Time to dump some links and get back into the game here, so to speak.
- Compstat for teachers (Marcus Winters, City Journal)
- Obama Loses His Cool (Steve Rhodes, NBC Chicago)
Pundits mostly pile on Obama for a series of gaffes at the All-Star Game, but date the shaky week to the crashing of a teleprompter on Monday that left Obama “in absolute discomfort.”
But Obama’s series of goofs began long before this week. In March, for example, another teleprompter meltdown led to the Irish prime minister repeating Obama’s statement word-for-word – while Obama thanked himself for being there.
In May, a teleprompter blew over in high winds in Colorado and Vice President Joe Biden, referring to Obama’s reliance on the devices, joked, “What I am going to tell the president when I tell him his teleprompter is broken? What will he do then?!” - The Airbus 330: An Accident waiting to happen (David Rose, Daily Mail) I’m a fan of Continental’s Boeing fleet.
- Europe's dry roses complement a light meal (Frank Sutherland, Gannett) French roses have become a mainstay for us over this HOT summer.
- Is the European model of wine regions obsolete for California? (Steve Heimoff Wine Blog) To a large extent — yes. Because California is more about the grape and the science of winemaking than it is sense of place or natural winemaking (more the focus of the French).
- Natural science (oenoLogic)
- Anthony dias Blue Goes on the Attack Against Wine Bloggers (1 Wine Dude)
- Gators and Gumbo (JC Reid, Houston Press) So Village Voice Houston has now fully embraced food reviews in the print weekly by people who take freebies and who are not anonymous. The amateurization of the local “professional” print press continues apace.
- Reflective roof paint repels the heat (Tiffany Hsu, LA Times) Well, sure, but that common-sense solution (or microgrids or solar water heaters) don’t enrich former pols like Al Gore or give current pols more power over your life.
- Microsoft retains sanity – Marketplace for Windows Mobile coming to WM 6.1, 6.0 after all (WMPowerUser.com) MS gets it right, finally, but one wonders how they were able to bumble for so long with something as simple as an app store.
- Hearst Investigative Project Draws From Seven Newspapers (Joe Strupp, Editor and Publisher) And now they go for the “big conglomerate” approach to winning a Pulitzer. Meanwhile, while Hearst throws resources at this, poor Bradley Olson locally gets stuck trying to cover City Hall, city campaigns, and even court cases — and being stretched too thin to do it very well.
- 'Experts' stir controversy over social studies textbooks (Gary Scharrer, Houston Chronicle)
But some of the expert recommendations are already stirring controversy, suggesting for example that biographies of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen F. Austin should not be included in books for early grade-school children. And some of the experts want to emphasize the role of the Bible and the Christian faith in the settling of the original colonies.
I guess this is “controversial” to some journalists and progressive reactionaries, but scholars in American political theory have discussed well the role of the religious-covenant tradition in American political thought, not to mention the political role of religious sermons during the Founding era. So sorry if some people find the scholarship “controversial” but maybe they are the ignorant ones?
- TV Notebook: KILT's new director has plenty on plate (David Barron, Houston Chronicle)