Be sure to stay connected to us via facebook and twitter as well for all of our most recent updates and posts.
If this is the first time you've visited our blog, please join us on our new, more comprehensive website. If you're already a loyal reader of CR, thanks for all the support you've given us as we've worked to get our proverbial foot in the revolving door of cultural punditry and 24/7 hack commentary. We've got a long way to go.
Either way, we look forward to seeing you at the new digs.
As an attempt to stimulate the African American vote towards the Republican party, Mitt Romney was booed today at the NAACP conference for promising to repeal Obamacare. After being caught off guard, Romney went off script to explain that a survey of the Chamber of Commerce revealed that members were not hiring as many people due to the new health care reform. He also acknowledged that 90% of African Americans vote for Democrats, but wanted to ensure that if he won he would be representing every race, religion, and sexual orientation. Good effort, Romney.
Speculation continues on the death of Eva Rausing, one of England's richest women, after being discovered dead in her home due to her husband's arrest on suspicion of possession of illegal drugs. Could this become the next OJ Simpson case?
Fourteen European countries, many of them the already on the front line of the European financial crisis, are considering raising their retirement age to 67 and 69 by 2050. Riots and uproar are expected to come from these European countries, but due to the increase in senior citizens as well as unemployment rate among young people, Europe has been backed into a corner.
The Justice Department and FBI have launched a review on thousands of criminal cases dating back to at least 1985 due to flawed forensic evidence. The Washington Post began this report early April with two men convicted of crimes based on FBI hair analysis that wrongly placed them at the crime scene. The Post have also claimed that the Department and FBI have both known the potential flaw in their DNA evidence, and is now paying the price for it.
I’ll start this post by highlighting how when people like Matt talk about how we need more federal funding for college, they often highlight how engineers and computer scientists create real value in the economy. I’ll start by agreeing, yes those degrees do create value. However, unfortunately, we don’t have much reason to think that federal funding is actually creating more engineering degrees. Let’s look at some statistics from the Department of Education, shall we?
CIA's decision to eliminate Osama bin Laden last year posing as a vaccination team has significantly impacted the progress Pakistan has made towards the eradication of polio. Due to the mistrust of vaccination teams in the country, children have not been allowed to get the right vaccinations they need in the past year. While the CIA made a decision in how to eliminate one of the country's biggest threat, have they cost the lives on innocent Pakistani children?
Current polls have determined that Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are still deadlocked in the race for presidency. Who will come out on top? November will tell.
Los Zetas, a Mexican drug cartel, has claimed that Bank of America has helped launder money through a Texas based racehorse business with BofA accounts. While the bank has admitted in errors of laundering in the past, the question remains whether or not Bank of America has any sort of participation in such money laundering and if they have any efforts in preventing this in the future.
At 11:50 AM this morning, President Obama proposed the extension of tax cuts for citizens earning less than $250,000 a year. This will cost the government $150 billion in revenue in 2013. While Romney's campaign efforts supports tax cuts for individuals on all income levels, will Obama's venture of building a stronger middle class win him the presidential election?
Our poor, earthquake-damaged Washington Monument has now postponed is open date to past 2014. The 5.8 earthquake that shook it last year has caused renovations to reach up to $15 million.
A seemingly death sentence to a cancer patient has turned out to become a potential cancer killing life saver. While unfortunately the patient who received the new drug therapy passed away, the new-found realization of what this drug could do has paved a new path for cancer research.
Congratulations to Roger Federer's seventh Wimbledon title over Andy Murray this weekend. It's been more than two years since Federer has won a major title. Congrats Federer, you still got it!
I hate to be "that guy" on a day of national celebration, pointing out the gross inequities and hypocrisies of an otherwise free and prosperous country. Frederick Douglass had no such qualms, however, in his scathing "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" delivered in Washington D.C. on July 5th, 1852, excerpted here:
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day
that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross
injustice and cruelly to which he is the constant victim. To him, your
celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your
national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty
and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence;
your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and
hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade,
and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and
hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation
of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more
shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at
this very hour.
