Monthly Archives: April 2014

Donald Sterling ban: He should sell the Clippers, but the NBA shouldn’t force him to do it.

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or Sterling to finally get his comeuppance, to feel the wrath of public opprobrium, and to lose his prime asset seems just. For the NBA, which was engaged in a decades-long battle with its longest-tenured, and worst, owner, this was a perfect opportunity to act swiftly and harshly.

Yet one has this niggling feeling that Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has a point when he says, “If we’re taking something somebody said in their home and we’re trying to turn it into something that leads to you being forced to divest property in any way, shape, or form, that’s not the United States of America.”

via Donald Sterling ban: He should sell the Clippers, but the NBA shouldn’t force him to do it..

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Welcome to the Finger-Wagging Olympics | TIME.com

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Some good sense from Kareem:

The big question is “What should be done next?” I hope Sterling loses his franchise. I hope whoever made this illegal tape is sent to prison. I hope the Clippers continue to be unconditionally supported by their fans. I hope the Clippers realize that the ramblings of an 80-year-old man jealous of his young girlfriend don’t define who they are as individual players or as a team. They aren’t playing for Sterling—they’re playing for themselves, for the fans, for showing the world that neither basketball, nor our American ideals, are defined by a few pathetic men or women.

via Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Welcome to the Finger-Wagging Olympics | TIME.com.

Harry Reid’s Long, Steady Accretion of Power & Wealth | RealClearPolitics

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Senator Reid: are you honest in your dealings with your fellow men?

David Damore — a University of Nevada, Las Vegas professor whose research focuses on Silver State politics — has closely followed Reid for years. He said that the balance between helping family and constituents is a common tension for powerful politicians. “I’m going to put this politely: Their personal interests, they seem to see, represent the common good. They don’t differentiate those two.”

Another longtime Reid-watcher believes that the latest string of incidents, stretching over the last decade, is just a result of more coverage of Reid — and not a product of him changing his style.

“As he’s become more known and a much higher dollar target for his critics, anything he does to assist his family now pegs on the radar,” said John L. Smith, a columnist who has written about Nevada politics for nearly as long as Reid has been in Washington.  “I don’t think he’s changed his personal method of operation throughout his whole career.”

Smith added, “I can’t see him ever denying his family a break or an opportunity if he could provide it. I guess that’s just part of being a dad and a guy with a certain level of influence.”

Nowhere is Reid’s influence more profound than in his home state, where he has built a dizzying network of mutually beneficial political, personal, and business alliances. These associations benefit Reid, his family, his close friends, and, very often, the state that he loves. The sphere of influence took decades to create.

via Harry Reid’s Long, Steady Accretion of Power & Wealth | RealClearPolitics.

Sharecroppers. Migrant Workers. Adjuncts? | Vitae

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Adjunct slavery:

We tut-tut and say it’s too bad, but then throw up our hands, blame the budgets, and let the system continue. Civil rights, slavery, sharecropping, migrant laborers—these are terms that evoke sympathy and demand action within the neoliberal world of higher education in ways that just calling adjuncts “temps” does not.

via Sharecroppers. Migrant Workers. Adjuncts? | Vitae.

“Nobody ever heard of an ‘adjunct administrator'”: Higher Ed SNAFU – Hit & Run : Reason.com

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Some thoughts on the fall of academia:

I support the move toward “adjunct administrators.” It used to be widely understood that a college or university travels on the quality of its faculty, not its climbing walls, dining halls, or number of administrators. The University of Arkansas’ Jay Greene found that between 1993 and 2007, the number of administrators at research universities grew by 39 percent per 100 students while the number of employees directly involved in research and teaching grew by just 18 percent. More damning, spending on administration grew 50 percent faster than spending on instruction. Administrators don’t just add to the open-air prison climate on many campuses, they directly add to rising costs.

via “Nobody ever heard of an ‘adjunct administrator'”: Higher Ed SNAFU – Hit & Run : Reason.com.

SpaceX Aims to Blaze New Trail for Rocket Technology – NBC News.com

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“A few minutes into the flight, the Falcon’s second stage is set up to separate and continue the trek to orbit. The first stage, meanwhile, will be commanded to relight its rocket engines and slow its descent toward the Atlantic Ocean. If everything works properly, the launch vehicle will unfold a set of four landing legs, practice a landing maneuver — and then settle down into the sea gently enough to be recovered and reused.”

via SpaceX Aims to Blaze New Trail for Rocket Technology – NBC News.com.