;)
The Commentariat -- April 21, 2014
Internal links removed.
Steven Erlanger of the New York Times interviews economist Thomas Piketty: Piketty's "book punctures earlier assumptions about the benevolence of advanced capitalism and forecasts sharply increasing inequality of wealth in industrialized countries, with deep and deleterious impact on democratic values of justice and fairness." ...
... Piketty & Hitler. Chrystia Freeland, in Politico Magazine, on why Piketty's thesis is such a threat to plutocrats. ...
... Alexander Burns & Alex Byers of Politico: Napster billionaire Sean Parker gears up his political operation. CW: If you don't see the connection between Parker & the reviews & commentary on Piketty's work, you aren't paying attention. ...
... Ben Mauk of the New Yorker: "Today, the Ludlow massacre [of April 20, 1914]..., remains one of the bloodiest episodes in the history of American industrial enterprise.... The struggle that Ludlow embodied and that, historically, unions have taken up -- is a contemporary one, even if unions are no longer playing as public a role."
... Paul Krugman: "Whatever their motives, sadomonetarists have already done a lot of damage. In Sweden they have extracted defeat from the jaws of victory, turning an economic success story into a tale of stagnation and deflation as far as the eye can see. And they could do much more damage in the future. Financial markets have been fairly calm lately -- no big banking crises, no imminent threats of euro breakup. But it would be wrong and dangerous to assume that recovery is assured: bad policies could all too easily undermine our still-sluggish economic progress. So when serious-sounding men in dark suits tell you that it's time to stop all this easy money and raise rates, beware: Look at what such people have done to Sweden."
Walter Hamilton of the Los Angeles Times: "For seven years through 2012, the number of Californians aged 50 to 64 who live in their parents' homes swelled 67.6% to about 194,000, according to the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the Insight Center for Community Economic Development. The jump is almost exclusively the result of financial hardship caused by the recession rather than for other reasons, such as the need to care for aging parents, said Steven P. Wallace, a UCLA professor of public health who crunched the data.
Jamelle Bouie of Slate: "The right has always been against race-conscious remedies to racial discrimination, touting 'colorblindness' as the 'constitutional' approach to making policy. But it's only been in the last five years -- since the election of Barack Obama -- that it's scored significant victories.... Circumstances change and ideologies shift, but the message from conservatives stays the same: What happens on the ground doesn't matter; equality under the law is sufficient for civil rights.... But if you see racism as a force to fight -- if, in other words, you think the facts matter -- then you'll reject this 'colorblindness' for what it is: a reactionary excuse for doing nothing." ...
... CW: Stephen Colbert epitomizes this view with his "Colbert Report" character who "doesn't see color," and only surmises he is white because he "is told" that's so. ...
... Digby, in Salon: "... to constantly bring up the fact that Democrats can't win if they don't have the votes of racial minorities and young people[, as Republicans do,] implies that there's something not quite legitimate about it."
** Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "President Obama departs Tuesday for a week-long, four-nation tour of Asia, where he and his top aides will be less focused on any big policy announcements than on reassuring jittery allies that America remains committed to bolstering its security and economic ties to the region. The trip -- rescheduled from October, when Obama canceled his plans because of the government shutdown -- includes two of the countries on his original itinerary, Malaysia and the Philippines, as well as Japan and South Korea."
The Village Idiots Are Still Idiots
Forget Marxism. Ross Douthat: "... what's felt to be evaporating could turn out to be cultural identity -- family and faith, sovereignty and community -- much more than economic security." CW: Also, doesn't know "data" is plural. ...
... Steve M.: "Yes! Of course! We need a whole lot more of Jesus and a lot less rock 'n' ro-- er, progressive taxation.... The way Douthat sees it -- if I correctly understand a Scott Winship post he cites approvingly -- people are getting way too much in Social Security and Medicare and employer-provided health care to be suffering from any sort of real increase in equality." ...
... Mark Sumner of Daily Kos: "Ross Douthat is really determined to prove that he can write just damn anything and still get paid.... Douthat writes a whole column in which seeing all the wealth go to the 1% is perfectly fine so long as the 99% aren't starving so badly that they are rioting in the streets, and the real threat is that people might attack those institutions that keep people living under the rule of the 1%. Because, you know, that might lead to instability."