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the
monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South
America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay
your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you
will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless
hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
Is this sentiment only limited to historical American hypocrisy regarding the slave trade, which President Abraham Lincoln abolished after a bloody civil war? Nay - Susan B. Anthony was not to be outdone, with the National Woman Suffrage Association's "Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States" just 24 years later.
As I continue my series on Incarceration in America, here are a couple articles more, food for thought, on this day of liberty. Freedom isn't free - literally and figuratively:
A quick post this morning before everyone gets on with their 4th of July celebrations. With America's mid-summer FESTIVAL OF FREEDOM occurring this year on a Wednesday, time is of the essence. At least everyone agrees that Thursday, July 5, 2012 will be among the least productive days of the year.
Stephen and I may have our political differences, but as a band of one hit wonders once said, our mutual love for America is like a river running soul deep. In preparation for the 236th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, we're ranking our top five favorite moments in American history.
These are issued with the qualifier that there was an incomprehensible amount to choose from in this assessment, so while I can't speak for Stephen, my list may be at least as reflective of the first five things that came to my head as it is of a carefully chosen five greatest moments.
Without further adieu, then, counting down our five greatest moments:
(5)
Stephen: US victory over the Axis in WWII - triumph of freedom over fascism
Matt: Going a bit more unconventional with this one, because the Miracle on Ice deserves to be on here somewhere. If there is one sports victory that symbolizes the story of America, it's the hockey triumph of a team of unheralded amateur Americans over the heavily-favored Russians in the 1980 Olympics. That the game was in the dregs of the Cold War and had geopolitical significance, even only superficially, makes it all the better.
(4)
Stephen: Manifest Destiny. The exploration and conquering of the West.
Matt: Building of the railroads, preceded by the building of the canals. America's first major infrastructure projects, which set the stage for the United States to become an industrial powerhouse.
(3)
Stephen: "We hold these truths to be self evident" - the signing of the
Declaration of Independence, and accompanying revolt of a small band of colonists
against one of the greatest empires in the history of the world. From day one it seemed
nearly inevitable that this nation would be powerful, if just by the
willpower of its people.
Matt: The progressive reform, women's suffrage, and civil rights movements of the 20th century. We've got more work to do, but the task of making good on America's political and economic promises began here.
Matt: Have to agree with Steve here, in addition to a psychological victory over the Soviet Union, the Space Race heralded unprecedented technological advances that remain with us today, including my #1...
(1)
Stephen: "Mr Gorbachev tear down this wall" the winning of the Cold War, proving economic and political freedom > communism
Matt: The invention of the internet, right here in the United States. No other modern invention has had such a political, cultural, and economic impact on the world, all while bringing people closer together than ever before.
If there's something you think we left off the list, be sure to tell us all about it in the comments. Wherever you are today, be sure to celebrate our great country - if you're looking for a little bit of musical Americana, I would recommend looking no further than one Ray Charles...
If nothing else, Conflict Revolution aspires at least to the bottom rungs of the pundit class, so it should come as no surprise that we'vegiven the Supreme Court decision on health care some good air time over the past few days. Adding today to our burgeoning portfolio of analysis on this subject is Stephen DeGenaro, the second most well-known law student in America once or currently affiliated with Georgetown University. CR readers may remember Steve's excellent legal analysis of the SCOTUS arguments over Obamacare back in March, and now that the case is settled, the closest thing Conflict Revolution has to a legal correspondent is back to dissect the final ruling.
ACA RULING A GOOD DAY FOR DEMOCRACY By Stephen DeGenaro
Matt has graciously asked me back
to reflect upon the Obamacaretax decision from this past Thursday’s case, and I’m more than happy to oblige and provide insight where I
can.I have not gotten around to reading
more than a few pages of the opinion (though I plan on doing so this summer and
I encourage everyone else to do so – I think it’s a borderline civic duty to
read at least a summary of the most important SCOTUS decisions in the past 25
years), but I hope to do a couple things with this essay.First, I plan to give a basic Con Law 1
summary of the Taxing Power generally so you have a little knowledge about the
substantive law.Second, I want to
briefly make some observations and thoughts I have as a result of the decision
and the media attention it has been receiving.
