New Moon in Gemini. Get used to it.
Suddenly, there's, like, news.
Ronald Reagan, Libertarian
We think that it must be the confusing Gemini effect that can explain the fact that the three Justices who voted for pot for sick people were the conservatives, including two Reagan appointees. Or could it be that one of them is, actually, a cancer patient?
UPDATE: Wednesday's NYT editorializes that the majority is really about protecting the Interstate Commerce Act, which includes the federal power to ban child labor. We wonder how much they are rationalizing.
A couple of Yale Men
The Boston Globe is reporting that John F. Kerry's grades at Yale were not any better than George W. Bush's. And sometimes they were worse. Kerry's freshman year was particularly disappointing. But we think the most interesting item in the story is that Bush's best grades were in the following subjects. They were 88's, or a B+.
Three subjects you might need competence in if you were, say, planning a war against an Arab country. And Kerry's highest grade was about the same, but in political science.
On the other hand, Bush's success in those subjects does go a long way toward explaining the mystery of how it came about that a bookish teacher and librarian married him.
What the Globe's article is glossing over, of course, is the fact that is was simply easier to get D's in those years, particularly as a freshman. And the college attrition rate was higher (though probably not in the Ivy League). But the larger point is that Bush and Kerry's freshman year academic performance is really a moot point, and was at the time. After all, they were at Yale. And they were at Yale because they'd been at the most exclusive, elite private prep schools in the country, schools that have always considered it a matter of indifference whether one was more like an athlete or a scholar.
I imagine it would infuriate the current generation of college freshman, who actually had to fight for a place at their prestigious universities, that both Bush and Kerry had a free year, maybe two, to goof around. After all, they'd gotten into Yale, and in those days freshman and even sophomore year was way to early to really worry about one's career plans or grad school. And there was a tacit assumption by the old boys who kept things running that most academic deficits could be made up, at least if you were well connected. The midnight oil was burned by the nice small-town kids from the midwest.
The real news today reflects on the values of the Democratic party, which clearly chose a deeply rooted elitist to run as its candidate last year. Bush, at least, has at times pretended to by trying to be a populist.
Ronald Reagan, Libertarian
We think that it must be the confusing Gemini effect that can explain the fact that the three Justices who voted for pot for sick people were the conservatives, including two Reagan appointees. Or could it be that one of them is, actually, a cancer patient?
UPDATE: Wednesday's NYT editorializes that the majority is really about protecting the Interstate Commerce Act, which includes the federal power to ban child labor. We wonder how much they are rationalizing.
A couple of Yale Men
The Boston Globe is reporting that John F. Kerry's grades at Yale were not any better than George W. Bush's. And sometimes they were worse. Kerry's freshman year was particularly disappointing. But we think the most interesting item in the story is that Bush's best grades were in the following subjects. They were 88's, or a B+.
- Anthropology
- History
- Philosophy
Three subjects you might need competence in if you were, say, planning a war against an Arab country. And Kerry's highest grade was about the same, but in political science.
On the other hand, Bush's success in those subjects does go a long way toward explaining the mystery of how it came about that a bookish teacher and librarian married him.
What the Globe's article is glossing over, of course, is the fact that is was simply easier to get D's in those years, particularly as a freshman. And the college attrition rate was higher (though probably not in the Ivy League). But the larger point is that Bush and Kerry's freshman year academic performance is really a moot point, and was at the time. After all, they were at Yale. And they were at Yale because they'd been at the most exclusive, elite private prep schools in the country, schools that have always considered it a matter of indifference whether one was more like an athlete or a scholar.
I imagine it would infuriate the current generation of college freshman, who actually had to fight for a place at their prestigious universities, that both Bush and Kerry had a free year, maybe two, to goof around. After all, they'd gotten into Yale, and in those days freshman and even sophomore year was way to early to really worry about one's career plans or grad school. And there was a tacit assumption by the old boys who kept things running that most academic deficits could be made up, at least if you were well connected. The midnight oil was burned by the nice small-town kids from the midwest.
The real news today reflects on the values of the Democratic party, which clearly chose a deeply rooted elitist to run as its candidate last year. Bush, at least, has at times pretended to by trying to be a populist.
posted by Chataqua at
9:24 AM
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2 comments