... Via Ben Armbruster of Think Progress. AND, playing right along, Chuck Todd remains firmly Tuck Chodd.
CW: ALSO, I'm not sure Nino understands much about how a representative democracy is supposed to work. You know, where citizens try to effect policy change through nonviolent means like voting, protesting, etc. CBS DC: "Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told a crowd of law school students that if taxes in the U.S. become too high then people 'should revolt.'"
Suffer the Little Children. At least veteran Village Idiot Cokie Roberts gets something right. Evan McMurry of Mediaite: Cokie spars with Ralph Reed & Franklin Graham over gay adoptions. It was Easter, but the Righteous Men could not come up with coherent responses. Well, maybe this one:
... Aaron Barlow in Salon: "Backseat driving in the clown car: That's what pundits are about, today. In the New York Times, David Brooks tries to turn that around, making out that it is those who disagree with him who have the red noses and squeeze horns. He mounts a defense of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) based on the idea that those he shills for are the wise and considerate and caring -- and that everyone else is either raw material or the lunatic fringe (both left and right)."
William Rhoden, in a New York Times column, remembers Rubin Carter: "Carter offers a reminder that one's deeds on the court or on the field will be quickly forgotten; contributions to society resonate across decades. Carter's name endures not because he had a great left hook but because of the principles he represented until the day he died." See also Sunday's News Ledes.
Noah Shachtman of the Daily Beast: "NSA leaker Edward Snowden instantly regretted asking Russian President Vladimir Putin a softball question on live television about the Kremlin's mass surveillance effort, two sources close to the leaker tell The Daily Beast.... 'He basically viewed the question as his first foray into criticizing Russia. He was genuinely surprised that in reasonable corridors it was seen as the opposite,' added Ben Wizner, the American Civil Liberties Union attorney who serves as one of Snowden's closest advisers.... Even Jesselyn Radack, one of Snowden's American lawyers, instantly acknowledged that the interchange was a misstep."
Beyond the Beltway
Times-Picayune Editors: "Gov. Bobby Jindal [R-La.] remains unmoved by the plight of hundreds of thousands of uninsured Louisiana residents, by pressures on hospitals left to treat those patients in emergency rooms, by the loss of thousands of new health care jobs, by the good that Medicaid coverage has done for poor children here.... [State] Sen. [Ben] Nevers' [D] Senate Bill 96 would put a constitutional amendment on the Nov. 4 ballot.... The amendment would direct Louisiana's Department of Health and Hospitals to file everything necessary by Jan. 1, 2015, to receive the federal funding to provide Medicaid to residents who are at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty rate.... Lawmakers should pass Sen. Nevers' bill...." Via Greg Sargent.
Presidential Race
Katie Glueck of Politico: Rick Perry gets an "extreme makeover." This time around, advisors are working to try to ensure he isn't such a dolt. CW: Good luck with that. ...
... Andy Borowitz: "With an eye toward a Presidential run in 2016, Rick Perry, the Texas governor, is hoping that a two-pronged strategy of wearing glasses and not speaking will make him appear smarter to voters, aides to the Governor confirmed today." ...
... BUT there's this:
... Paul Weber of the AP: "A judge seated a grand jury in Austin [last] week to consider whether [Texas. Gov. Rick] Perry, who is weighing another run for the White House, abused his power when he carried out a threat to veto $7.5 million in state funding for public corruption prosecutors last summer. Aides to Perry say he legally exercised his veto power. Others say Perry was abusing his state office and is finally getting his comeuppance." ...
... Christy Hoppe of the Dallas Morning News: "The grand jury is looking at potentially three state statutes: whether ... [Perry] tried to bribe a public official into stepping down; if he abused his position by misusing public funding 'to obtain a benefit'; or whether -- and prosecutors believe this could be the strongest charge -- he tried to coerce [Travis County D.A. Rosemary] Lehmberg into taking 'a specific performance of [her] official duty."
Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "But his efforts to capitalize on his résumé and reputation have thrust [Jeb Bush] into situations that may prove challenging to explain should he mount a Republican campaign for the White House." Besides associating himself with a number of shady operations, "At one point, Mr. Bush sat on the boards of six companies, twice as many as leading corporate governance experts recommend given the time and fiduciary responsibilities of such a position."