As a starting item, it should be
noted that the taxing power is not as clearly defined as the Commerce Clause
power is.It is rarely tested at the
highest court in the land, and the substantive law may seem a little
counter-intuitive at first.So if you are
confused by this, do not worry: at least you didn’t need to take a test on it. Further, remember that this is an extremely basic
description of the taxing power.
Pursuant to Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1, Congress has the power to lay and
collect taxes. Congress cannot use
the tax as a penalty to punish behavior that it is not allowed to regulate
under the Constitution. However, the court will only invalidate a tax on the
ground that it is a penalty if the tax is extraneous to any tax need (the tax
does not generate any tax revenue). In United
States v. Kahriger, the Court established deference to Congress’s
determination: as long as the tax generates some tax revenue, the court will
not invalidate the tax on the grounds that it goes beyond the taxing power (the
tax may violate some other constitutional ground, but it is constitutional
pursuant to this provision of the Constitution).
So this may be confusing,
especially since the Obama Administration keeps insisting that the mandate is a
penalty not a tax.However, remember the
administration has a policy incentive to not refer to the mandate as a
tax.Also keep in mind that law often
uses words differently than how they are colloquially used.The important thing to take from the previous
paragraph is that the mandate may still be a constitutional tax even if it has
punitive effects as long as it is generating tax revenue.For example, think of cigarettes: a large
number of states place a very high tax upon cigarettes as a means to penalize
people who buy them.However, the
cigarette tax generates a substantial amount of tax revenue.Therefore, it is still constitutional.That is how something that, for political
purposes is considered a penalty, but legally is a tax.
Now to the more interesting thing
about the trial: the aftermath of the decision.I have a few things that are worth mentioning because I find them
interesting.
Second, and one that is most closely
related to the first point: Chief Justice Roberts decided this case on its merits, and not
out of any political considerations whatsoever.It has been frustrating to see both pundits with no legal training at
all affirmatively declare that it was a political decision, but it has been
even more so to see legal minds say it: they absolutely should know
better.For what it’s worth, Chief
Justice Roberts’ jurisprudence in this case is consistent with his past
holdings: Burkean conservative who will exercise judicial restraint and not
strike down an act of Congress unless there is no way to read the statute
constitutionally.Furthermore, Chief
Justice Roberts is one of the three most brilliant minds in the American legal
community, and might be the best lawyer in the country.He did not decide this case based on
extrinsic considerations – he is way more professional than that.In fact, he summed this up so eloquently that
I could not come close to bettering, so I’ll quote directly from the opinion:
“The
Framers created a Federal Government of limited powers, and assigned to this
Court the duty of enforcing those limits. The Court does so today. But the
Court does not express any opinion on the wisdom of the Affordable Care Act.
Under the Constitution, that judgment is reserved to the people.”
I firmly believe this is the
case, and I strongly encourage you all to reserve your judgment as well.
Transitioning from that quote is
my third point, and hopefully a positive note to end on: the outcome gives us a
presidential election that will be considered strongly on the merits on the
presidential philosophies of each candidate moving forward, and not on some bickering
about the legality or constitutionality of some law that has already been
decided.In a way, both sides get to
claim a policy victory.Democrats get to
run on the mandate as a step towards providing increased benefits to Americans
if they are elected in such numbers so as to control both houses and the
Presidency.At the same time, the fact
that it has been deemed a tax allows Republicans to run on their lower taxes
platform, and this decision will most certainly revitalize the Tea Party base of
the GOP.In November, the election will
be a referendum between these two ideals.Like Chief Justice Roberts indicated, we get to make that decision – it
is as much our obligation to do so as it was his to decide ACA’s
constitutionality.
Thanks once again to Matt and the other Stephen for inviting me to contribute. I look forward to the opportunity to join the discussion again.
Share your opinion on the Supreme Court's ACA ruling in the comments section....
Like many other Americans yesterday, I was absolutely glued to my phone and the Internet, waiting to hear the U.S. Supreme Court's announcement on President Obama's health care plan, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) (also known as "Obamacare" by pundits).
The Court's decision was full of some unanticipated shifts -- ranging from the court's voting patterns -- to how they formed their decision on ACA's legality. It was also interesting to watch CNN alongside Pakistanis with very little interest or knowledge of the politicized nature of this health care plan. "Is it good or is it bad for you?" asked a family friend.
