tax. This is a particularly dangerous proposal because there is no reason to believe that gas prices will be coming down in the near future. Once you remove a tax like this, good luck ever putting it back in place.

Not to fawn over Obama (or I could give all the credit to Editor's Blog man crush and Obama economic advisor Austan Goolsbee), but you have to respect a politician that is in such a heated race and makes such a principled stand on an issue like this. And, right on cue Hillary is throwing everything she can at Obama on this issue:

...his position allowed Mrs. Clinton to draw a contrast with her opponent in appealing to the hard-hit middle-class families and older Americans who have proven to be the bedrock of her support. She has accused Mr. Obama of being out of touch with ordinary Americans who are struggling to meet their mortgages and gas up their cars and trucks.

Classy.

Update: Here is what Greg Mankiw, founder of the famous Pigou Club has to say about the Hillary-McCain proposal:

I don't know any prominent economist who favors this McCain-Clinton proposal. More common is the reaction of a friend of mine (a veteran of the Clinton administration) who calls the idea "ludicrous."

Labels: Austan Goolsbee, Barack Obama, Pigou

Finally, someone with the courage to speak the truth:



Here's an idea: Instead of having the two candidates debate this fall, why not just have "Ms. Weiss" and Roberta McCain go head to head, Lincoln-Douglass style. No moderator, just the two grandmotherly surrogates talking about the issues.

UPDATE: Alex points out a great gem from the youtube comments. Commenter "FiremanSteve" has this to say:

Ms. Weiss is a great lady. I have not seen her in years until now but she is as passionate about life as she appears to be in this segment. Regardless of whomever we support it sure was nice to see her again.

FiremanSteve, how did you let Ms. Weiss slip out of your life? What were you thinking??

Labels: Barack Obama, great americans, old people, snogging

Last year I lamented the lame choices the U of C always makes for graduation speakers. I was pretty rough on last years speaker, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg:

I’m sure Clinton was a home run, but Bloomberg is about as relevant as he is inspirational. Just seeing his face makes me yearn for Dean Boyer’s gentle descriptions of Baptists conquering the prairie to found the Old University of Chicago in the 1850s.

Well, Northwestern Law School's graduation speaker this year puts Bloomberg to shame in terms of relevance: JERRY SPRINGER!

Oh man. Talk about a let down. You spend $150,000 on tuition and they send you off with Springer.

After watching the actual footage of Jeremiah Wright delivering his post 9/11 sermon, I can't help but wonder how people can possibly be so flat-out wrong in their interpretation of his remarks. As I wrote before, if you can get past his rhetorical style (it does take some getting used to, especially if you're used to the Catholic mass), what he's saying is very straightforward, and pretty fundamental to Christianity: "Violence begets violence, hatred begets hatred."

That's it. He's cautioning against anger in response to tragedy. That's what reverends do. Can you imagine if he stood at the pulpit and started singing "Bomb Iran"? It would be a little out of character, no? So how anyone can sincerely interpret his remarks on a tragedy as some sort of doctrine of international relations is a mystery.

I've said all if this before, though, and it would seem like old news except that for some reason Wright is still an issue in the campaign. The latest instance comes in this ad in Mississippi, which is running ahead of a special election for a House seat:



It may seem nitpicky, but it's actually an important question: Why didn't Mississippi Democrat Travis Childers say anything when Wright talked about 9/11?

It's an important question because the answer is s0 obvious: Wright's quote is six-and-a-half years old. No one knew who Jeremiah Wright was in 2001 outside of Chicago. No one knows who Travis Childers is now outside of Mississippi. The two have no personal connection whatsoever.

The point is that Jeremiah Wright's sermons are only politically salient so long as the original context is distorted beyond recognition. So unless the Mississippi GOP really does have the listening-comprehension skills of a five-year-old, which is unlikely although not out of the question, we're left with the type of race-baiting that would make Jesse Helms jealous.

Rant over.

Labels: alumni, campaign ads, Jeremiah Wright, Mississippi, the national conversation

The New York Times Magazine has an interesting article up about how college experience has changed. The author (a U of C alum) makes a couple of points that I could imagine being true.

However, the interesting part of the article is his discussion with students, all U of C undergrads. Some are happy and ambitious. Others belong in an arts school and can't stand the culture here (to which I say: Why'd you come here in the first place? The U of C is not for everyone and doesn't pretend to be).

Big, big news concerning the Indiana primary: The Supreme Court just upheld the state's controversial new voter ID law today, in a 6–3 decision. The margin is noteworthy here because it was expected to split along partisan lines, but Justice Stevens ended up writing the ruling opinion.

The main argument against this law is that it's targeted against two heavily Democratic blocs: minorities, and really old minorities. Interestingly enough, Stevens actually conceded this point in his opinion:

"If a nondiscriminatory law is supported by valid neutral justifications, those justifications should not be disregarded simply because partisan interests may have provided one motivation for the votes of individual legislators..."

In arguing the case before the court, the state was unable to cite a single prosecuted case of voter impersonation fraud in an Indiana election. Ever. The defense, for its part, was unable to cite sufficient examples of disenfranchisement in the two-plus years since the law went into place. Personally, I think if the state of Indiana wants to prevent dead people from voting (which is a worthy goal), they should start by making some effort to clear the voting rolls of dead people. Laws like this that put the strain on the voters only distract from the fact that the state's voting bureaucracy leaves a lot to be desired.

Anyway, regardless of the merits, this is one more thing both Obama and Clinton will have to worry about next Tuesday...

Labels: alumni, Indiana, Supreme Court

George got the Saturday Mike Gravel-blogging off and running with this quote, where Gravel earns special points for taking a shot at he-who-must-not-be-named. It reminded me of this excellent Politico article on how the Democrat-turned-Libertarian he is revolutionizing the production of utterly non-sensical campaign videos.

Unrelatedly, it led to a youtube search for "Mike Gravel," which is always rewarding. I recommend this video, which poses an interesting question: How do you segue a television program from Barbara Streisand to Mike Gravel? (Answer: poorly).



Note that he reveals early on that he was a former spy! And also, if you've never had the pleasure, watch the young Alaska Senator read the Pentagon Papers into the public record. This was like Robert Byrd singlehandedly fillibustering the Kansas-Nebraska act, except the exact opposite. If you put those tears (five minute mark) in a bottle, they would shine like the light of Elendil.

Labels: famous minerals, great americans, Mike Gravel

Via Andrew Sullivan:

"Who would I be a good vice presidential pick for? I don't know if the Libertarian Party has had, since its foundation—and I say this most modestly—a bigger fish. They'd had Ron Paul and Bob Barr: Two congressmen. Two congressmen do not make a senator. Four congressman, maybe, make a senator, but not two congressmen." - Mike Gravel

The Editors Blog (and especially Tim) approves.

Dave Barry notes with disdain the "creeping fascism" of the Florida state legislature in attempting to ban drivers from hanging fake bull testicles on their pickup trucks.

While I appreciate the concern, his sentiment is problematic for a number of reasons. Without delving too deeply into Biology, a subject which I know absolutely nothing about, I think it's important to point out the ill effects that result from an excess of testosterone. Presumably, the purchase of a pickup truck is in itself a sizable testosterone boost—adding a set of swinging cajones to the trailer hitch, therefore, would have dangerous side-effects on the driver including (but not limited to), low sex drive, violent mood swings, and severe shrinkage.

Unlike baseball, where there's at least the prospect of improved 0n-field performance, truck steroids (and let's face it, that's what these are) are at best a nuisance to the other drivers on the road, at worst a serious health risk to the owner of the vehicle. The legislature would do well to take swift action in this regard.

Labels: fascism, Florida

Douche chillllllllll.

The [probably rigged] online voting doesn't end for another 50 minutes or so, but we're already hearing some interesting reports from our sources in the field: In the end, we think it'll come down to whoever can carry the youth vote, which makes up roughly 99-percent of eligible voters (excepting, of course, Brad Sugarman).

