J. Goodrich

MORE ON CEO PAY VS. WORKER PAY. Ezra‘s post on the remarkable growth of CEO pay since the early 1990s made one commenter point out that the graph Ezra linked to used total compensation for CEOs but only actual wages for the workers. Comparing apples to oranges? Not really. This graph relates the growth in […]

A GOOD PERSON WHO SAID A BAD THING. That is how Don Imus described himself in the aftermath of the uproar that his characterization of the Rutgers women’s (predominantly black) basketball team as “nappy-haired hos” caused. Imus has apologized for his comments and appears to think that it is time to put the whole episode […]

‘FREEDOM FROM’ VS. ‘FREEDOM TO.’. Conservative Kathleen Parker‘s columns remind me of those Aunts in Margaret Atwood‘s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale. In the novel, set in some future fundamentalist and misogynistic Gilead (picture a Christian version of Taliban), the Aunts are employees of the patriarchy whose role is to brainwash and inculcate the young […]

TO BELGIUM, WITH LOVE. As you may have heard, the president has given Belgium a new ambassador as a recess appointment; one Sam Fox, a major Republican donor and also a donor to the Swift Boaters. Googling Fox’s name gives us recent history in a snapshot: pages and pages about Bush giving in to the […]

THE MARKET IN TAINTED PET FOODS. Contaminated wheat gluten in pet foods made by Menu Foods appears to have killed many cats and dogs. How many, nobody knows for sure, because the pet food market is more unregulated and unmonitored than the markets for human food. Christie Keith writes: How did this problem, now involving […]

DOMESTIC OUTSOURCING. A NON-STORY. I wrote last week about the Circuit City firings on Eschaton. If you did not read it earlier, here is a short summary: The electronics retailer, facing larger competitors and falling sales, said Wednesday that it would lay off about 3,400 store workers. The laid-off workers, about 8 percent of the […]

WOMEN, ANGER, AND THE WEB. This topic was a hot one last Thursday. First the mainstream media began commenting on the Kathy Sierra web-harassment case: Why did prominent blogger Kathy Sierra suddenly cancel the talk she was supposed to give Tuesday in San Diego? Because of specific, sexually graphic death threats posted on her blog […]

REGENT UNIVERSITY AND THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION. Monica Goodling, a top aide to Alberto Gonzales, graduated from Regent University School of Law in 1999 and started working for the DOJ around 2002, under the godly leadership of John Ashcroft. Her rise to the present position looks meteoric. How exactly Goodling acquired the necessary experience in such […]

EUMERICA? The Pew Research Center survey I wrote about yesterday has provoked some interesting discussion on the blogs. John Quiggin suggests that we might see “Eumerica” in the making: a situation where the Democrats and independents in the U.S. acquire social and political values similar to those currently dominant in Europe, whereas the hard-core Republican […]

AN END TO THE REPUBLICAN CONSERVATIVE ERA. That was Bruce Bartlett’s reaction on hearing about the new Pew Research Center survey on the political views of Americans. Bartlett is a conservative analyst but also the author of an anti-Bush book. And what caused his strong statement? This: Increased public support for the social safety net, […]