Monday, June 23, 2008

Doha Development Agenda (DDA)

Barrack Obama: I’m not listening. Don’t want to, can’t make me. Nyah, Nyah!!!!!

I’ve got news for the Senator from Illinois: free trade works, protectionism doesn’t. The global opinion of the DDA agrees. But obviously Obama Knows Better!

Monday, June 9, 2008

The Scene

What a rainy, rainy weekend. Practically everything I wanted to do this past weekend was rained out. What to do? Read and blog, of course!

I typically enjoy reading The Scene and I usually read all the articles and columns even if I have no particular interest in the topic. A big disappointment though was the latest edition. Good God, what horrible writing from Gavin Schmitt and Will Stahl! What are they trying to accomplish with their respective pieces? Are they trying to report? No, they make too many style and reporting errors for their pieces to be considered ‘news reports’. Ah, they must be ‘op-ed’ pieces or persuasive essays. Again, no! They make far too many errors to fall into an ‘op-ed’ category particularly by repeatedly stating opinion as fact. They fail to adequately support their opinions which is the cardinal sin on an ‘op-ed' piece, no matter how worthy the opinions are.

What are they trying to do with their pieces? To me, they are written as poor examples of an opinionated undergrad desperately trying to fill required space in a blue-book thinking that the sheer mass of words, no matter how poorly strung together, will equal a better grade.

To The Scene: start editing for style and content!

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Carolyn "Biddy" Martin

Did anyone catch Frederica Freyberg's interview of Biddy Martin on WI Public TV. How and why will she be running our flagship UW?

Very uninspiring and not very polished in this interview, one wonders what leadership abilities she has. Was she the best applicant? If she was, that truly was a sorry lot!

I imagine her term in office will be both short and unproductive.