To be honest, I had to think about this for a bit. Yes, I'm a liberal and voted for Obama. Yes, I agree that universal health care is important initiative with too much backlog in the United States. Yes, it sucks not to have health care insurance (a predicament I've found myself in a few times in the past five years. For instance, one does not want to end up in the ER with a fractured ankle -- a terrible experience I had my first weekend of college in 2005, resulting in several thousand dollars in costs for an 8 hour visit.
Happy Monday... if only you had a restful weekend rather than one wracked by thunder, lightning, and gale-force winds. The weekend-long power outages in NoVa-Arlington and some parts of DC ranged anywhere from annoying to hazardous as thermometers continued to rise throughout the region.
Yet in many parts of the world, constant and reliable electrical power is a luxury, if not downright impossible to obtain. Here, Nadia explains the concept and toils of power "loadshedding:" A practice common in urban areas of many developing countries, including Pakistan and Iraq, and what Pakistan intends to do to solve its energy crisis (Hint: Israel would be pissed)
Pipelines By Nadia Sheikh
Electricity shortages are one of Pakistan’s biggest vices. In its cities, loadshedding can occur anywhere from 6-10 hours a day; in the rural areas, it’s 10-12 hours at the least. With the summer heat, loadshedding only further intensifies. Recent protests in Khairpur and Lahore illustrate the level of frustrations Pakistanis have with their elected officials, who do not share the burden, and cannot relate to the impact on productivity, output, and the psyches of their constituents.
With these problems at hand, the Pakistani government has looked outward for solutions for years, recognizing the need for external sources of gas and energy as opposed to building up infrastructure within the country.
In particular, Pakistan has gravitated toward the idea, the notion of building pipelines of gas -- one with Iran, known as Iran-Pakistan Peace Pipeline, much to the chagrin of the Americans; the other, with Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, & India (TAPI), which is hailed as a symbol of regional cooperation.. Whether these projects are feasible in development and implementation, it is hard to say.
Before I begin I also would like to welcome our new writers
and thank them for their time to helping Matt and I out on this crazy project
we envisioned. To our readers, I hope I am turning you.
(Matt, I would love to
put up a poll to find out the ideological skew of our readers, my guess is at
least 70-30 against me. Maybe even 95-5…)
Now, I will dive into the issue at
hand: liberal policies of just throwing money at the problem have created an
issue and the only way to solve it is by completely re-envisioning the model.
I didn’t mean to make this post a response to Matt, but I later
decided to just focus this post on something Matt wrote in his last post in
what has shaped up to be “Education Week at CR”. Matt wrote, “Whenever anything goes wrong, you can always
expect conservatives to blame the government.” Matt, there’s probably a
cause-effect problem here. You see if A constantly causes B, one would be
correct to say that A caused B. However, what you are asserting in that
statement is that A did not actually cause B. So let’s take a look at whether A
did cause B, shall we?
Its been so long since last we... okay, I'll stop. But seriously, as our three readers know, its been awhile since I've taken the time to put together something substantive for the blog. Thank goodness for Conflict Revolution's new writers, or Stephen and I might owe more in child support to this whole enterprise than a certain former elected official does to his love child.
Guess again!
Which brings me to the point about welcoming the new writers I mentioned. We are happy to benefit from the outstanding contributions of Elaine Chen, who will be helping us with morning updates and assorted other posts, and Nadia Sheikh, who has kindly offered to cross post some content from her excellent blog Nadia in Pakistan. Thanks Nadia and Elaine, and welcome!
Yet even as Conflict Revolution's platform widens and the blog expands, we can't forget where we came from. Steve and I have most recently been working on a couple of (mostly) friendly exchanges on topics ranging from inheritance taxes to regulatory burdens, Republican obstruction, and tacky campaign fundraising gimmicks. Sexy! But if you're craving some email debate and you just can't wait, see our most recent discussion on plastic bags and global warming. It's... great.
I don't know if anyone heard, but there was a Supreme Court ruling of some minor importance this morning. Stephen and I engaged in an extremely in-depth and substantive debate about it here.
Here are some additional perspectives on the case, and the health care issue in general:
1) The saga of Republicans having been for the individual mandate before they were against it is well-chronicled, but here's a fun fact: Jim DeMint, arguably the most tea-partying Tea Party member of the US Senate, wrote a letter to George W. Bush in 2007 urging the former president to:
“ensure that all Americans would have
affordable, quality, private health coverage, while protecting
current government programs. We believe the health care system
cannot be fixed without providing solutions for everyone.
Otherwise, the costs of those without insurance will continue to
be shifted to those who do have coverage.”
2) Francis Wilkinson of Bloomberg points out that public knowledge of what's in the health care bill is still pretty weak, with even Republicans liking most of the individual provisions in the law they so abhor. A full 48 percent of Americans either thought the health care law had been repealed or were unsure. Mitt Romney has outlined no alternative health care plan whatsoever. Does he really want a fight on this?
3) Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal argues that, if it is not eventually repealed, the Affordable Care Act will forever be swimming against the tide of history. Ironically, in Mr. Henninger's analysis of a law that is allegedly at odds with an era defined by "a dazzling, unprecedented array of choices," he makes no mention of the fact that the Affordable Care Act is designed to provide exactly the kind of health care choices he supports. Perhaps the WSJ should write a column excoriating all those Republican governors and state legislatures for refusing to establish the state-level health insurance exchanges that encourage health care competition and are a linchpin in the legislation.
As a certain stuttering duck once said with significantly more difficulty... that's all, folks. If you're looking to waste more of your own time reading about the health care ruling, I would recommend starting here, here, and here.
It's a great day for individual responsibility, as the Supreme Court held this morning that the individual health care mandate, and most of the rest of President Obama's 2010 health care law, is in fact constitutional. Somewhere, the pre-2008 edition of the cyborg known by his friends as Mitt Romney is rejoicing.
The blogosphere is abuzz with reaction to the decision, and Stephen and Matt joined in by engaging in a bit of pre-emptive sniping on Twitter this morning. Here's a sampling:
I know, I know. But if that was exhausting to read, just imagine how difficult it was to take so many screen shots.
More reaction to come, along with some court analysis from CR Chief Legal Correspondent Stephen DeGenaro, who Conflict Revolution enthusiasts may remember wrote this recap of the oral arguments on the health care case in March.
Stay safe out there folks, and watch out for the job killers. Now that Obamacare is constitutional, they're everywhere...
Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel's plan for Europe is causing doubt among other European countries as well as the rest of the world. Will their grand plans of creating European integration through a political union be successful?
The super heat-spike has caused Colorado's wildfire to double in size since it began last night. It has grown to over the span of 24 square miles, with only 5% being contained. Local firefighters are currently assessing the situation in how to keep the flames from spreading.
Issues on how much Facebook stock should be priced at is a major topic today in Wall Street. While major financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan believe it should be priced between $45 and $47 respectively over the next year, others believe it should settle at the price it started out: $38. Currently, the average Facebook stock is $37.71. Has the stock market overestimated the revolution Facebook was to have over the industry after going public?
Sure they
do - Just look at freshly sentenced criminals Rajat Gupta (former Goldman
board member), R. Allen Stanford (sentenced to 110 years in prison
without parole), and of course Grandaddy Ponzi himself, Bernie Madoff.
Hell, these guys even lived the American dream, with its fast
cars, deep pockets, luxury yachts and diamonds for the ladies in
life.
Now, these riches-to-rags storybook characters are scheduled to rot in a Federal penitentiary for the
rest of their lives, leaving exponentially more finances and possibly
life plans ruined in their wake. All this justice, of course, conducted in order
to dissuade other current or would-be criminals from acting...in
exactly the only way they know of how to get to the American dream -
Get Rich or Die/Go to Jail Trying.
A rather paradoxical message, given
the global rash of government-bank bailouts and the continued reliance
on the instruments (i.e. financial markets) of who-dares-wins
capitalism. But enough of this suddenly-fashionable bashing of fallen
financial idols. It seems like just yesterday when activist judges,
juries, and members of the media started defending the rights of
convicted rapists, murderers, gang-bangers and the assorted denizens of
American death row - new and vindicating/damning DNA evidence
notwithstanding - so I'm sure public opinion will grow weary of its
latest social witch-hunt sooner or later, and that District
Attorneys/Federal Prosecutors will likewise find some other scapegoats
upon which to build their reputations on the docket. Sooner or later,
our generation's To Kill a Mockingbird of the early 21st
century will be published, this time admonishing the veritable
inquisition of financial criminals during a time of long-term recession
and entrenched unemployment.
