Community colleges: Restoration drama
COMPARED with its world-famous universities, America’s community colleges are virtually anonymous. But over half of the nation’s 20m undergraduates attend them, and the number is growing fast. Poor, minority and first-generation-immigrant students are far more likely to get their tertiary education from community colleges—where two-year courses More...
Lexington: Enough to make you veep
“OH MY God, what have we done?” is one of the memorable lines from the HBO docudrama, “Game Change”, as John McCain’s presidential campaign team comes to see at last that it should have More...
The death penalty: Another reprieve
CAPITAL punishment has been meted out in Connecticut since colonial times, when convicted witches were sentenced to death. In recent years it has been used sparingly. Of the 4,686 murders committed More...
Iranian-American “reality” TV: Time for a revolution?
Hello, we’re Persian THOSE who know Los Angeles are well aware that parts of the city swarm with rich Iranian expats. Tens of thousands fled the 1979 Islamic Revolution and settled in the More...
Louisiana’s schools: Governor Jindal extends his reach
JUST three months after he unveiled it, Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, has signed into law an unprecedented overhaul of the state’s awful school system. His bold plan weakens teacher tenure, and More...
Science education: Monkey kabuki
DOES a bill that does nothing actually do something? This is not a Zen koan, but a legislative one, being tested this month in Tennessee. The bill in question required the state’s education system to encourage More...
The National Rifle Association: Arms and the man
“TAKE a sticker,” urges the woman from Ambush Firearms. “We are giving away two free guns every day to people wearing them.” What your correspondent would do with an semi-automatic rifle, let More...
Mitt Romney’s economics: Work in progress
WHEN Paul Ryan released his proposed federal budget a year ago, Mitt Romney greeted it coolly. He congratulated the House Budget Committee chairman for “setting the right tone”, but pointedly declined More...
The Obama campaign: Growing the grassroots
IT WOULD look like the trading floor of a bank, were it not for the casual clothes and dorm-room atmosphere. The cavernous open-plan headquarters of Barack Obama’s re-election campaign houses over 300 More...
Copper-mining: A boom too far?
BACK in the good old days in Arizona, in towns like Superior, copper was king and mining was the foundation of social and economic life. Bustling department stores and rowdy watering holes extended credit More...