Current events

Enthusiastic Apple fans, you say. Blithering idiots, I say:

With the Industrial Revolution came the Great Concentration -- an agglomeration of territories, a centralization of capital and production that propelled the world into a new and prosperous era but also gave rise to the lunatic Marx and all who came after him. Now, with the Communications Revolution, we have the Great Re-Weaving:

I confess to sometimes getting caught up in the just-short-of-hysterical reporting and commentating that seem to be the common practice these days:

Opponents of same-sex marriage who argued that abadoning the traditional one man-one woman definition would lead no standards at all were dimissed as reactionary, patriarchal homophobes. But now that gay marriage is but one Supreme Court decision away from being the law of the land, some are beginning to open that door. Here is Sally, Kohn, for example, wondering why polygamy should be any different:

A new report from Burning Glass, a labor market analytics company, has the numbers to prove what a lot of people have been saying the last few years about "degree inlation" -- a college degree is becoming the new high school diploma: the minimum credential required to get even the most basic, entry-level job:

This is one of the most vigorous defenses of free speech you'll ever see:

It's conventional wisdom that having a job while in high school boosts wage-earning in later life, because the kids are learning skills they wouldn't leaarn in the classroom and, furthermore, are learning the value of work. And that's a thought I consoled myself with while I was flipping burgers at McDonald's and envying all the kids who didn't work. It was kind of a class thing -- if you had to work for a little spending money it meant your parents weren't well-off enough to spoil you.

It ain't rocket science:

David Autor, an economist at M.I.T. best known for exploring the costs to American workers of automation and trade with China, has recently expanded the scope of his research on unemployment to look at the consequences for men who grow up in a fatherless household.

Um, well now. I've heard it said that some people can't find their a-- with both hands and a flashlight. It's probably even been said a time or two about me. But this is a new one on me:

Boy, I hate to admit it, but Dan Rather sort of has a point. Or at least he brings up something that deserves greater discussion: