All Things in Moderation

On today’s earlier thread, ashot posed what seemed to me to be an intriguing question. In the face of lms’ hopefully only temporary departure, he asked:

So this is going to become a boys club and a largely conservative one at that?

The perception that ATiM is or would become a largely conservative place struck me as very odd. I don’t feel that way at all, so I was compelled to do a bit of accounting.

By my count, we have 17 people who comment on a fairly regular basis. Having been reading them all for at least a year now and in many instance a lot longer, I think they can be sensibly distributed across 6 general political classifications: conservative, moderately conservative, moderate, moderately liberal, liberal, and libertarian. Right now, I’d say that we have 4 conservatives, 1 moderate conservative, 2 moderates, 1 moderate liberals, 7 progressives, and 2 libertarians. This is my distribution.

Cons – quarterback, McWing, Brent, myself
Mod Cons – Kevin
Mods – Mark, Bannedagain
Mod Lib – ashot,
Lib – lmsinca, Michigoose, okiegirl, bsimon, Fairlingtonblade, yelljkt, msjs0315
Libertarian – novahockey, jnc4p

There is, of course, room for dispute. I’m not entirely sure about a couple of these classifications, for example msjs. Would she call herself a moderate liberal or liberal? And maybe a couple more of those classified as liberals would object and declare themselves moderate liberals. But that is more a question of degree, not kind. Banned, since he generally only comments on the markets, is tough to judge too. But I think this generally gives a good sense of where we all fall politically.

So if my accounting is accurate, we’ve currently got 5 conservatives, 8 liberals, 2 moderates, and 2 libertarians, which seems fairly balanced with a slight lean to the left. Even if we throw the libertarians in with the conservatives (which, I suspect, both the cons and the liberts would object to in principle), we get rid of the slight lean, but maintain the overall balance. If we start to include the less frequent posters (ruk, mcurtis, abc, mike), then we most definitely start to lean left.

So I think ATiM has achieved a pretty good balance across the political spectrum, and in any event is certainly not “largely conservative”. Am I wrong? Have I offended anyone by classifying them as a liberal?

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So the reason I have been largely absent from ATiM for the last week is because I started the ritual college visits with my oldest daughter, who will be graduating from high school next year.  It has been quite an eye opening experience.  

QB has frequently commented here about the left-wing academic atmosphere that is pervasive on most college campuses.  What struck me during my visits, however, was the degree to which left-wing ideology has taken over the financial aspect of college admissions.  College tuition inflation has been the topic of much discussion in recent years, but after this trip I have come to believe that the levels of inflation are hugely exaggerated, and largely a function of a marketing strategy which masks the socialist reality of college fees.

This is perfectly exemplified by the information I was given at the University of Richmond, in Virginia, although this was by no means atypical. For the current school year, tuition, room and board comes to just over $52,000.  That is quite a daunting number on it’s face.  However, as the university boasts in its info material, 47% of its students qualify for some kind of needs -based financial aid, and that aid (again, as the university itself brags) averages over $38,000 per recipient.  So that means that nearly 50% of students are actually paying on average a mere $14k for what is purported to be a $52k education.  

This, BTW, includes only needs based financial aid.  When students who receive sports or academic merit scholarships are included, a full 70% of students are receiving some form of tuition break, averaging $32,000 in aid per student.  So, to sum up, the average cost to the vast majority of students, 70%, is just $20k, while for a select 30%, the cost is over 150% higher at $52k.

How is the “needs based” aid doled out?  Here is where the leftist ideology gets quite explicit.  At most universities (certainly all of them I visited this past week) the admissions process is proudly proclaimed to be “needs blind”, meaning that ability to pay is not a consideration in the admissions process.  Once accepted, parents of the students are then required to submit tax returns, and, based on these returns, the university itself will decide how much the applicant can afford, and the tuition bill to the student will reflect this cost. So in fact the existence of a headline tuition price tag is a complete and utter fabrication, designed to mask the actual system that is in place. There is no actual tuition price tag.  Tuition is strictly a function of one’s perceived ability to pay it, or, more accurately, one’s parents perceived ability to pay.  It is a system designed so that a select few, in the case of UoR 30%, are used to subsidize/finance the vast majority.  It is a classically leftist utopian system. 

(One thing I will say in defense of Richmond is that at least it still does offer academic merit scholarships.  At Georgetown, I was explicitly told that no such merit scholarships are offered, and only “needs-based” tuition breaks were available.  Only my daughter’s stern look telling me to shut up prevented me from sarcastically inquiring whether their sports scholarships were also offered only on strictly a “need” basis.)

Of course, it is no surprise, then, that the headline price tag for tuition (which so few actually pay) continues to rise into the stratosphere.  Since ability to pay is no longer necessary to gain access to the product, demand naturally will rise and that demand will derive precisely from those least able to pay.  So those who actually are carrying the cost load will necessarily have to pay more and more in order to support this increasing population of non-paying/low-paying demand.  Tuition inflation, it seems, is largely a myth for most people, and exists primarily just for a small group of high income earners.