Anyway, with zero-percent of precincts reporting, we're projecting Mike Gravel to be the Student Government president. It's compulsory to mention that exit polls are incredibly unreliable, but I'm pretty certain about this one. Anyway, full team coverage on this in tomorrow's Maroon. And, yes, that was all just an excuse to post this work of art:



Everyone knows that George Washington crossed the Delaware to defeat the Germans, but what most people don't know is that two days earlier, Mike Gravel attempted the exact same surprise attack. His boat capsized, killing everyone inside, with the exception of Gravel, who swam to safety and lived for days on little more than wild berries and whatever rodents he could find. To this day, he is repulsed by the sight of running water and as a result he's an adamant proponent of hydroelectric dams. THE END.

Labels: famous minerals, Mike Gravel, Student Government

This new ad by the North Carolina GOP is causing a bit of storm. John McCain was quick to condemn it, which was nice of him, but it will hit the airwaves anyway, proving once again that in the "national conversation about race," the Carolinas are still the That Kid.

The ad is notable not just for the implication that black churches are somehow "too extreme" for Tobacco Road, but also for the fact that they bleeped the word "damn." I guess I follow the logic, there, but it's natural to associate the bleeping sound with, well, you know: The Word. The big one. The queen mother of dirty words. The F dash dash dash word—Which of course would have made Rev. Wright sound that much more belligerent than he really is.

I was going to refrain from poking fun at the lady at the end of the ad, but she probably voted for Jesse Helms, like, five times, so I'll just go ahead and say it: She looks like an elf. There, I feel better already.

Speaking of Helms, this ad is brought back memories of the glory days of the North Carolina GOP, when they ran ads like this:



Fortunately, North Carolinians decided to repeatedly give that job to the less qualified white man instead.

Labels: campaign ads, North Carolina, the national conversation

There are downsides to writing a B.A.—almost too many to list, actually. Fourth-years waste thousands, maybe millions, of hours in the Reg in the name of “original research,” and even more time is spent in fear, cowering at the daunting specter of graduation. I suspect at this time next year I’ll have lost 45 pounds, most of my hair, and developed a fondness for Marlboros. It’s a lot to ask of someone.

There are, however, some real benefits. The Maroon's Emerald Gao, toiling away on an epic about the films of John Hughes, noticed this shocking image from the 1985 classic (used generously) “Weird Science”:


Harold’s Chicken Shack! And to think, in a non-B.A. world, this would have been lost forever. I’ve tried to find out where this Harold’s is located, but there are more than 80 establishments and Chicago has changed some over the last 20+ years. So far no luck.

In the movie version, by the way, Anthony Michael Hall and his buddies went into the Kandy Bar, where hilarity ensued, but just imagine how much different things could have been if they’d instead chosen to celebrate their invention with a half-dark and mild sauce.

Labels: Harold's Chicken Shack

And so we beat on.

In the end, after the weeks of manufactured drama, negative ads, and cheap-shots at people who shop at Whole Foods, the Pennsylvania primary was ultimately as inconclusive as the long line of primaries that came before it. What was supposed to be the biggest thing to hit the state since the immaculate reception instead ended with a whimper, Senator Clinton's 9.3-percent margin of victory meeting expectations but failing to break the deadlock. Or at least that seems to be thinking.

The reality, I think, is a bit different, and goes back to something I wrote before about basketball teams' tendency to foul in the final minutes of games. Hillary cut into Obama's delegate lead a little bit yesterday, but much more important that is the foreboding road ahead, and the total number of delegates that were just taken off the board for good. In a vacuum, the win is a big win, but viewed in its proper context as her last chance to make up pledged delegates, it's a real blow.

All of which relates back, somewhat tangentially, to a column I have in Tuesday's Maroon about Obama's "brush your shoulders off" moment in North Carolina. While primary results and mundane controversies might dominate the airwaves and public discourse, their impact pales in comparison to the unspoken truths (i.e. delegate math, organization, money) that make an Obama victory all but inevitable.

Labels: Barack Obama, Hillary, Pennsylvania