News Ledes
New York Times: "American drones and Yemeni counterterrorism forces killed more than three dozen militants linked to Al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen over the weekend in one of the largest such attacks there in months, officials from both countries said Monday. At least three airstrikes were carried out against Qaeda fighters in a convoy and in remote training camps in southern Yemen. They were militants who were planning to attack civilian and military facilities, government officials said in a statement."
Guardian: "Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has accused Ukraine of violating an accord reached in Geneva last week aimed at averting a wider conflict. Lavrov also told a news conference that a deadly gunfight on Sunday near Slavyansk, a Ukrainian city controlled by pro-Russian separatists, showed Kiev did not want to control 'extremists'." ...
... Washington Post: "Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow will intervene if bloodshed continues -- even as Ukrainian officials accuse Russia of stirring it up."
Washington Post: "South Korean President Park Geun-hye castigated the captain and some crew members of a sunken ferry on Monday, saying their actions in abandoning a vessel with hundreds of passengers still aboard were 'tantamount to murder.' Park's comments came in the face of steady criticism about her government's response to the disaster amid a growing sense of fury in South Korea about alleged criminal incompetence aboard the ferry Sewol."
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Reader Comments (19)
Too late for yesterday's RC edition, but two leftover thoughts.
First, good to see Vox cited. The depth of the coverage so far offered on the site bode well (cross fingers here) for the future.
Second, the Common Core. In one way or another I have been following efforts to establish a Common Core for years, long before the present initiative by that name even existed.
Any effort to create and enforce a common curriculum for our nation's schools has significant political implications. In fact, because any education imposed on our youth carries a heavy burden of social and political baggage, it's no surprise that our schools have always been controversial laboratories, battlefields even, where we work out or war over the conflicting impulses we bring to them.
Are schools about preserving the status quo, a place to pass on our accumulated wisdom or inculcate our favorite mythologies, or are they places where we encourage exploration, creativity and innovation? Do we really believe the best education should be under the local control of disparate districts with disparate histories, mores and and academic goals, or should all children be treated to the same high academic standards, regardless of where they live?
Those two questions alone, obvious as they are, have not yet found a clear answer. In our schools consensus seeking is a messy process, frequently bound to fail.
Presently, confusing already confusing issues further is the cynical use of test scores to enforce a Common Core, which is often not about our children's education at all. Instead, in the name of educational improvement, we're using those scores to shatter the public's faith in their schools, to attack the teaching profession, to disguise the de facto segregation that is again almost as prevalent as it was before the forced bussing as well as the undeniable link between family income and the level of a child's academic achievement.
As expensive as the testing regime might be, it's far cheaper than actually doing anything meaningful about poverty. And as a bonus, testing provides a club to use against the unions that vote against the part of the Republican Party that knows that. The other part--the know-nothing segment that doesn't like to be told what to do by anyone, particularly the gummint, for any reason--can't stand either the Core or the tests.
It's that latter group, while hardly my friend, that is the temporary enemy of my enemy. It's an uncomfortable alliance.
@Ken Winkes: I'm wary of national testing & even of national educational standards. Rather than raising up students who attend substandard schools, I'm concerned there is a regression toward the mean.
As someone who was good at taking tests -- i.e., giving the teachers/profs the answers I figured they wanted -- I was always aware that testing was more-or-less a gimmick, & the "winners" were people like me who knew how to (or bothered to) game the gimmick. I never thought my good grades were evidence I was smarter than the next kid; only that I went to more trouble to psych out the professor.
But if teaching to the test is counterproductive, what about testing the teachers? Years ago, I took some education courses at a school that had a top-rated school of education. I was dumbfounded by the ignorance and/or stupidity of my fellow-students, most of whom went off the "teach" the kiddies. It seems to me that even if someone isn't a particularly effective teacher, if s/he has mastered the subject-matter (as too few have), s/he could manage to impart some of that knowledge to some of the students. Or not? What do you think?
Marie
Related to yesterday's Bundy discussion, this Daily Kos post provides some interesting information. If the state controlled the land he is using he could have to pay the state of Nevada for grazing rights at $15.50 per head of cattle, rather than the federal rate of $1.35. The blogger also provides some interesting information regarding Bundy's version of the Constitution. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/20/1293342/-EXPOSED-The-Source-Of-Cliven-Bundy-s-Crackpot-Constitutionalism
Ken and Marie,
I've also had doubts. I think there should be standards, but not perhaps the ones being promulgated. I also think education is (or has been ) at a crossroads that require us, as a society, to think about what is we want from education. The answer to that question can be empowering, uplifting, and a thesaurus full of other positive expressions, or it can be nothing more or less than scary.
