Starbucks Needs a Fresh Jolt!

I'm not that hard on Starbucks.

I'll stop in for a latte now and then, hanging out with a copy of the New York Times, or doing some grading while I'm there. I appreciate the bookish ambiance, which was not a streetcorner phenomenon back in the '80s. I try not to pay attention to the left-wing, socially conscious politics of the place, although it's undeniable.

Thus, I'm getting a kick from Right Wing Professor's great post on Starbucks, a company that's maxed-out its market saturation, and has suffered a sharp drop-off in business of late:

I don’t know if you’ve been following this, but here’s a quick run down.

Starbucks is started to cater to the chi-chi latte liberal crowd. Starbucks adds wi-fi.

Starbucks almost immediately has problems. The group they cater to also hates capitalists. Starbucks does everything they can to be ultra-green, socially conscious, and offers everything they can to make the latte liberals feel good about themselves if they buy Starbucks coffee.

Starbucks adds catered bakery items and sandwiches, and begins to compete with Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s, Burger King, you name it — but only barely (keep reading).

In the meantime, every business on the block starts putting in wi-fi, removing that niche for Starbucks.

Starbucks adds drive-through windows, and revenues skyrocket (and are you surprised, given that with a drive-through, you don’t have to put up with all of the dolphins and rainbows and “fair-trade” nonsense?) Starbucks builds more and more stores, over-saturating the market.

With me so far? Geese and ganders and all that, so since Starbucks had decided to play with the big boys, they decided to play back, starting with Dunkin’ Donuts, when they started offering espresso-derived coffee drinks. Dunkin’ Donuts was boosted by several loudly touted consumer surveys, which found that people preferred Dunkin’ Donuts’ coffees to those at Starbucks. Dunkin’ Donuts then begins a very savvy ad campaign, which mocks Starbucks chi-chi-ness.

Starbucks, with an over-saturated market (there are blocks in Midtown that have three Starbucks), and (shudder!) competition from Dunkin’ Donuts begins to lose market share (read: customers). And revenue.

Then the really big boy on the block decided to start playing: McDonald’s.

This fall, a McDonald’s here added a position to its crew: barista.

McDonald’s is setting out to poach Starbucks customers with the biggest addition to its menu in 30 years. Starting this year, the company’s nearly 14,000 U.S. locations will install coffee bars with “baristas” serving cappuccinos, lattes, mochas and the Frappe, similar to Starbucks’ ice-blended Frappuccino...

And McDonald’s sales revenues for their espresso-line in test markets are through the roof. Of course, like Dunkin’ Donuts, you don’t get the squishy, gooey, organic, free-range, warm fuzzies you do from Starbucks, and they’re not catering to the real fussy idiots who have to have exactly this particular kind of fake milk and that particular esoteric flavoring flown in from Italy, but run the numbers (which I don’t have in front of me). Just in terms of customers, how many thousands more people go to McDonald’s as opposed to Starbucks?

Read the whole thing.

It looks like Starbucks needs a "fresh jolt."

A Contemporary Left-Wing Manifesto

What's the hardline ideological agenda of the "progressive" left, the type of radical manifesto on the issues we'd likely see under a left-wing administration next year.

Sarah at Corrente lays it out for us, "So Who DO We, The Democrats, Stand For? ":

Do we stand for working Americans? I do. I think Hillary Clinton does. I know John Edwards does.

Do we stand for universal health care — including for adults? I do. I know John Edwards does.

Do we stand for Social Security? I do. I know John Edwards does and Hillary does. I don’t know about Obama.

Do we stand for ending the US’ invasions/occupations in the Middle East? Yes.

Do we stand for shutting down Gitmo? I do.

Do we stand for stopping torture? I do.

Do we stand for a sane policy on drugs, and an end to imprisonment of 6 out of every 10 young non-Anglo men? Yes.

Do we stand for equal rights for women? I do. I think women ought to make the same money for the same work as men; I think they ought to be able to work, vote, own property, run for President, wear comfortable clothes, and pursue happiness — whether or not that means carrying any particular pregnancy to term — the same as any man.

Do we stand for equal treatment under the law for every person? I do.

Do we stand for a sane immigration policy? Yes.

Do we stand for enforcing the laws protecting laborers and the environment? Yes.

