Slate Ain't What it used to be

It's a shame. Slate.com, a once respectable, opinions and commentary website, has devolved to unprecedented levels of shoddiness.

This didn't happen overnight. Rather, it started slowly. A small, rather innocent journalistic experiment in which reporters would not hide their biases, but rather share their opinions based on facts. It made for brilliant arguments (like Tim Noah's analysis on American health care coverage), thought provoking insight (ie, anything from Christopher Hitchens), and probing questions about human nature, taking politics out of the equation. And sometimes interesting commentary on sports, or media, or some other facet of American politics or culture. It was interesting, and it resided strictly in the fact-based community.

No longer. Microsoft had no need for this little thought experiment in 2004, and the opportunistic, money-losing Washington Post showed a rare display of financial acumen by purchasing the online entity. Over time, inferior journalists started writing guest columns that looked more like deceptive industry p.r. pieces than any legitimate journalistic endeavor. New "reporters" started to fill the bandwidth with CNN-style fluff, writing about whether or not a certain candidate will go up or down in the polls, as opposed to whether or not a policy proposal does or does not make sense.

The final nail in the coffin, perhaps, was when the Washington Post laid off Timothy Noah and Jack Shafer. Why? To what end? What industry in its right mind would lay off its best employees?

The future One World Trade Center

The Post, like most daily newspapers, probably isn't making a lot of money. It is probably losing money, or breaking even. So what did the wizards of finance over at accounting decide to do? Cut the payroll from the Online publication that is actually making money!

That's absurd. And it's probably why its "Moneybox" columnist, Matthew Yglesias is so laughably clueless about anything having to pertain with anything related to economic matters.

No more than two days ago, this Magna Cum Laude Harvard graduate posted a rather sophomoric brain-fart theory about economic development on Manhattan island (sorry about the harsh language, the university I went to in New Haven was on the wrong side of the tracks).

 Apparently, real estate in Manhattan would be cheap, if only the city of New York would remove the height restriction in certain neighborhoods. Is Yglesias aware that a new luxury high-rise goes up virtually every fort-night in midtown? Or that construction workers are currently building the largest office tower in the human history downtown?

It would be a waste of words to correct every wrong that Yglesias theorizes, but the man clearly doesn't understand that economics is demand-side. As long as Manhattan is populated with the richest people in the country, it will be an expensive place to live.

Not to outdo himself, Yglesias went off the rails again today, this time taking aim at Miley Cyrus for making a music video in support of "Occupy" protests across the globe. In Yglesias's warped world, Cyrus owes her wealth to income inequality and therefore, shouldn't empathize people struggling financially.

Yglesias doesn't stop there. He cites rising incomes in China and India as a reason for Cyrus's great wealth. The trouble with this logic is that when poor people start earning money, that decreases income inequality. Yglesias offers no explanation, though, as to why Miley's wealth should correlate with other people's hardship. Why is that?

There was a time when the more lucid writers of Slate would have something sensible to say (before they got fired, of course.) After all, no one who works should be poor. The rent wouldn't be too damn high if certain workers didn't make too much money. Why should a hedge fund manager make 20,000 times as much money as a pediatrician? Why should a health care CEO make make more money in an hour than a paramedic earns in an entire year? Why should some entertainers become millionaires when other people who do actual work (concert technicians, broadband installers, manufacturers of music equipment, airline pilots who fly Cyrus and other super-rich entertainers to concerts, etc) face financial hardship?

It is oddly fitting that a real economist (and former Slate columnist), Paul Krugman, published a real, coherent argument about salary and fiscal policy on the same day. It is somewhat tangential, but there is a reason why we tax wealth. And there is nothing wrong with someone who is wealthy suggesting that more people should have good jobs.

So it goes. I lament what is lost, and I refuse to stoop to level of my "professional" peers. I will continue investigating and writing informative online columns to fill the void that once was something.


Until next time, good night--and good luck.

Something I am thankful for.

I hope you all had a very good Thanksgiving this year. Today was an enjoyable time with family for me, but also a day of deep reflectiveness and contemplation. I was still saddened with the recent passing of an elementary school friend, Rachael Verdicchio-Morris. In spite of the fact that a great light went out far too soon, I still feel I have much to be thankful for.