It behooves us all to remember that, when dealing with the right (a major player--perhaps the biggest one since it is, at this point, the best organized and motivated), that simplistic and easy solutions are their choice. They have a mass aversion to complex thinking. Solutions that might be difficult to implement, but ultimately very successful, are not their cup of hemlock. We'll get to the original hemlock imbiber shortly.
So let's look at a couple of examples. The problem of crime and punishment, for one. Rather than attempt to address the sources of much crime, poverty, poor schools, bad education, few opportunities, racism, the solution promoted by most on the right is harsher penalties, more prisons, and not just prisons, but for-profit prisons. Hey, if you're going to lock up more people than Iran, might as well make some money doing it. And when those people get out, if they ever do, throw 'em back in the slammer. More money.
EZ.
Foreign policy. If there's a problem, bomb it. Wars are good business, doncha know? This is all about FREEEEDOM and, of course, money.
Education? Better to go with (I love this expression) "public" charter schools. We can control what the masses learn (not much) and make money to boot.
So easy and lucrative are always the best options for the right.
But what if we adjusted the way we, as a society, looked at teaching as a profession? What if we took a page from Socrates and, instead of teaching to tests, teach kids how to think critically? I know there are great teachers out there who try this, but that's not what happens for most kids. Why not make teaching a lucrative option? Make it difficult to become one (a kind of educational marine corps) and make it a prestigious avocation.
In other words, make it a priority. Attract the best and the brightest. Otherwise, you're left with medieval mooks in Texas writing textbooks for the rest of the country.
And where are progressives and Democrats on all this? Where they usually are, all over the place. That's why the right is winning. They're focused, well financed, motivated, and scared. Scared that kids might learn that the right is not working in their best interests.
I realize this sounds very pipe-dreamy, and I don't know exactly how this all gets implemented. I do know that we are on the verge on sliding backwards, very far down the slope. We can't go back and we definitely don't want the kind of future being pushed and financed by oligarchs and demagogues.
Because for many (most) on the right, it's all a scam. The biggest scammers of the last 75 years, the Bush family, have been pushing their own for-profit "education" ideas. Who cares if kids learn as long as they make money.
But even worse are the ones financed by the Kochs and supported by Teabag screamers.
No wonder Socrates ordered a double hemlock, neat.
One more thought about the educational options we face.
I would have put this in the previous post but, prolixity being a lamentable side effect of my posting proclivities, I thought better of it.
But since this is a different comment....
Anyway, back to ancient Greece (my mythological homeland) for a moment.
The premier city-states on the Attic peninsula were, as everyone knows, diametrically opposed to one another in diverse and multiple ways. Education in Sparta consisted mostly of what was required for military supremacy. Athens went another way, although its military accomplishments (especially naval victories) were not inconsiderable--it was the Athenians, after all, who booted Xerxes' butt into the Aegean. But one could argue that were it not for the martial spirit of Sparta, Athens may have added its name to the list of great lost cities of ancient history (Babylon, Persepolis, Thebes, Patterson, NJ...).
It's not a perfect analogy, but for Sparta, education existed to serve those in power. Everyone was trained to serve their interests. And, in that way, it was successful. For a time. But the interests of Athenians (yes, they weren't fans of Socrates, it's true) left us the beginnings of modern western civilization. Works by Athenians are still read and performed and consulted, as we speak.
Not so much Sparta, which, as far as most of us are concerned, has about as much influence on the modern world as Carthage. When was the last time you read anything by a Spartan philosopher?
Learning for its own sake, for the betterment of the individual, the pursuit of truth, not doctored up ideological claptrap, seems the highest goal for the continued salutary, beneficent development of humankind. Education controlled by those in power to support their own goals is what is being offered by the right today.
How'd that work out for Sparta?
Marie,
I'm on a timeline so am pleased that Akhilleus said much that I might have said about education in our benighted republic circa 2014.