Do we stand for humane treatment for POWs (recognition of their status as POWs regardless of their ’uniform’, too!)?

Do we stand for alternative energy, so the whims of ExxonMobil need not rule our worlds? I do.

What do YOU stand for?

Now, which Presidential candidate do you think stands for the same ideals? Why?

Well, good question: What do you stand for?

Personally, I'm standing for whatever'll keep these nuts - represented especially by the Carter-esque appeasing, political identity-touting, tree-hugging, Exxon-bashing Democrat who's about to win the nomination - as far from the Oval Office as possible.

There are some contradictions in this wish list, you might have noticed.

For example, why would one be worried about the "sane" treatment of (non-uniformed POW!) enemy combatants when we're going to end "the US’ invasions/occupations in the Middle East"?

I'd bet that should an administration come to power that yanks American forces from our deployments in the Midde East, it'll also release prisoners held at Guantanamo, either sending them back to Afghanistan and Iraq (to prepare new attacks against the United States) or it'll grant them full domestic due process rights, with judical trials in the American courts, affording them publically-financed legal representation.

Nothing to worry about, right? Nope, not at all. We'll just grant these folks domestic trials, release them on their own "personal recognizance," and they'll be back on the next flight to Damacus in no time, care of the kindest "immigrants' rights" group of the day!

But you've got to love the "whims of ExxonMobil"slur!

I'd be happy to give far-left advocates some respect, but the thinking of these folks makes so little sense in the context of real word political and market realities that it's practially futile.

I spoke previously of Barack Obama's proposal to levy a $15 windfall profits tax on big oil, but make sure you see the Wall Street Journal's editorial, which came out subsequently: "Windfall Profits for Dummies."

The Dignity of Plants?

Do plants have rights?

The powers that be in Switzerland think so, via Weekly Standard:

You just knew it was coming: At the request of the Swiss government, an ethics panel has weighed in on the "dignity" of plants and opined that the arbitrary killing of flora is morally wrong. This is no hoax. The concept of what could be called "plant rights" is being seriously debated.

A few years ago the Swiss added to their national constitution a provision requiring "account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms." No one knew exactly what it meant, so they asked the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology to figure it out. The resulting report, "The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants," is enough to short circuit the brain.

A "clear majority" of the panel adopted what it called a "biocentric" moral view, meaning that "living organisms should be considered morally for their own sake because they are alive." Thus, the panel determined that we cannot claim "absolute ownership" over plants and, moreover, that "individual plants have an inherent worth." This means that "we may not use them just as we please, even if the plant community is not in danger, or if our actions do not endanger the species, or if we are not acting arbitrarily."

But behold the explanation for this enumeration of plant rights, which is right on:

Why is this happening? Our accelerating rejection of the Judeo-Christian world view, which upholds the unique dignity and moral worth of human beings, is driving us crazy. Once we knocked our species off its pedestal, it was only logical that we would come to see fauna and flora as entitled to rights.

The intellectual elites were the first to accept the notion of "species-ism," which condemns as invidious discrimination treating people differently from animals simply because they are human beings. Then ethical criteria were needed for assigning moral worth to individuals, be they human, animal, or now vegetable.

Rising to the task, leading bioethicists argue that for a human, value comes from possessing sufficient cognitive abilities to be deemed a "person." This excludes the unborn, the newborn, and those with significant cognitive impairments, who, personhood theorists believe, do not possess the right to life or bodily integrity. This thinking has led to the advocacy in prestigious medical and bioethical journals of using profoundly brain impaired patients in medical experimentation or as sources of organs.

The animal rights movement grew out of the same poisonous soil. Animal rights ideology holds that moral worth comes with sentience or the ability to suffer. Thus, since both animals and humans feel pain, animal rights advocates believe that what is done to an animal should be judged morally as if it were done to a human being. Some ideologues even compare the Nazi death camps to normal practices of animal husbandry. For example, Charles Patterson wrote in Eternal Treblinka--a book specifically endorsed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals--that "the road to Auschwitz begins at the slaughterhouse."

Eschewing humans as the pinnacle of "creation" (to borrow the term used in the Swiss constitution) has caused environmentalism to mutate from conservationism--a concern to properly steward resources and protect pristine environs and endangered species--into a willingness to thwart human flourishing to "save the planet." Indeed, the most radical "deep ecologists" have grown so virulently misanthropic that Paul Watson, the head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, called humans "the AIDS of the earth," requiring "radical invasive therapy" in order to reduce the population of the earth to under a billion.