Yet even in a time of economic downturn, when Wall Street becomes an easy target of Main Street's wrath, no one seems to be pissing on how the
wildly-popular (and mostly plastic) Kardashians, the
train-wreck-of-an-excuse-for-a-man Charlie Sheens, or the
well-paid, drug-snorting Lindsay Blohan-type celebrities don't pay
"their fair share" of American taxes. Plus Justin Bieber- he's CANADIAN!! Where is that money going??
What compelled me to finally write
original content for the blog again - and a three-part series, at that -
was a combination of many factors, the premier of which was my
roommate's comment that, "no offense, but I think the American Dream is
more of a Dream than a Reality."
When Stephen saw a study on his favorite blog purporting to show that the production of plastic bags generated fewer carbon emissions than their reusable counterparts, and that it would take up to 131 reuses of said reusable bag to make for the increased carbon emissions it took to produce it, his eyes lit up. Had he finally found the noble sword to drive into the stone that his longtime scourge called a heart? Sure, we may be talking about environmentalists, who care about things like clean water and sea turtles. But after many years of doing battle with Matt - Mr. Eco-Action - on issues related to environmental protection, Steve sensed he may have found the knockout punch he so craved. A lively debate ensued:
Stephen: Matt, in light of this study, will you join in me in saying the environmentalist crowd has gotten this one wrong?
Matt: The article you linked is simplistic at best, and the dumbest thing I've
ever read at worst. First, their measure of "better for the
environment" is extremely narrow - the study measures carbon emissions
but says nothing about waste. The carbon emissions finding is
insightful, for sure, and should make people think twice before they
reflexively assume a "reusable" bag has no impact. But the article says
nothing about plastic bags ending up in landfills or waterways. Does
that not impact the environment? The DC bag tax, which I assume you
don't support, wasn't created as a high-minded local solution to global
warming... they did it to keep plastic bags from ending up in the
Anacostia River. Alternatively, have you ever heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
Despite the scorn with which you and the author to this article
refer to the "environmentalist crowd," you've taken a simplistic study
and used it to justify a wasteful status quo and then beat your chest
about it. The biggest problem with plastic bags isn't that they exist,
it's that they are overused and then wasted. The best thing anyone can
do for the environment is use less, and in a country that values thrift
when it comes to our economic decisions, I've never understood why some
people look down on the idea that we shouldn't waste our other
resources.
Mia Love, a black Republican, fitness instructor, and mayor of a growing town in Utah, stands to become the first black woman in Congress. She stands to compete against six-term Democrat Representative Jim Matheson.
Condoleezza Rice has gone on record to state that she has no interest in running for vice president alongside Mitt Romney.
Greece has appointed Yannis Stournaras, a former economic adviser and economist, as their new Finance Minister today. The position was originally appointed to Vassilis Rapanos, chairman of the National Bank of Greece, but resigned the position before being sworn in due to health problems.
On a lighter note, and great news for those coffee addicts out there, recent studies have shown consistent results that coffee drinkers are found to be living longer than abstainers. Coffee drinkers who started the study relatively healthy were less likely than nondrinkers to die of heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, diabetes, and infection. So drink up my fellow coffee lovers, it's good for you.
I only just realized this recently, after meeting more and more recent graduates from peer universities in the workforce (i.e. same-sized, similarly-minded and educated private schools) that Georgetown's career center is painfully sub-par offers mediocre results at best. I'm not saying it's poorly-run - in fact, they are very well-run and in many ways efficient given the skeletal staff they have in relation to the quantity of resources and student services they offer.
The problem is just that these services don't work nearly as well as they should, and indeed have to, in the present economy insofar as the actual results of students spending time and effort (and money) on their programs should be full-time, gainful employment. They need a different set of performance metrics, and in fact the ONLY performance metric they should be basing that center on is how many graduates or students affiliated with Georgetown are put into full-time job positions, or at least something with benefits.
