Reading Time: < 1 minute Kudos to the Los Angeles Times for publishing an excellent investigative piece today on how difficult it is to fire a tenured teacher in California, no matter what the charges. The piece starts with a juicy lede: The eighth-grade boy held out his wrists for teacher Carlos Polanco to see. He had just explained to Read More
Reading Time: < 1 minute Stories about homelessness and the spread of tent cities abound. It has always been difficult to get an accurate number on how many people are without shelter, but homelessness groups have estimated that on a given night in one of the worst months of a typical recent year, that figure might near 800,000. Say it Read More
Reading Time: 2 minutes Phraseology is fundamental to today’s political battles. Lobbyists, political strategists, corporate PR reps, and even academics expend an extraordinary amount of thought and money on framing issues with just the right label. Expressions like “bridge to nowhere” simply don’t arise from ordinary discourse. Consequently, journalists have to become etymologists to cover politics adequately. Anytime they hear Read More
Reading Time: < 1 minute What makes good people do bad things? That is the topic of a New York Times article about trials of former officials of the savage Cambodian regime, the Khmer Rouge. “We were victims, too,” said Him Huy, the head of the guard detail at the Tuol Sleng torture house, who took part in the executions Read More