Media Roundup (v. 2.0)

My favorite Quebecois-American, E. J. Dionne, Jr., bats some interesting historical electoral numbers around.

Eugene Robinson examines the rhetoric of some of our desperate illustrious leaders.

I seem to be doing a lot of ranting about No Child Left Behind, lately. This NPR story does a very good job of summing up why, especially in regards to special education.

Speaking of education, I'm just pleased as punch about the new Charter School for the Classics in Washington. I can hear semper_augustus squeeing right along with me. As for critics claiming that it caters to the elite and swipes kids from community schools, give the parents a high-quality alternative--and an environment where their kids don't have to walk through metal detectors every morning--and maybe Washington Latin won't have to get special permission to raise its cap a second year.

Less brightly, a Chicago high school principal gambled, and lost. I don't know that I agree with McGreal's tactic, but I certainly understand his frustration. And I applaud his guts and gumption in standing up and trying to do something. Good luck to you, Mr. McGreal.

And, especially for reportergirlkes, a little journalistic history.

Edited to add NPR story and to fix spelling and mechanics.

Edited to add Washington Latin and Martin McGreal stories.

Things that throw me into a violent frenzy.

Yes, excessively late actors who don't call is definitely one of those things, but here's another.

From the Post's article on 'Mortgage Moms' comes this quote:

At lunch at a Panera Bread restaurant in Crestview Hills, a Cincinnati suburb, Angela McNickle was enjoying a "girls' day" with her daughter, Hope, 4. McNickle, a former flight attendant who is married to a salesman, has concerns -- a 7-year-old son has Down syndrome and high medical bills -- but she said her financial situation does not affect her vote. "We're comfortable," she said. "If I was in a different economic class or a single mom, it might be different."

See? That? Right there. First of all, Mrs. McNickle, your husband could be hit by a bus tomorrow and you would be a single mother. His company could lay him off and you would soon no longer be comfortable. But not even that short-sightedness is what makes me absolutely crazed.

It's the fact that she obliquely recognizes that things are not good for people who are not comfortable and single moms, and yet does not change her vote because it doesn't affect her.

I swear, the only thing that would have made me even angrier would have been a line about how the McNickle family is in the front pew at church every week...