But three additional thoughts. First, regarding your question, Marie, which should come first, the manner or matter of teaching? Even that is complicated. I had the benefit of a strong undergraduate degree in subject matter first, followed by a teaching degree. In my subsequent career, I never met another teacher outside of the university town where I first taught, who had a similarly strong store of content to impart. And I think that strong background did make me a better teacher, BUT later in my career I also met and supervised teachers (at the middle grade level, when I believe specialized subject matter begins to be important) whose knowledge I judged to be remarkably and frighteningly weak, who were nonetheless good teachers because they projected the open-hearted gift of acceptance to kids who needed it, as so many of them do.
When we think most kids come to school to "learn," we--especially the curriculum directors and test creators among us-- are making a huge mistake. Maybe they should be there to engage with the subject matter as I'd guess most of us here on this site did, but they do not. Schools do not exist in isolation and they serve many purposes, many of which reflect our larger social and cultural priorities, some of them directly contrary to successfully imparting subject matter. In short, there are a lot of cultural and economic incentives telling our children that learning algebra is not really all that important, despite what we hope to convey by testing them to death.
Finally, regardless of how our testing mania is now applied and abused, some of its original intent--tests have been around for a long time; as I remember the flavor of some of the dialogs, even Socrates was occasionally testy-- was positive: an effort to create and maintain a common culture among different people, who live closer and closer together and must therefore be able to communicate and get along, and an effort to support and ensure the same high standards (however defined, ah there's the rub!) for all.
Haven't begun to cover it all, I know, but I suspect the subject will come up again when I might have time to give it another shot.
So I was going to say something about Blowup Doll Boy Douthat's latest steaming pile of flapdoodle but decided against it. The words "fish" and "barrel" arrive unbidden to the mind.
So too does demise. As in NY Times demise. How does this fraud, this fumbler, this intellectual poseur, this stunted, religiously warped little twit who can't even write a decent sentence, have a job as a NY Times opinionator? To paraphrase Dick Cavett, it's like hiring Emmett Kelly as your clothing consultant.
The question is somewhat rhetorical, but it shouldn't be. It deserves an answer. Seriously, if Douthat and Brooks are the only conservative columnists the Times can find (those whose opinions are worthy of consideration, that is), then there is either something wrong with them or with the state of conservative thinkers.
Probably both.
But the guy on Daily Kos, Mark Sumner, who observes with wonderment how Doll Boy can spew stuff out his ass and still get paid, doesn't reckon with the catastrophic calumny and arrogance of wingnut thinkers. If Douthat's make believe bullshit is proffered with a straight face and every intention of cashing a NY Times check, it's because conservative "thinkers" pretty much ALL make shit up, all the time, and still get published, and get paid.
It's a function of state, like water turning to ice at 32 degrees, or the relationship between temperature and pressure, or electric and magnetic fields. Conservatives "think" and crap comes out. And not even stylish crap in most cases.
Conservative "thinking" is to intellectual honesty as a flat tire is to smooth travel.
Of course, it could just be that Douthat had to dash off his latest roll of used Charmin so he could test drive a new blowup doll.
Those conservative thinkers, so impulsive, so inquisitive!
No wonder Krugman feels like tearing his hair out when trying to argue with these jamokes. It's like trying to play chess with idiots who can't even win at checkers without cheating.
Re: Teach your children well; @ all who commented on common core, kinder ed. and on to post grad work... . I watched a parent couple teaching their offspring the other morning while I was drinking coffee in the yard. Mom would show her babies how to eat, sometimes even placing the food in the little ones mouths. Dad mostly watched but every once in awhile would help out. One of the babies was much better at the game than it's sibling. Dad took a big sip of water and within minutes the more engaged offspring did the same. In time I could tell one little one was much more advanced than the other. Which one of these little finches is going on to an advanced degree?
To me all the talk about learning and education and how to improve math scores comes back to those little finches I was watching in the garden.
First, the parents have to have the time and inclination to ready their offspring for the real world. Second, the resources must be in place for learning and growth. Third, we must realize some little ones are faster, brighter, quicker learners than others.
Start with life skills and never set a standard that is too high.
I live in a town where kids come to pre-kinder having never seen a book sit next to a kid that has her own tablet. Without early, really early learning, public education, imho; is doomed. So without parents with the time to teach at home, we are doomed. And without a job that allows time for at home teaching we're doomed. So all the bullshit about improving education by fed. fiat is nothing but bullshit unless it goes hand in hand with improved social conditions.
