- Jay Cost, “Five Reasons NY-23 Doesn’t Tell Us Anything” – fta: The pundit class is in full swing, interpreting the meaning of NY-23. “What’s it say about Obama’s administration?” “What’s it say about the state of the Republican Party?” “What’s it say for the upcoming health care debate?” So many questions. I’ll do my best to answer them, each in turn. Nothing, nothing, and nothing!
- Down Syndrome Births Drop as More Women Abort – fta: Dr. Lewis Holmes, head of the genetics unit at MassGeneral Hospital for Children in Boston, said about 80 percent of women who learn before 24 weeks that they are carrying a child with Down syndrome choose to end the pregnancy.
- Wired, “U.S. Needs ‘Hit Squads,’ Manhunting Agency: Spec Ops Report” (h/t David) – fta: CIA director Leon Panetta got into hot water with Congress, after he revealed an agency program to hunt down and kill terrorists. A recent report from the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations University argues that the CIA didn’t go far enough. Instead, it suggests the American government should set up something like a “National Manhunting Agency” to go after jihadists, drug dealers, pirates and other enemies of the state.
- Slate, “How the AvantGrand, Yamaha’s new electronic piano, improves upon a 300 year old instrument” (h/t aldaily.com) – fta: The AvantGrand can instantly retune itself to a variety of tunings, or “temperaments,” from Donald Duck’s Pythagorean scale to those that were standard during Bach’s lifetime, which is very titillating for baroque-enthusiasts. Those wishing to precisely re-create the tuning that Bach used can hit a few buttons on the control panel, and the pitches of the notes will revert to the asymmetric tuning used in the very early days of the piano, when different keys had different personalities, since they weren’t all equally corrected.
- Sol Stern, “E.D. Hirsch’s Curriculum for Democracy” (h/t aldaily.com) – too long, but some useful information about what isn’t taught in some NYC public schools.
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About Ashok
I am a graduate student in political science at the University of Dallas who thinks the media is dumb for the most part, yet am immersed myself. I am looking to break my addiction, and this blog is part of the solution: Why not try to see what the past can tell us about the present, as opposed to seeing what the present has to say about the present only?
Currently residing in Cherry Hill, NJ. Facebook. Contact me.
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OK, I’m sold. What should I read here?
- Analysis of The Gettysburg Address: Is Democracy Feasible?
- Analysis of Lincoln's "Second Inaugural:" Where do American virtues lie?
- Commentary on the Book of Jonah
- On "Batman Begins"
- From Love to God: On Hopkins' "As Kingfishers Catch Fire"
- On Emily Dickinson's "These are the days when birds come back..."
- The Coming Age: Macbeth and the Birth of the Modern World
- On Polemarchus: Commentary on the Republic of Plato, 331d-336a
- A Reading of Plato's "Crito"
- Towards a Nietzschean Understanding of Politics: Notes on "The Case of Wagner"
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Thanks for the links…I agree with you on NY23 but at the same time you have to have alarm bells go off if you’re a Democrat because of the massive amounts of coverage this race got aside from the two gubernatorial races. There are a lot of people that are one pay away from being on the street and they are looking to Obama and his congressional majority to deliver the change that was promised. Although this may not have much effect on policy, it does give the opposition some fuel.