One of Racheal's many beautiful illustrations. Check out her catalog at http://rachealanilyse.com/

Racheal is a hero to me, and I do not use that term lightly. There aren't very many human beings who can brighten your mood simply by the look of her smile, the glean her eye, or the tone of her voice. Racheal did this things so easily that it is a privilege to have known her and gone to school with her.

On simple human terms, she was an exemplary human being. Her accomplishments in life made her exceptional. Her list of accomplishments as an artist are impressive; the works themselves, phenomenal. What is most amazing is that she was able to achieve so much while living with epidermolysis bullosa, a very rare connective tissue disease that leaves the individual with very fragile skin. A simple hug can do a world of damage.

That didn't stop Rachael from living her life. I remember standing around on Prospect Street in Wethersfield, watching a parade, when I heard a familiar voice say, "Hi, Kevin!"

I turned around just in time to Rachael zip by me on her roller skates. At the time, I myself had only tried to roller skate a few times in my life--with very, very poor results. But there she was, unafraid and doing fine. That's inspiration. That's courage. That's heroism.

Some years back, Racheal testified on behalf of other individuals suffering from EB to the Connecticut General Assembly. As recently as 2009, insurance companies in the state of Connecticut were not required to cover wound care for individuals with the disease. To those who doubt the capacity of the democratic process in these troubled times, the bill passed and was signed into law.

Thank you Racheal. You will continue to be an inspiration to us all, now and forever.

Amen.

Tuesday's election results expose myths of right-wing America--opposition continues to waste oppurtunities

America the Conservative. The Country where Patio Man steps out on his deck and warmly embraces an impending foreclosure notice on his underwater mortgage. Anything less, argue the Rick Santelli's of the world, would be tyranny.

Looks like somebody forget that Arizona used to be part of Mexico.

Not exactly. Case and point was the Mississippi "personhood" amendment. Anyone with a decent memory can recall a similar voter-initiative to outlaw abortions in South Dakota back in 2008, and even carved out exemptions for cases of rape, incest or the health of the woman. That bill failed by a similar margin.

Ohio shouldn't have been a surprise either. Governor John Kasich was elected with 49 percent of the vote, and is currently tied with Rick Scott as the most unpopular governor in America. The assume that any of Kasich's policies have even snowball's chance in hell of passing a ballot initiative is laughable.

And then there's Arizona, where Russell Pearce became the first state lawmaker recalled in Arizona history and the first time a state Senate president has been recalled anywhere in the United States. It's also amusing that these Phoenix-area citizens didn't vote a Democrat, they chose another Republican.

And what has the opposition party taken away from all this? Probably nothing. HuffingtonPost has gathered word that the "Super Congress" may extend the Bush Tax cuts--permanently. And today, President Obama released another press release containing Hoover-esque talking points: "The American people deserve to have their leaders come together and make the tough choices necessary to live within our means," said the release. "Just as American families do every day in these tough economic times. The President urged the leaders to get this done."

The folks over at Manhattan Mini Storage understand what's going on.

It's nothing short of phenomenal that presidential candidate could advocate a lower standing of living and come out on top of the polls, but here we are.

Well, I can't take it. If we can't persuade George McGovern to come out of retirement and help save this country yet again, we had better start telling Elizabeth Warren to set her sights a little higher.

Jon Stewart should have stayed up to watch the Colbert Report

Last night's extended Daily Show interview with Nancy Pelosi offered promise, but fell flat. A great deal of the failure fell on Pelosi, who maintained in a somewhat bizarre state slight sincerity and hard core question dodging. One question, though, revealed an unusual failure on Jon's part.

Nancy Pelosi's quasi-sincerity had Jon flummoxed.

"How is it," Jon Stewart asked Nancy Pelosi, "that Paul Volcker writes a three page memo, and that turns into 300 page legislation that Paul Volcker then doesn't support?"

Nancy Pelosi fortified herself against any sort helpful answer, and stuck to platitudes--although true--about the undue influence of lobbyists and Republican extremism.

If Jon Stewart really wanted to know how it is that good legislation so easily gets corrupted, he should have just stayed up and watched the Colbert Report. That very night, the subject of Colbert's "Word" segment was a an anti-bullying law in Michigan. The original legislation stated that public schools would adopt policies against bullying by students. Fair enough.

