D is watching Life After Top Chef.  Cook off at a Dallas 5th grade, judged by FLOTUS.  Her grammar is ATROCIOUS!  Did YOU hear about it?  Of course not.

In another segment a new restaurant was opening and they were reviewing the menu.  Owner asked "who knows how to make an Obama burger?"  Not ONE of the two dozen employees did.  I obeserved it was like Obamacare - nobody knew what was in THAT either!

I got the hairy eyeball.  "Must you ALWAYS ..."

Yes.  So long as they keep running in front of the camera.

I'd rather see three or four divergent viewpoints presented in an equal fashion, but this has promise

TVByTheNumbers.com shared data Friday (through Thursday):

4-DAY AVERAGE TOTAL DAY

FNC: 1,647,000 total viewers (421,000 in the demo)

CNN: 1,048,000 total viewers (403,000 in the demo)

MSNBC: 515,000 total viewers (162,000 in the demo)

 

4-DAY AVERAGE PRIMETIME

FNC: 2,783,000 total viewers (682,000 in the demo)

CNN: 1,619,000 total viewers (674,000 in the demo)

MSNBC: 975,000 total viewers (333,000 in the demo)

My parents inculcated with a love for history as early as I can remember.  I'm almost hurt when friends or students tell me they find history boring.  I have no idea how that can be.  Or, I didn't have an idea.  It's the flow. 

There isn't one.  Early history lessons are something along the line of learning a little of ancient Greek or Egypt in 3rd grade math class.  You get the whole Columbus, Jamestown, Plymouth thing pretty early.  Paul Rever and George Washington.  Somewhere in late elementaryschool we get Lincoln freeing the slaves, the depression and WW II.  Then we get lacquered layers on top of that as we move through High School.

But no reference back.  No tie in.  No development.  And THERE'S the problem.  Most people can through around "Freedom of Religeon" but have no idea why it's there.  They know about the Pilgrims, but don't tie their plight to the concept.  Fourteenth Amendment makes sense, but it isn't tied to slavery, or to Colonialism.  The broad grand sweep of history is never presented in all its majesty.

I find myself having alot of lightbulb moments month to month as I make a connection that spans decades or centuries.  It's a shame more folks can't/don't.

There it is.  Why?  Easy.  For decades, both major parties  presented the American public with choices that, while they offered differences inside, were essentially the same on the outside.

2008 changed all that.  It was no longer about what was on the inside of the box.  Hope and change were not policy proposals.  They were empty platitudes.  But Obama was black and that was enough for a significant number of the electorate.  2016 will be more of the same.  But instead of racial politics we'll have gender politics.

Remember judging a man about the content of his character and not the color of his skin?  Right out the window.   Clinton is a woman.  That'll be enough.  Look at the clown on the box!  The brightly colored images!  Never mind the empty calories on the inside.  And the Elphs will run Musilix.  And the country will suffer for the empty calories.

reading "The Devil's Whore", edited by Jennifer Hockenbery Dragseth.  Well organized but ...

The first section was thick and tough going for a non-Lutheran.  Read 5-7 pages then revisit them before slogging forward. The second section tied Luther to several other philosophers and I found the comparisons and contrasts useful.  The third and final section ties Luther to several contemporary political issues (environmentalism, femanism, etc.).  It was light nd breezy, but the fluff was a stolid contrast to the first two sections.  

Readable by the student ... skipable by the casual.

FLASHBACK: Won scholarship from City of Cambridge...

... Feed suggests Dzhokhar was Obama supporter

Harvard closed... (mourning loss of a kindred spirit or because it would be so easy for the bombers to blend in?)

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev attended same high school as Matt Damon, Ben Affleck

"The fundamental problem

is that of family structure….[T]he Negro family in the urban ghettos is crumbling.  A middle class group has managed to save itself, but for vast numbers of the unskilled…[and] poorly educated…the fabric of conventional social relationships has all but disintegrated….So long as this situation persists, the cycle of poverty and disadvantage will continue to repeat itself.

When Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote those words, the illegitimacy rate among African Americans stood at 25 percent. Today, that figure has risen to more than 72 percent, while the illegitimacy rate among Hispanics stands at more than 50 percent and the rate among whites stands at 36 percent.

Economic growth, education reform--what does any of it matter if the American family continues to disintegrate?

The POTUS is elected nationally and is to represent the Nation.  The House of Representatives are elected by the populace of the States and is to represent "We the People."  The Senate WAS to represent the interest of the States.  The 17th Amendment threw that out the window.  (someday I really need to get ahold of some of the national arguement of the time to figure out what the hell happened)

Charles C.W. Cooke, over at NRO, gets it right:

National polls, cited as if they were argument-winners, are irrelevant — especially when it comes to the Senate. There is a touch of Pauline Kael about today’s progressive indignation. The population centers in California, Illinois, and New York may still be up in arms — your friends, too — but most other states probably do not have pro-gun-control majorities and, when it comes to regulating firearms, most Americans appear to err on the side of caution. Take a look at the Brady Campaign’s scorecard, which tracks the severity of gun laws across America:

Top Bracket Rate versus Individual Tax Receipts as a Percent of GDP

We can tax the rich 1%, 91%, or anything in between. 1% will free the economy and spark superior capital allocation and new invention. 91% will cripple our prospects for new medicine, new technology, and new ways to enjoy life. But no matter what the President does, he's only collecting 8% of GDP on April 15. His decision is whether or not he wants that figure -- the GDP -- to grow. So: does he?