I want an intelligent and educated candidate. A law degree from Harvard would be most desirable. Character-wise, it’s okay if he comes off detached and aloof in public, so long as he can inspire those he works with directly.

The only question left, then, is which of the two qualifying candidates to support?

If circumstances are such that thrift, energy, industry, and forethought enable the farmer, the tiller of the soil, on the one hand, and the wage-worker on the other, to keep themselves, their wives, and their children in reasonable comfort, then the State is well off, and we can be assured that the other classes in the community will likewise prosper. On the other hand, if there is in the long run a lack of prosperity among the two classes named, then all other prosperity is sure to be more seeming than real.

I can’t think of a single time in which I’ve opened a magazine’s table of contents and found the article I was looking for faster than if I just flipped through the damn thing. But paradoxically, once I’m invested in using the TOC, I cannot but continue the quixotic search. I suppose it comes from the belief that, having already devoted a chunk of time toward this insane and fruitless endeavor, surely the answer lies just around the nect page (past those ads). And while the entire operation may turn out to be longer than a simple pass through the entire thing, the marginal time left to find it in the TOC must be less by now, right? Oh, such folly!

And if, perchance, you ever do find the page number of that article, good luck finding that page through any mechanism faster than a bogosort.

Designing magazine tables of content and page numbering systems (or rather, page-number-hiding systems) is truly a work of art. Demonic, maddening art.

In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s been few tyrants getting toppled in the world this year. I felt a little bit (just a little) for Gaddafi, having been dragged out from his hole or wherever he was hiding, and apparently unceremoniously shot by his former subjects (and I mean subjects).

I imagine that dictators like Gaddafi and Mubarak probably spend most of their time in power, especially in their later years, in a bubble of hubris, believing themselves not only indispensable to their people, but beloved by them. I don’t know if Gaddafi actually believed his own bullshit about the rebels being terrorists and brainwashed drug addicts, but I do believe he thought himself loved by his people, and tended to consider those who protested or rebelled against him to be aberrations and hooligans, and thus could justify his regime’s brutal treatment of them.

I imagine that even in his final days, Gaddafi, deserted by all but his most loyal (or most desperate) supporters, with little more left to his name than a bag of luggage and a toupee, believed that he was the rightful leader of Libya, and that he would somehow once again rule. That surely would make his final moments all the more crushing when dragged out from his bubble, he looked around and only saw the hatred of his people.

I imagine there must have been a moment then that the reality struck him: his bubble was a lie, most Libyans detested him, and they couldn’t wait to discard him like day old fish carcass. Had he been kept alive to face trial, no doubt he would have erected that bubble again, but nevertheless, that moment of realization would have happened.

It is thus that just a sliver of sympathy goes out from me to those fallen tyrants in their moment of revelation, whether summarily executed by former subjects, thrown to rot in their own prison, or sent into permanent exile.

And I feel a similar pang of sympathy to any Microsoft executives who might be watching this video:

contrary to popular opinion, shareholders of American public corporations are NOT [...] investors, as in the contributors of capital. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
John Rogers

I’ve been listening to NPR for years now. These days, this consists of Morning Edition, Talk of the Nation, Planet Money, occasionally the Diane Rehm show, and This American Life (technically produced by PRI, which gets only 2% of its funding from the federal government). I have yet to observe a systemic liberal bias in the content on NPR, and that’s during a time that spans from me associating with the Republican party, to my participating in a Democratic caucus and beyond.

I’m sure some particular shows do have a noticeable liberal slant. I won’t dispute that personalities like Bill Moyers or Tavis Smiley have particular political perspectives, and if those were the only personalities that someone caught on NPR or PBS, then I couldn’t blame them for thinking there was some bias there.

But take the shows like Diane Rehm, Talk of the Nation, or PBS Newshour, which regularly have guests and roundtables from all different perspectives, and specifically balances at least the two major parties during political analysis. I challenge you to find definitive cases of the hosts or producers imposing their political or ideological bias on the shows.

The complaint I tend to hear is not that the shows are obviously biased (like almost every second of Fox News is) but that they are more subtly biased via things like story selection. This sentiment is concisely provided by the second letter (from a self-described progressive) in this post over at the Daily Dish:

…If they would just say, “Yes, our story selection is directed at mostly rich, mostly white, mostly liberals.” OK, now we can all move on.

If conservative detractors would largely agree that public radio/television’s alleged bias is in story selection rather than story coverage, then they’ve already conceded the argument. Even if you agree that NPR’s story selection is directed at “mostly rich, mostly white, mostly liberals” (which I don’t concede; but maybe I’m just blinded by being mostly rich, mostly white and mostly liberal), in order for that to mean that the network has a liberal bias per se, then you have to agree that those stories themselves, even when covered completely fairly, lend themselves to a natural liberal interpretation. Such criticisms devolve to arguing, in effect, the adage “reality has a liberal bias”.

And is that grounds for labeling the coverage of such stories as biased? There are no liberal facts or conservative facts, just facts. If the facts lend themselves to a liberal interpretation (or a conservative interpretation), then that’s what the facts lend themselves to. Accepting that is not liberal or conservative bias, it’s just being rational. Avoiding facts inconvenient to your preconceived worldview, on the other hand, is not balance, it is obstinacy.

NPR should not ‘embrace bias’ in their journalism or their hosts, they should stamp it out. Does that mean their personalities can’t have opinions? No, they can, but if they are reporting on facts or moderating guests’ discussions, then they should be as objective as possible, challenging and exploring all views as appropriate in order to better inform their audience (as opposed to entertaining their audience).