To involved all things in RC today; the "Capital" that Frenchie is talking about needs to be spread a little more equally among us stakeholders and so society has the ability to educate the next gen.
@Re: David Brooks. Whatever happened to Teddy Roosevelt's "Speak softly and carry a big stick?" Speak belligerently? I wish to point out to Our Miss Brooks that Obama HAS a big stick--the US military and the West's economic power, so there's no need to make threats.
Here's another guy who "should back up to the pay table", i.e. he didn't earn his pay.
Hmmm....just skimmed an item announcing that NBC has commenced a Dance of Experts and a Colloquy of the Consultants to find out why, oh why the ratings for Meet the Press are in the crapper. Why is this show so freaking bad? The tide comes in, the tide goes out. Who knows why?
Gee...well, let's see now.
Tell you what, NBC, you give me half the money you're spending on the experts and consultants and I'll give you the answer.
Hint: It's two words and they start with DG.
I'll take check, money order, or coin of the realm. No IOU's though.
Some of the MTP fail must fall on Greggers’ producer and his network overlords. Greggers by his lonesome can’t be singly responsible for filling his green room with an endlessly revolving assortment of has-beens, never-wases, party hacks, and intellectual nitwits who waste viewers’ time with every Sunday.
If this is redundant, sorry. But for anyone interested in how much our politics and governance are fucked up, it's a a must read:
http://www.demos.org/stacked-deck-how-dominance-politics-affluent-business-undermines-economic-mobility-america
James,
I declined to put the blame on the Meet the Press producers because, even though they certainly contribute mightily to the milieu of the show, they aren't the ones asking the questions. If the talent (Fluffy) is prone to softball questions and sycophantic testicle bathing with his tongue, that becomes the style of the show and everyone else falls in line. Even as serious a producer like Fred Friendly couldn't make Fluffy ask tough questions and then follow them up with the necessary punches and counter punches. "Oh, you think poor people shouldn't have health care? I can't agree more (lick, lick, lap, lap, lap)."
If your main guy is a gutless douchebag whose idea of a tough question is "What's your favorite color", no producer can turn that tomato can into Edward R. Murrow.
The talent, at that level, sets the tone. Maybe some executive producer chooses the host for his or her obsequious nature, but it's still up to the talent to put things into motion. The coach can tell the quarterback what he'd like, but it's the QB who has to make it all work.
Or not.
Or, as in the case of Fuzzy Greggers, make it work as insipidity on a stick.
oooh....terrible editing...
should have been "as serious a producer as Fred Friendly...."
I know–-it's late in the day but...Here's a story that will give you smiles, and hats off to this twelve year old girl who goes to the heart of the matter and who not only slams women like Shafley who give young women the entirely wrong message, but takes on the governor of her state. And apropos of the interesting discussion here on education I want to single out Barbarossa's emphasis on the early education in the home––so vital, so necessary for learning later. We know the sponge like quality of those young brains and how they soak up so much early in their young lives.
Oops! forgot the link:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/19/1293216/-Phyllis-Schlafly-Gets-Schooled-By-A-Twelve-Year-Old?detail=email
Sorry, AK. Don't believe in the Great Man theory of history. Greggers is the creation of the NBC marketing department and his producer(s). Nothing more. Softball in, softball out. He's exactly what the network wanted and crafted.
I believe there's another economic incentive, unrelated to hard times, for a Boomer to move into his or her parents' CA home.
If that home is your residence before your aging parent passes, you will remain under the generous umbrella of Prop 13, which keeps property taxes at antediluvian rates until the property changes hands. I know of one relatively well-to-do woman whom I've been told, along with her husband, now inhabits her father's northern CA home, but since he passed away and she had extensive remodeling done on it (it's virtually a new home), she still pays the same property tax that her father had for the previous thirty years.
Maybe Boomers are simply preparing themselves for retirement, supplementing their portfolios, IRA's and 401K's in an obvious, intelligent (and CA infrastructure destroying) way.
If I'm wrong about this ploy, I'd be pleased to know it....
James,
I think you missed my point. Gregory is about as far from a great man as you can get. Of course he's what NBC wanted. An obsequious turd. He simply doesn't have the moficum of presence or the semblance of substance that so many of the other turds offer. No producer can hide the lack nor provide the sack. Or a substitution thereof.