Now It's All About Race

And parties really don't matter. You can be president pro-tem in one and majority leader in the other. You can be under indictment but still scramble to the top of the heap (god knows Bruno did it for years). If there is anything creepier than this gang of creeps, I don't want to know about it.

What's really troubling are the numbers of people crowing about the stalemate because they point out that while the senators weren't making decisions, the state wasn't spending money, so we all came out ahead.

Nebraska (home of the nonpartisan, unicameral legislature) is looking better and better to me.

Good Teachers Trump Small Schools

Having determined in a previous study that good teachers trump small classes, the Gates Foundation turned its attention to small high schools. This was risky for them, because they'd given billions assuming that smaller high schools would mean better graduation rates and test scores. However, their findings proved otherwise.

[P]utting a great teacher in a low-income school helped students advance a grade and a half in one year. An ineffective teacher in a high-income school held student achievement back to about half a grade of progress in a year.

The Gates Foundation will now put its billions toward improving teaching, which is probably where that money should have gone all along.

Required Reading

Often Ms. Dowd is merely shrill, but today she captures the voice of would-be President Palin quite well, I think.

I can abandon Alaska and ambition myself for the presidency. I can get bored with my job and fight apathy. I can take the easy path out to work hard on a path for fruitfulness. I can move on selfishly and call it altruistically.

R.I.P., S.O.B.

"A lot of people think I'm an S.O.B.," said Robert McNamara to an interviewer. He was one of the Best and the Brightest who escalated the Cold War, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to Vietnam. Afterward, he spent years atoning. People in Africa have recently challenged his World Bank activities in the interest of reducing poverty, but they were certainly well-meaning. I prefer the good works of his late wife, who founded Reading Is Fundamental. On the whole, a complicated guy, now dead at the age of 93.

Best Kids' Books

Nicholas Kristof posted his list of the best children's books ever, which led to the most responses ever for one of his NYT columns, including one from DZ. I could not believe he listed Lad, a Dog, which I could have sworn I was the only child of my generation to read. And Freddy the Pig!

If Your Job Were Like a NYS Legislator's

1) You could stroll through the conference room for a snack and be counted as having attended the meeting!
2) You could show up, sign in, and go home for the day but still get paid!
3) You could call the CEO a coke-sniffing staff-banger and not get fired!

Feel free to add more.

Three Dogs, a Stick, and a Beaver Pond