BTW, this whole model seems to be based on the premise that wealthy parents are ready and willing to pay almost any cost to send their kids to college.  But suppose a parent simply refuses to?  Does an 18 year old with a wealthy but stubborn father have less “right” to financial aid than someone from a low income household?  It’s hard to imagine why that would be the case.  A father can’t force his 18 year old to vote Republican. He can’t prevent his 18 yr old from getting an abortion.  In fact, I am reliably informed that a father cannot even call and get information about his 18 year old from the very university to which he is paying tens of thousands of dollars a year in tuition without his 18 yr old’s consent.  In other words, an 18 year old is, in virtually all relevant ways, considered to be an independent adult capable of making and responsible for his own decisions.  So on what warped reasoning ought an 18 yr old’s cost for a given product be dependent upon his parents’ ability to pay for it?  

The whole system seems ripe for an Atlas Shrugged II, in which high income people begin to refuse to pay for their children’s tuition, thus forcing them to apply based on their own income.  Since that income will be zero, they certainly ought to qualify for even more aid than anyone else.  And the whole despicable system will collapse of it’s own weight.

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So, now that this weekend’s brouhaha is largely past us and the postmortem recriminations have been played out, complete with after-the-fact play by play and color commentary, I thought I would add my own observations about something that has heretofore been unremarked upon, and that is how third parties react to a perceived instance of a breach in ATiM etiquette.

I for one am very reluctant to play moderator or referee in the midst of a heated conversation between two other people, particularly by calling someone out, and especially as a public matter.  (Ignore, for now, the fact that I am usually a participant and rarely a third party observer in such conversations.)  Both personal experience and observation suggests to me that it rarely ends up being helpful, and often makes things worse, embroiling yet more people in the heat rather than cooling things down as intended.  Perhaps a private e-mail, or brief “Come on, people” from a third party might be useful.  But if that doesn’t work, I think letting things play out and having a postmortem later is likely to be less damaging than trying to intervene by taking people to task on the board.

This is a self-moderated blog, and in the first instance it means exactly that- each of us is expected to moderate ourselves individually, according to the rules that we all know.  And I can say from personal experience that, having determined to one’s own satisfaction that one hasn’t done anything wrong, to see the repeated insinuation from third parties that one is out of bounds can be extremely grating, even if, in retrospect, there may be a point.  This simply dials up, rather than alleviates, the heat of the situation.

Letting an inflamed situation play out is not the end of the world.  What makes our discussion standards notable here is what we are striving to achieve, not the fact that we always and everywhere achieve it.  If, in a given instance, we fail, then we fail.  On to the next one and try again.  And an after-the-fact discussion about it may well prove more valuable, or at least less damaging, than a heat-of-the-battle attempt to stop it.  Active third-party moderation is not always, and perhaps not even often, the best approach.

My two cents.

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Although I like the color on the other site, I assume that is easily changeable.  Otherwise it seems just as easy to use as blogger.  Have not tried it in IE yet, though.

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It appears that the blogger upgrade to threaded comments is currently unusable in an IE browser, and ATiM has a couple of significant contributors who are unfortunately forced to use IE, at least during the day. Since we do not want to lose them, lms and I have agreed to revert back to the so-called full page comments style for now, meaning the comment box will not exist at the bottom of the post page, but you will instead be directed to a new page to enter any comments. Again, this is not ideal, but the alternative is that ATiM will lose two of its more prolific contributors, which would be unacceptable. I’ll keep looking for a way around this problem, as I hope will Kevin. If anyone else has suggestions, let us know. In the meantime, I expect qb and ashot to produce some earth shattering posts and comments at which we will all gaze in awe while wondering to ourselves “Now that’s why we’re dealing with this cumbersome comments system.” No pressure, though.

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So yesterday Blogger put in place some changes, in particular to the comments section. Unfortunately, they did not add new options, but rather changed existing options, so it is impossible (at least for now) for us to keep the look that we used to have.

The major change they made was to add threading comments, ie exactly what PL has now. The primary downside to this change, as we experienced last night, is twofold. First, there appears to be spacing/font issues in the comments. It doesn’t look quite right, and the comments input box seems to be a bit erratic, sometimes showing up and other times not. Also, on mobile devices (at least the iPad and iPhone) there are some technical problems. For instance, I can no longer copy and paste from the comments.

We can get the comments section to revert back to the way it looked via one of two options, but with one significant exception. The comments input box will not appear on the post page under the comments. Instead, you have to click on “Post a comment”, and you will be taken either to a pop-up window with the input box, or a whole new page with the input box. Currently we have it set to the latter, but in either case, all of the comments are viewable in the new window, as well as on the original post. If you want you can look through last nights open thread to see the comments that some of us have already had about each option.

