May 29, 2009

Needed: Objective, Fact-Based Financial Analysis

Pew Charitable Trusts announced on May 27 the creation of a new Financial Reform Project to give us what we need: fact-based analyses of financial reforms being debated in Congress.

The recent flurry of attention to the new Supreme Court nominee seems to have taken everybody’s mind off regulatory reform of the financial markets, as has the apparent easing of the econonic crisis. But I’m with the experts who say that we are bound to repeat this economic catastrophe if real steps aren’t taken to get a handle on all the products sloshing through the market and all the practices taking place therein.

From the Pew release: “Leaders in Congress have signaled an intent to look at new ways to regulate the financial sector in the wake of the market events of last fall,” said John E. Morton, managing director of Pew’s Economic Policy Department. “Looking ahead, there will be a clear need for objective analysis of the costs and benefits of alternative regulatory proposals.”

This can only be to the good, but it’s not enough. We still need good journalists delving into the weeds of this stuff and getting all the information on the table. Let’s hope this Pew effort will help in that cause.  

And while we’re at it, let’s question the Supreme Court nominee not just on the important topics of abortion and civil rights, but on business, trade, regulation, and other commerce-related issues that seem to always get short-shrift on Capitol Hill.

 

 

Science Friday: Snakes on a Plain

Snakes on a plain. Watch the video here.

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May 27, 2009

Watch: Youth Today Original Video

Youth Today: The Newspaper on Youth Work, for which I freelance, is expanding into do-it-yourself video journalism. This is the inaugural piece, written, reported, and produced by staff writer Jamaal Abdul-Alim, on a Tucson, Ariz., school-to-work program facing imminent budget cuts and closure. (Jamaal is still helping us learn the technology, but we were mighty impressed at this first effort! Learning to produce high-quality videos within the You Tube framework takes some time, we’re discovering.)

Abdul-Alim covers College&CareersToday for Youth Today through an initiative partially funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. As he writes in the companion article—and shows clearly in the video—”[i]t’s just one more sign of how the recession is threatening promising youth programs.”

[video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2VWkQrwK-U]

May 26, 2009

Sunday NYT Magazine: Conan, et al.

Finally a post after the Memorial Day break: Pointing you to a great profile of Conan O’Brien as he prepares to take over Leno’s late-night spot. Seems like there’s a bit of tension between them, but my guess is O’Brien will do as well as can be given the state of the television networks. This cover is really well done; the expression he managed to get on his face before jumping into a pool in a suit and tie shows this if nothing else: he’s a true performer. 

 

 

May 22, 2009

Guest Book Review: Losing Mum and Pup

Richard Fitzpatrick, guest blogger, posts the following review of “Losing Mum and Pup,” by Christopher Buckley:

I recommend to Blog Alley readers a delightful memoir from the prolific pen and fertile mind of Christopher Buckley. As is probably known by now, and by all, “Losing Mum and Pup” chronicles the loss, within a year of each other, of Buckley’s mother and father, Patricia and William F. Buckley, Jr.
For those of you familiar with, and fans of, Mr. Buckley, it would be no surprise that the book is by turns witty—make that hysterical—poignant, profound, elliptical, insightful, and warm.
It was infused with a moving spirituality that is cleverly intermixed with the earthy and the profane. (Have I forgotten any adverbs and/or adjectives?)
The subject matter is, of course, inexhaustible and potentially dangerous in the hands of an only child with a laserlike wit, but Mr. Buckley has fashioned a remarkable tribute that transforms his father, the intellectual progenitor of 20th Century conservatism, and his mother, the zany, beautiful, and socially accomplished doyenne of New York society, into normal, needful, flawed, funny, accomplished, and always interesting, human beings. It is a beautiful eulogy!