![thepoliticalnotebook:
Byline gap, anyone? The folks over at the Op Ed Project give you their latest data in graph form: here are the numbers on how many women and how many men are publishing op-eds on different topics. Surprise, women are vastly under-represented in the opinion discussions about economy, security, international politics, etc… (FYI: It isn’t because there aren’t women out there writing and thinking and opining intelligently about these things.)
[Feministing]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4wb2vjqwz1qchhhqo1_500.jpg)
Byline gap, anyone? The folks over at the Op Ed Project give you their latest data in graph form: here are the numbers on how many women and how many men are publishing op-eds on different topics. Surprise, women are vastly under-represented in the opinion discussions about economy, security, international politics, etc… (FYI: It isn’t because there aren’t women out there writing and thinking and opining intelligently about these things.)
From “No Middle Ground: America’s Growing Income Segregation” by Kendra Bischoff and Sean Reardon (Boston Review, May/June 2012)
Ex-Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer is dropping out of the presidential race. A look at the political and personal demons that fueled his feisty campaign.
Lessig Blog, v2: Commencement Address to Atlanta's John Marshall Law School -
I was asked to post the text to the Commencement Address I gave at Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School on May, 19. With some hesitation (as tongue-in-cheek gets lost in writing), and with one important clarification (the corruption alleged was mine!), I post it here.
I am a professor of law…
“Kids play T-ball, then baseball; they play games and have practice every week and, if they’re serious about it, pre-season and post-season too. We never think, “Let’s have kids play baseball for eight weeks in seventh grade,” and then expect that in five years they can join the majors or even be on a college team. But for some reason we do this with civics. We say, “We’re going to have you do a penny harvest in fifth grade and a service learning project in tenth grade, and then we’ll teach you abstractly about government for a semester in twelfth grade.” Then our students enter the major leagues of citizenship, and we give them the vote and expect them to keep our country going. And that’s just crazy!” — Meira Levinson talking about her new book No Citizen Left Behind.
The suffering of depressed people does not justify the misdeeds of the pharmaceutical industry, nor does it minimize the drugs’ deleterious effects on some patients. However, discussion of antidepressants’ value should not forget this suffering or imagine that it is insignificant or suspect. In my experience, antidepressants are neither happy pills nor placebos; they are the difference between life and living death.
From Sandra J. Tanenbaum’s “The Antidepressant Wars: A Fierce Debate That Ignores Patients” (Boston Review, May/June 2012)
Shout
Some economists think markets can benefit all spheres of human activity. But they’re wrong: markets can erode important goods and social norms.
Not only are there some things money can’t buy, but there are also many things it shouldn’t.
When the market is everywhere, we lead a socially impoverished existence.
Because Sandel disagrees with people’s choices, he wants to take those choices away.
Financial incentives are improperly used to induce African Americans to embrace “good” behaviors.
Debating the place of the market is less about the value of goods than about inequality.
Tolerance, equality, and democracy have only flourished in market societies.
Making money, formerly an exclusive realm of cosmic evil, is now “doing God’s work.”
Even market enthusiasts know that society can’t function if people are the amoral, self-interested calculators of blackboard economics.
The profit motive is corrupting the justice system.
Free markets are a kind of fairness.
By keeping markets in their place, we can avoid their corrosive effects.
“I promise that, if nominated, I will just apply the law to the facts while being an umpire, not a player.” — BR legal columnist Pamela Karlan on being discussed as a potential Supreme Court nominee.
ShortFormBlog: "Ninjas" suddenly in extremely high demand by tech companies -
- 2,505% increase in job postings looking for a “ninja” in May 2012 vs. May 2006
- 67% increase in job postings looking for a “jedi” over the same period
- 810% increase in job postings looking for a “rock star” or “rockstars” source
» Also in demand: “Gurus,” “evangelists”: If…
Americans Elect abandons bid to end two-party stranglehold -
Americans Elect, a well-financed group that aimed to help a viable third party candidate enter this November’s presidential race, has announced it is ending its web-based push to break America’s two-party system.
The organisation, which was founded with millions of dollars from its initial wealthy backers, had little trouble in organising a push to get on the ballot across America. It managed to secure ballot access in 29 states and was on track in all the rest. But it failed to attract a big-name candidate to join it or generate enough popular support from ordinary Americans to fulfil its own requirements to accept a candidate.
As a result, no single person running on the Americans Elect internet-based website managed to secure enough support to qualify for the Americans Elect primary in June causing the group to decide to shutter the process.
“The primary process for the Americans Elect nomination has come to an end,” the group said in a statement.
Americans Elect had caused a stir in many political circles by seeming to break down one of the key barriers to entry for third parties in America: the sheer expense and logistics of getting ballot access. But the group came in for criticism for a perceived lack of transparency over who its donors were and its appeal for a centrist ticket failed to attract oft-cited figures like New York mayor Mike Bloomberg or former Republican candidate Jon Huntsman to take the plunge.
The leading candidate on Americans Elect ended up being Buddy Roemer, another former Republican candidate and former governor of Louisiana, who only managed to get 6,293 delegates to support his bid when he needed at least 10,000.
This is a shame. Read Buddy Roemer’s stirring cri de coeur regarding campaign-finance reform in Boston Review.