In fact, they shouldn't even measure anything besides median/mode income, and the VALUE of EMPLOYMENTBENEFITS DERIVED or PAID FOR vs.BY (out-of-pocket) recent graduates, because I ASSURE you that even worse than not having income (anyone can flip burgers and have a W-2 form to fill out come tax season) is not having stable benefits for health and welfare that were PAID for and ASSUMED services provided by colleges and universities to students.
THAT type of stability, the stability upon which overall fiscal, familial, "defining life change," or any other intangible but no less important basis of welfare, is the dominating purpose of obtaining a career.
(and Phil proves this and his other points after the jump, where you can learn about Employment Benefits and Compensation for Tax Purposes- IRS Jargon 001)
Immigration, a major issue in the upcoming presidential elections, has become a major focus today as the Supreme Court has decided to support a section of Arizona law allowing police officers to check the immigration status of people they decide to stop. Has this become a new legal version of racial profiling?
The new wave of marketing? Buying ad space on fire trucks. Struggling cities deal with the economic downturn by turning towards naming rights on city property, with fire trucks becoming the new potential target.
Egypt witnesses another milestone towards Democracy, as Mohamed Morsi wins the first competitive presidential election the country has seen. This marks Egypt's first elected Islamist head of state, as well as the first president outside the military.
And finally, Apple continues on its reevaluation towards the pay of their retail employees. With how expensive many Apple products are, you'd think they would give a little more bang for their buck towards those Apple Geniuses so many of us consider technological saviors.
When Nadia Sheikh (Georgetown '09) told her Dean how she hadn't found "gainful employment" despite having both a Bachelor's and Graduate Degree, that Dean joked: "Does she want her money back?"
Nadia is now pursuing a career in international development consulting in Pakistan, where she is keeping a blog journal of her experiences living and working abroad. You can find more of Nadia's writings at nadiainpakistan.blogspot.com, or follow her on twitter (@sheikhandbake).
Getting Your Money's Worth
By Nadia Sheikh
About two months ago, Dean Gillis, the dean of the College at Georgetown University made a pit stop in my hometown of Portland, Oregon. During the Q and A section, my mom raised her hand and told him about my story -- how almost three years post-graduation, I haven't found gainful employment despite honors from Georgetown and now LSE. In his response, first, he made a joke, 'does she want her money back?' Then went on to say that I could contact him.
I sent him a friendly email, explaining my circumstances and how I've done everything in my power to get a job. I interned throughout college (six internships), volunteered post college, had part-time jobs, and did another internship for eight months post college. I went to the career center at LSE and Georgetown for weeks on end, getting appointments whenever they'd let me this past year, gone to every networking and career center event I could possibly go to to meet HR reps, career fairs, 500+ applications, and continued calling and meeting alums on the alumni networks for both schools in the US and even in Pakistan. Why do I not have a job yet? Is it just bad luck? The economy? Interviewing skills? My field of choice? Lack of connections?
For all of Stephen and Matt's disagreements, there is only one that
so strongly divides an entire city and parts of three full states.
While that second part of that statement may or may not actually be
true, I'm obviously talking about the Mets/Yankees crosstown rivalry.
With the first of the two teams' annual meetings set to take place
tonight, Matt and Stephen decided to dissect which offered more
compelling reasons for fanhood.
Earlier today Stephen offered a tradition-based justification for being a Yankees fan. Matt now gives his take on the joy, or something, of rooting for the Mets:
Ah, tradition. The great thing about tradition is that it takes many
forms. In the most simplistic, and perhaps most conventional, reading
of the word tradition, the Yankees do indeed have much more to brag
about than the Mets. The 27 championships, the '27 Yankees team,
Mantle, Ruth (though I'd argue Willie Mays, not Ruth, was the best
ever)... it's all there with the Yankees, except the stadium where most
of it happened. Sorry, low blow.
But the Mets have tradition, too, and most of it is of a scrappier,
more blue-collar variety - which is what we fans have come to love.