As for "plant rights," if the Swiss model spreads, it may hobble biotechnology and experimentation to improve crop yields. As an editorial in Nature News put it:

The [Swiss] committee has .  .  . come up with few concrete examples of what type of experiment might be considered an unacceptable insult to plant dignity. The committee does not consider that genetic engineering of plants automatically falls into this category, but its majority view holds that it would if the genetic modification caused plants to "lose their independence"--for example by interfering with their capacity to reproduce.

One Swiss scientist quoted in the editorial worried that "plant dignity" provides "another tool for opponents to argue against any form of plant biotechnology" despite the hope it offers to improve crop yields and plant nutrition.

What folly. We live in a time of cornucopian abundance and plenty, yet countless human beings are malnourished, even starving. In the face of this cruel paradox, worry about the purported rights of plants is the true immorality.

What folly, indeed.

Arianna Huffington's Right Wing Fringe

Glenn Greenwald has a brief review, at Firedoglake (where else?), of Arianna Huffington's new book, Right Is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe.

I've written on Greenwald quite a bit, but ever since Megan McArdle smacked him down mercilessly, I can't resist quoting her line hammering him as a preface:

Mr Greenwald's anger at the establishment power structure seems to be rapidly transmuting into anger at the non-Glenn-Greenwald power structure...

The anger's showing again in Greenwald's introduction to Huffington's book:

Arianna Huffington's latest book -- Right Is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe -- thoroughly documents the most influential fact in our political life: namely, that the right-wing faction which has taken over the Republican Party is radical, deeply hostile to America's core political traditions and values, and incomparably destructive. As she puts it: "they don't believe in evolution but believe in torture."

But the real value of this book is its examination of the two key culprits in the ascension of this right-wing fringe: the establishment media and the Beltway leaders of the Democratic Party. Huffington's insights are most piercing and innovative when her targets are the bloated, empty-headed media stars who have done more than anyone else to allow this fringe group to masquerade as part of the mainstream. And she pinpoints the dual afflictions which have rendered the media totally supine, when they aren't actively complicit, in the face of this falsehood-spewing, extremist movement -- the twisted notion of journalistic "balance" which means that they present every claim no matter how objectively false, along with the "self-hating" mentality of "liberal" journalists who have internalized right-wing smears and thus repeat them and seek to accommodate them...

I'm always amazed at this theme of the compliant, enabling, and slacking journalistic establishment. If these guys are so bad - "the two key culprits," the second being the Democrats - Greenwald and Huffington should just quit writing about the GOP and direct their anger at the real enemy!

Not only that, the media-enabler is a fiction of the left's mind. Both left and right take sides, as we have in many respects a partisan press, with CNN on the left and Fox on the right in television journalism, and with the New York Times on the left and the Wall Street Journal on the right in print journalism. Most of the other political news outlets follow along down partisan lines from there.

Gross generalizations are the key logical fallacy at the heart of Greenwald's work, but to Huffington's as well, if this review has any merit to it at all.

But what's really good here is Huffington's language itself, which obviously gets Greenwald aroused:

The other not-so-innocent bystanders to the Right’s takeover are the Democrats who have continued to tread far too lightly when it comes to holding the GOP’s fanatical core accountable. Time and time again, the Democratic leadership has allowed itself to get played, run over, or distracted.

The "right's takeover" and the "GOP's fanatical core"?

What is Huffington taking about?

Oh sure, we'd need to see text from the full book itself for context, but the theme of a Republican takeover's clear enough, and wrong.

President Bush won a clear majority in 2004, and he's been battling the Supreme Court on constitutional issues like habeas corpus for enemy combatants, especially on Guantanamo Bay military commissions and detainees' rights, throughout his administration.

But note too: Arianna Huffington always been one of our current era's least effective critics of the Republican Party.

She was formerly married to Michael Huffington, a Republican big-money oil heir and carpetbagger who won a seat to Congress from Santa Barbara, California, in 1992. He immediately filed to challenge Dianne Feinstein in her reelection to the U.S. Senate for the next election in 2004. He spent over $30 million in a losing bid and Arianna divorced him in 1997.