But before this bill became law, social conservatives carved out an exemption. "This section," states the law, "does not prohibit a statement of a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction."

Boom. This allows for harassment of any kind against any person. Steven made light of a few obvious flaws to this legislation, as Jews, Muslims and Christians are now free to harass each other, and the laws of Leviticus are quite ludicrous (Steven didn't mention it, but Leviticus prohibits eating pork, but does not prohibit a man marrying his daughter).

The absurdity of placing harassment in the eyes of the person making the statement is worthless. A Southern Baptist could tell a Catholic that he/she is hellbound because God does not appoint a living emissary in Jesus' absence. If said Catholic were to stay, "please stop saying such hateful things about me," said harasser could keep on shouting. After all, he is only stating his deeply held religious belief!

How did this happen? Through the legislative process. Through participation in representative democracy. Through parliamentary procedure. The failure of our democratic system is not limited to our nation's capitol, but merely an extension of our failures nationwide.

Jon kept prodding Nancy, and Nancy wouldn't let her guard down, finally pulling out a stock cheap applause line to exit the interview.

Of course, as we learned from some of the elections this Tuesday, our democracy isn't a complete failure. But that's a story for another day . . .

Tom Brokaw calls American soldiers unskilled for the economy, crowd aplauses

I wish that headline were a typo. Sadly, it isn't.

On Wednesday, November 2, a mere week and half before Veteran's Day, the former NBC news anchor insulted America's military members on national television and received applause.

Check out the whole video at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-november-2-2011/tom-brokaw

To be fair, Tom Brokaw wasn't trying to insult the men and women of America's military. He just made a statement of benevolent ignorance. To his credit, he was trying to say that the country should do more to support its veterans, which explains the applause. But such a statement certainly deserved more scrutiny.

"They've been fighting the bad guys for 10 years," the old man said sternly. "And they don't have the training for this kind of economy."

Excuse me? I think I can name a few professions in which recent veterans do have the training for in this kind of economy: Police Officers, firefighters, paramedics, construction workers, private security workers, Parts inspectors for military equipment, warehouse stock workers, airline pilots, helicopter pilots, computer scientists (yes Tom, today's military uses computers. Check your facts), health care administrators, human resources staff workers, teachers, personal trainers, business consults, tour guides, truck drivers, any civilian job within the Department of Homeland Security. And I'm sure any recently returning vet could be a better news anchor than the arrogant, ignorant, although well meaning, Tom Brokaw. It goes without saying that any recently returning veteran could be a better news anchor than your typical Fox News host, who is arrogant, ignorant and malevolent.

And those are just the good jobs. So what if veterans don't want to sell worthless "complex financial instruments" on Wall Street?  Maybe they love their country to much to send the economy down the toilet. At least that's how Scott Olsen and Kayvan Sabehgi seem to feel about it.

It's wrong to suggest that skilled employees like soldiers, sailors, pilots, marines, etc need more job training to enter the civilian workforce. It's wrong to suggest that any person who is willing and able for work is unqualified. Stewart seemed a little taken aback by Brokaw's shocking statement, and tried to save Brokaw from his own ignorance by suggesting a specific example of what work our servicemen and women are already qualified for.

"You have this group of incredibly talented and determined individuals who clearly know how to rebuild countries--we could use rebuilding." Steward said, and he wasn't joking. "It seems like a really nice match."

But the old man wouldn't budge. Brokaw's body language indicated he was remarkably dismissive of Stewart's suggestion, and his verbal response seemed at odds with his condescending attitude towards Stewart that prevailed throughout the interview. "The fact is that they are well trained" Brokaw said. "They know about discipline, they know about risk assessment, they know about management of resources, And they know about going into hostile situations and making a quick sizing up about what's at risk there."

Yeah, those are all called job skills.

If you are a vet, don't let Brokaw's nonsense get you down. Thank you for your service. If you haven't done so already, check out Jobs for Vets. And any job searcher can benefit from reading What Color is your Parachute. Don't waste your time reading Brokaw's latest book. We already have public service academies. They're called universities. For others, it's called military service.