Interesting piece in this week’s New Yorker on the teacher’s union. Remember that crappy teacher you had in grade school? It is likely that because of tenure rules your school district could not fire that teacher if they wanted to. NYC pays the worst teachers to sit in a room for years.
The mega project up the road from us is almost done. It was covered on the Slog along with a few other places. Four years ago this was an empty lot stuck between an office park and the mall. On the rare occasion the lot was used to host RV shows. It is a terrible time to try to sell a butt load of condos. They are offering some pretty crazy incentives, including six months off your mortgage if you get laid off. I’m not sure what street grid the Slog is referring to down there. But they are right it is going to be a pretty car oriented development. At least it is not surrounded by a giant ugly parking lot like the mall across the street. I am looking forward to strolling down to the new movie theater every once and a while.
In other news my old home, the Queen Anne High School, went condo after I left. They finally got rid of the last few unsold units at auction with deep discounts.
Watched Walter Isaacson on Charley Rose last night. (thanks Tivo!) His piece in Time magazine has created lots of discussion. I still enjoy paging through my copy of the Times every morning. But I do wonder how much longer they will continue to deliver. I’m still willing to pay for my news and getting it on a device like the Kindle would be nice.
Lots of good reporting on the current economic crisis this week. The Times reported on the key deregulation by the SEC of the investment banks that let them leverage in some cases 33 to 1. This American Life has been doing great programs trying to explain the financial products that led us into this mess. The best I think is Charlie Rose’s interview with Warren Buffett on Wednesday. There is hardly any Wall St. types left with much credibility, other then Warren Buffett and he does a great job laying out the big picture.
My hometown favorites, the Cubs, are up for sale. If only I had a billion dollars to spare. Hopefully the new owner(s) will have enough left over to invest in building a winning team. But the return on investment of the Cubs as a losing team is not too bad.
If the Cubs do, indeed, sell for $1 billion, Tribune will have earned an annual return of almost 15 percent since it bought the team for around $20 million in 1981. Given the company’s recent problems, it’s probably the best investment it ever made.
Goes to today’s NYTimes for “Rock Star Still Hasn’t Found the African Aid He’s Lookig For“. If you don’t get it see here.
Is there no limit to what economists will do in the name of research? In studying the psychology of eating Cornell’s Brain Wansink fed movie goers stale popcorn and bottomless bowls of soup.
Over the years, Mr. Wansink has done similar experiments with everything from different-size dinner plates to bottomless bowls of tomato soup that are secretly connected to a tube underneath a restaurant table. His overarching conclusion is that our decisions about eating often have little to do with how hungry we are.
Conclusions? We all need to switch to the cute old diner plates.
I spent most of last week watching the America at a Crossroads special on PBS. Two hours a night for six nights was more TV then I needed to the whole year. I really should just give up and buy a damn Tivo. The two highlights were “Operation Homecoming” which featured writings from veterans and “Faith without Fear” by the Muslim dissident Irshad Manji. I found Richard Perle’s “The Case for War” pretty disappointing. Something a little more like “Fog of War” would have been interesting but this was more or less completely driven by Perle with only limited time given to the opposing views. The “Gang of Iraq” was a some pretty scary shit as well. It has made me feel there is little hope now for avoiding some level of genocide when the troops eventually leave.
I heard about this quiz on NPR today. I can’t believe a news junky like me only got 7 out of 9! Luckily I beat the average college grad. The report that goes along with the quiz found that since 1989, even with 24 hour news channels, as a nation our knowledge of current events has hardly changed. Only 69% could name the vice president! Fans of the Daily Show are some of the best informed people according to the study.
Almost forgot to blog about this Op-Ed from Wednesday on why Amtrak sucks. Anyone who has spent any amount of time on an Amtrak train knows who has “priority” on the tracks: freight.
The college dance major on the cellphone behind me was in tears. She urged her relatives to go ahead with their planned activities without her and she would meet them in Chicago later. Maybe.
That’s a familiar scene. Senators Frank Launtenberg and Trent Lott (of all people) are pushing legislation to give the Surface Transportation Board some teeth in getting Amtrak moving.