My long-running counterfactual hypothesis on Huffington holds that she'd still be married had Michael won a seat to the Senate, and he'd likely have run for the GOP presidential nomination at least once. The lesson for young senatorial aspirants with hot, power-hungry wives is to know that your sweetcakes will show you the door shortly after losing the election. Hopefully those prenups are in order!

Arianna's a Greek-born and Cambridge-educated socialite, who parlayed her broken marriage into a career as an opportunistic far left-wing columnist.

When Mayhill Fowler got in trouble for outing Barack Obama's "bitter" comments at Huffington Post last month, Arianna had okay'd the publication of the breaking story while vacationing on David Geffen's 454 foot yacht in the Bahamas.

There's more of that worker solidarity for you!

This is not a criticism of her analysis (I'll likely read the book), only some background analysis to put things in perspective.

Greenwald doesn't care - anything's gold that take a good shot at the non-Glenn-Greenwald power structure!

Photo Credit: "Becoming more publisher than columnist, Arianna Huffington calls Huffington Post an “Internet newspaper,” New York Times

But I Have No Fear...

My commenter Winfred suggested I might like the Rolling Stones', "'Shine a Light' in IMAX" (in response to my recent post, "More Light ... Sun, Sun, Sun, Here it Comes!").

I haven't checked out a Stones' IMAX, although I searched around for a good rendition of "Angie" with which to put up a post.

I'm holding off on "Angie" for now, but in the meantime please enjoy The Clash, "London Calling":

I mentioned in my first "lightening up" post that I was a big skateboarder in my late-teens and early-twenties, and also that I spent a lot of time up in L.A. hitting the rock concert circuit.

I'll comment more about that history in upcoming posts, although I can say now that over a period of about three years I saw literally hundreds of live gigs, including bands from the Damned to the Dead Kennedys, the Exploited to the English Beat, the Ramones to Roxy Music, and from Stevie Nicks to the Stray Cats.

I never did make it to a live show with The Clash, and although they toured in L.A. during this time, something else was going simultaneously (another concert, I think), competing for my attention.

In later years, I regretted missing the band more acutely when I learned of Joe Strummer's death in 2002. He passed before his time, though he'll be remembered as one of the greats.

Lyrics are here, and in part below:

London calling to the faraway towns
Now war is declared - and battle come down
London calling to the underworld
Come out of the cupboard,you boys and girls
London calling, now don't look at us
All that phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust
London calling, see we ain't got no swing
'Cept for the REIGN of that truncheon thing

CHORUS
The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in
Meltdown expected, the wheat is growing thin
Engines stop running, but I have no fear
Cause London is drowning - I, I live by the river

London calling to the imitation zone
Forget it, brother, you can go at it alone
London calling upon the zombies of death
Quit holding out - and draw another breath
London calling - and I don't wanna shout
But while we were talking I saw you running out
London calling, see we ain't got no HIGH
Except for that one with the yellowy eyes

CHORUS x2
The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in
Engines stop running and the wheat is growing thin
A nuclear ERROR, but I have no fear
Cause London is drowning - I, I live by the river

More later dear readers! Keep it light!!

Hillary Clinton Gets Some Conservative Respect!

Leave it to Noemie Emery to perfecty nail the enigma surrounding Hillary Clinton's recent political comeback.

Even some conservatives are pumping up the New York Senator's chances, which is a big deal, considering the crazed days of the "vast-right wing conspiracy" :

'Strange new respect' is the term coined by Tom Bethell, an unhappy conservative, to describe the press adulation given those who drift leftward, those who grow "mature," "wise," and "thoughtful" as they cause apoplexy in right-wingers, and leave their old allies behind. But no new respect has been quite so peculiar as that given by some on the right to Hillary Clinton--since 1992 their ultimate nightmare--whose possible triumph in this year's election has been the source of their most intense fear. Lately, however, a strange thing has happened: A tactical hope to see her campaign flourish--to keep the brawl going and knock dents in Obama--has changed to, at least in some cases, a grudging respect for the lady herself. Actually, they may not have changed quite so much as she has (who knows, perhaps merely changed in her image and tactics), but the Hillary of May 2008 is radically different from the Hillary of two months ago, much less the one of last year, or of eight years back. And this one (at least till the nomination is settled) has some traits the right wing can love.