None of the options are ideal, and each has its drawbacks. We are currently using what is called the full page comments, ie clicking on “post a comment” takes you to a whole new page, with all the comments in a blogger style format, and an input box at the top. There are other options on that page which you may or may not like (ie view blog entry, collapse comments). But I just wanted to give you a heads up. Please post any comments/preferences to this post, and we will have to come to a consensus on which style we should use going forward.

UPDATE: One thing I forgot to mention. When I was trolling around on the Blogger help site last night, I saw one comment which suggests that, when using the threaded comments option, if comments ever reach a total of 200, then the Plum Line method of only displaying X number of comments with a “Load More” button kicks in. And there were complaints about the loading speed of the “Load More”. So it seems that, with threading, Blogger is moving towards the Plum Line style which we all loved so much.

UPDATE 2: I’ve turned the threaded comments back on, at lms’ suggestion, so others can see what it looks like and test it out. Please post any problems here or, if you can’t post at all, e-mail me or kevin or lme.

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It’s December 31, and 2011 is almost history. Let’s take a look back, JibJab style.

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About seven years ago I spent a week touring through southern Germany with my family, culminating with a final 2 days in Salzburg, just across the southeastern border into Austria. Salzburg is a beautiful city, but in order to spend half a day visiting nearby Das Kehlsteinhaus, better known here as The Eagle’s Nest, the only remaining vestige of Hitler’s high command retreat in Obersalzburg, I had to consent to a grueling half day Sound of Music tour with my wife and daughters in and around Salzburg itself. Three hours on a bus with chirpy Julie Andrews singing incessantly in the background. Ugh.

That being said, Maria and the young von Trapps seemed the perfect intro to tonight’s Bits & Pieces, which includes a few of my favorite links that I have collected over the years, ranging from informative to entertaining to complete and utter timewasters. With that in mind…

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I can’t remember how I came across this Famous Trials website, but it is fantastic, complete with synopses, trial transcripts, evidence, photos, and more for any number of historically interesting cases, ranging from the Salem Witchcraft trials, to the Alger Hiss perjury trial, to the 3 trials of Oscar Wilde. Legal Eagles, and wannabes like me, dig in.
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Boomshine, a totally addicting timewaster. Be warned.
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I’m sure few of you would have guessed, but I enjoy arguments. No, really, I’m not kidding. And by arguments I mean formal, logical arguments. Anyone interested in arguing must know, and hopefully avoid, the logical fallacies.
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Jim Boeheim, head coach of the Syracuse University basketball team, has long been known for speaking his mind to the media. This tendency towards bluntness has recently gotten him in some reasonably serious trouble, but as a long-time Syracuse fan it also provided my favorite post-game press conference moment. (Warning…earmuff the little ones):

And, weirdly, the same press conference as re-interpreted by girls in bikinis:

As an aside, speaking of Syracuse basketball, I was actually in attendance at the greatest game in Big East history. It was a long night, but well worth it in the end.

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Ever since I was a little kid, I have been fascinated by the JFK assassination. One of the first books I ever remember checking out of our local public library was a book about the assassination, and over the years I have read pretty much every book that has been written about it. I even have a condensed copy of the Warren Report on my bookshelf. This is been brought to mind because for Christmas I got Stephen King’s most recent book 11/22/63, about a man who goes back in time in an effort to prevent the assassination. I started it on Tuesday morning and finished it yesterday. Thought it was great. Anyway, if you are at all interested in the assassination and the many varied conspiracy theories (and why they are all bunk), this site by John McAdams is a great place to start.
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The Illustrated Road to Serfdom.
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I linked to this once before over at the blog whose name dare not be spoken, but everyone should read this book at some point, and it’s free on the web, so I’ll link to it again: The Ultimate Resource.
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For movie buffs, I give you another boring-day timewaster, Invisibles. You have to name the movie from a still shot taken from one scene, but there’s a catch. All the people – but not their clothes – have been airbrushed out of the photo.
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Another one for movie buffs. Have you ever watched a movie supposedly based on real events and wondered how much of it was true, or what the actual people looked like? Well, now you can find out.

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Vital Statistics:

Last trading day of the year. Should be a very sleepy one. Bond market closes early today, at 2pm est, most desks are operating with skeleton crews, and most books have already been squared/positioned for year end. Not a whole lot going on.

European news seems concentrated on Spain and its deficit cutting. Today the Spanish PM announced 14.9 billion Euros in deficit reduction, made up of both spending cuts and higher taxes.

S&P index is, at the moment, poised to post it’s 3rd straight year of positive gains, although just barely, and it could easily tip negative for the year by the end of the day. Currently up just .38% on the year, it needs to stay above 1257 to post a positive year. At 1262 as I type.

Not a whole lot more to say…although I’m sure john could add some pithy comments even as the markets sputter to a year end close. Here’s to hoping for continued improvement in 2012. Happy New Year, all.

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