Nick Bilton, a venerable writer over at the Times’ “Bits” blog, writes,

But in modern societies, the old can also learn from the young. Here’s hoping that politeness never goes out of fashion, but that time-wasting forms of communication do.

In principle, there exists a tension between time-wasting and politeness. And yet…one wonders why we must view politeness with [...]

I’ve moved (relegated?) my music posts to a section of their own—one that no longer shows up on the front page. The intent is to keep my main posts focused on law, education and media issues; I’m finding that to be my main milieu—even as I like to drop in some of my music recommendations now [...]

What I like about Kate Nash’s music are tracks like “Paris”: loud sound reverberating, giving off a sense of “fuck you, world”, with lyrics so matter-of-fact that you find yourself drawn in (well, I am anyway—others quite hate it and probably recoil.)
Another good one is “Mouthwash”, which is below.

I’m a couple weeks late with this, but just as I noted a few months ago that the Australian judicial system was beginning to take action against the ratings agencies re: the 2008 financial crisis and ratings debacle, it seems the justice department in the US is also going to ( finally!) try [...]

Consultants at both BCG and Alix Partners reckon that by 2015 it will cost about the same for an American firm to manufacture in America as in China. Western firms are also finding that innovation is easier when manufacturing is in the same place as research.

This week’s Economist has a great special report on the [...]

Alternating between that sticcato sound from pizzacato, overlayed on some deep glissando, this is some awe-inspiring cello music. Makes me remember why I enjoy stringed instruments. Support his work by picking up the track (or the entire album, it’s all pretty good!) at his bandcamp site.

Featured on this week’s This American Life: 483: Self-Improvement Kick

A perfectly normal guy gets rid of everything he owns, changes his name, says goodbye to his friends — and begins walking. In the name of peace. And Honduran government officials try to heal their corrupt country by starting a perfect city, from scratch. For the new [...]

Going forward, by default only actual posts of some sort of substantive nature are going to show up on the main content pages, with my music (read: YouTube links) going on a seperate category page, which you’ll find accessible from the sidebar as Music.

“Everyone wants to think of education as an equalizer — the place where upward mobility gets started,” said Greg J. Duncan, an economist at the University of California, Irvine. “But on virtually every measure we have, the gaps between high- and low-income kids are widening. It’s very disheartening.”

via the NYTimes: For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends [...]

Today, Daniel Ford and Bernard Baran are both free men. While Ford sits on the bench of the Massachusetts Superior Court, Baran is content sitting anywhere but his prison cell, his home for almost 22 years. In 1985, Baran, then a 19-year old high school dropout, was convicted of molesting and sexually assaulting five [...]

  We often reduce life to a series of ups and downs, wins and loses. Weighty as it is to not only have to bury a husband but also a daughter, Blue Nights—a reference to “the long, light evening hours that signal the summer solstice”—is electrifying. Without giving too much away, it’s a mix of meditations on [...]

For-profit education at its finest, ladies and gentlemen.

Princeton Review to Pay Millions After Forging Records “Sadly, the fraud here happened on a massive scale — through the repeated and systematic subversion of the goals of a federal program intended to provide essential tutoring services to children to give them a chance to succeed academically.” According to the government, [...]

More to chew on. The role that homework plays is a fascinating one, especially when considered from the perspective of actors as varied as the students, teachers and parents.

Here is something you probably didn’t know about France: its President has the power to abolish homework. In a recent speech at the Sorbonne, François Hollande [...]

Food for thought.

a big part of the problem is that educators and employers operate in parallel universes—and that a big part of the solution lies in bringing these two universes together (…) Better vocational education is hardly a cure-all for the global jobs crisis: millions of young people will be condemned to unemployment so long as [...]

On days when I find myself listening to the news, wondering how we’re maybe going to solve just a few of these problems, I give Brett Dennen a listen.

Well I dreamed I went out a wanderin’ I heard promises become fables forgotten I saw bridges stretchin’ out across the water And towers pushing taller I knew my [...]

Apart from the awesome sounding name, Elizabeth Ziman’s “Elizabeth and the Catapult” produces some lovely upbeat sound.

HBO is producing a series of documentaries on the perspective of the modern day war journalist; the past two installments looked at Juarez and Libya. This piece follows Véronique de Viguerie as she documents the perspectives on those combating the now-infamous Joseph Kony and his LRA. If the story itself wasn’t compelling enough, an added wrinkle is [...]

Like most experiences, flying is what you make of it. With a full-throated ascent from the wherever you’ve just left, armed with the knowledge you’ll soon return to solid footing, it’s reasonable to want to maintain our earthly ties. In truth, you don’t have to [...]

Until recently, it has remained an open question whether governments would take substantive action against the credit agencies. A year and some change ago, like many others, I wrote about the irony of placing trust in such unencumbered entities, despite their seeming complicity in the credit crunch.

The world trusts S&P, Moody’s and Fitch—agencies that all contributed, [...]