There is no team that embraces its underdog status, out of necessity
really, more than the Mets. We are the team that set the record for
most losses in a season... in our first season in existence. Talk about
a precedent. We won our first World Series, seven years later, after
being 10 games back in the standings in mid-August. Sixteen years
later, we won our second title in one of the greatest and most
improbable comebacks in World Series history (say no more). Then our two best young
players - two of the best from that entire generation of baseball
athletes (Darryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden) - became addicted to cocaine.
Alas, this is the other side of the Mets story - the franchise
that can never get out of its own way. It's maddening sometimes, but it's
a signature part of what makes being a fan of any team both interesting
and rewarding.
The Yankees, at least before they tore it down to build a more
expensive replacement, used to play in baseball's cathedral, but we are
the guys who played our home games in a glorified 1960s trash heap for 45 of
the first 47 years of our history (note that this is not in any way a
knock on Shea Stadium). We are the franchise that had it revealed
during the end of a disappointing 2002 campaign that multiple players on
the team were smuggling marijuana into the ballpark in peanut butter
jars. In addition to our record-setting (and not in a good way) 1962
inaugural season, we once fielded a team dubbed "the worst team money
could buy." During that 1993 season, a player of ours got in trouble
for throwing a firecracker at a fan.
I
could go on and on, but I don't really need to. The point is that
rooting for the Yankees is like being friends with the kid in school who
is good at absolutely everything - sure, they might be able to take you
along for the ride, but is there anything else there? The Mets,
conversely, are like your friend or relative who just can never quite
get it together: they disappoint you perpetually, but you love them
anyway. When they do succeed, you feel that much better, because you
were never expecting it in the first place. Mantle, Gehrig, and Ruth? Our heroes in the most memorable seasons during my lifetime were people like Benny Agbayani, Endy Chavez, and Todd Pratt.
There are so many more underdogs than favorites in life, so many
more rugged dreamers than flawless perfectionists. The Mets are the
rugged dreamers and, true to form, so are many of our supporters. We
can debate the merits of whether or not that's a good thing, but it
makes being a Mets fan pretty damn interesting.
Are you a New Yorker? Just a baseball fan? Weigh in with your thoughts on Mets v. Yankees below...
For all of Stephen and Matt's disagreements, there is only one that so strongly divides an entire city and parts of three full states. While that second part of that statement may or may not actually be true, I'm obviously talking about the Mets/Yankees crosstown rivalry. With the first of the two teams' annual meetings set to take place tonight, Matt and Stephen decided to dissect which offered more compelling reasons for fanhood.
Note that this is not a debate about which team is better, in some rudimentary sense
(although if it were I might note the Mets' superior win total so far this season), but a defense of the overall fan experience for either team. Beyond the championships, why should anyone value being a fan of the Yankees? Or, for that matter, why should anyone root for
the Mets? See what the writers of CONFLICT REVOLUTION think, and then weigh in with your own thoughts below.
Stephen, with the somewhat easier task of defending the most well-known baseball team in the world, leads off:
Posted by Stephen:
The best reason to root for the Yankees over the Mets is tradition.
I'm not saying the 27 championships are the absolute reason, but they
factor into the long tradition of the team. Also factoring in is Monument Park, Babe Ruth (for the traditionalists out there, the best
player to ever play the game), Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle
and this list keeps going and going. The Yankees, I think we could
argue, are one of if not the biggest, greatest, and most recognizable name in
baseball and perhaps all of American sports.
Outside
of the tradition there is the expectation of greatness. The NY Yankees are
expected to compete every year and are extremely disappointed if they do not. The Yankees give new meaning to the sports dynasty.
Additionally,
there's just the large nationwide support. The Yankees are the most
popular team in Florida, a state with two of its own teams!
Then
there's the Boss. George Steinbrenner, who, in my humble opinion, changed the game for the
better. He demanded nothing but the best from his players, but also
demanded that they act like professionals who are being paid vast sums
of money. Also, I think he was a net good for baseball and society.
Finally,
love us or hate us, there really isn't a middle ground and that, to me,
means passion which is probably the best reason to enjoy sports - the
passion of the fans. The Yankees-Red Sox rivalry is likely the most
dramatic in all of sports. And that's why it's great to be a Yankees
fan.