I plead guilty to this "new respect," although I'm mostly down among the 9th tier bloggers, and I doubt I'm having that much impact beyond pissing off a few neo-confederates.

But sure, I'll be the first to denounce Hillary's far-left views, and even worse her sick propensity for pandering to the leftist, nihilist base (many of whom can't stand her anyway).

Still, I love an underdog, which in Hillary's case is a surprising category, given her inevitablity last year.

Emery explains why some conservatives are liking Hill after eight years of "Billary," when she'd have been fortunate to get the time of day:

One observer once said that the main importance of PT-109 in the life of John Kennedy was that it was the only time in his life (until he was murdered) when the power and wealth of his father couldn't help him at all. Hillary in February 2008, after Obama's stunning string of 10 victories, was like JFK in the water--everything she was used to relying on had proved to be useless, except that in her case the people around her kept trying to hold her head under, insisting it was for her, and of course for the party's, own good. In these dire straits, Hillary channeled her inner survivor, and, like John Kennedy, became a Gut Fighter writ large. She fought her way to an island, dragging her crew mates behind her, fed them on coconuts, and sent word for rescue. And then it came. "This one's for you!" she cried out to her base in hard-pressed Ohio as she pulled out the Big One, to their riotous cheers.

It was about this time that her presentation, and her persona, underwent notable change.

After March 4, she suddenly seemed to look and sound different: She began to seem real. The shrillness was gone, and so was The Cackle, and so were the forced southern accents that once caused so many so much merriment. Hillary!--whoever that was--never really cohered as a character; her previous poses--the Perfect Wife, the Aggrieved Wife, the Empress-in-Waiting--were all unconvincing, but in her new role--the scrapper, forced to the wall, and hanging in there with ferocious and grim resolution--she is suddenly all of a piece. Along with her inner JFK, she has channeled her inner Robert F. Kennedy (going back to the days when he was still "ruthless"), along with her inner Margaret Thatcher--"No time to go wobbly"--along with echoes of the John McCain who clawed his way out of the grave only last winter, and the George W. Bush who just as tenaciously saved his Iraq policy--and maybe Iraq itself--from the Democrats in Congress last year.

It is no accident that it was just at this juncture that she began to rouse outrage in parts of what once was her base. It is a truism that liberals think people are formed by exterior forces around them and are helpless before them, while conservatives think individuals make their own destiny. Liberals love victims and want them to stay helpless, so they can help them, with government programs; while conservatives love those who refuse to be victims, and get up off the canvas and fight. Hillary may still be a nanny-state type in some of her policies, but in her own life she seems more and more of a Social Darwinian, refusing to lose, and insisting on shaping her destiny. If the fittest survive, she intends to be one of them. This takes her part of the way towards a private conversion. She is acting like one of our own.

If this weren't enough to make right-wing hearts flutter, Hillary has another brand-new advantage: She is hated on all the right fronts. The snots and the snark-mongers now all despise her, along with the trendies, the glitzies; the food, drama, and lifestyle critics, the beautiful people (and those who would join them), the Style sections of all the big papers; the slick magazines; the above-it-all pundits, who have looked down for years on the Republicans and on the poor fools who elect them, and now sneer even harder at her. The New York Times is having hysterics about her. At the New Republic, Jonathan Chait (who inspired the word "Chaitred" for his pioneer work on Bush hatred) has transferred his loathing of the 43rd president intact and still shining to her. "She should now go gentle into the political night," he advised in January. "Go Already!" he repeated in March, when she had failed to act on his suggestion. "No Really, You Should Go," he said in April after she won Pennsylvania, which made her even less likely to take his advice. "Now that loathing seems a lot less irrational," he wrote of the right wing's prior distaste for both the Clintons. "We just really wish they'd go away."

And what caused this display of intense irritation? She's running a right-wing campaign. She's running the classic Republican race against her opponent, running on toughness and use-of-force issues, the campaign that the elder George Bush ran against Michael Dukakis, that the younger George Bush waged in 2000 and then again against John Kerry, and that Ronald Reagan--"The Bear in the Forest"--ran against Jimmy Carter and Walter F. Mondale. And she's doing it with much the same symbols.

"Clinton became the first Democratic candidate to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11," the New York Times has been whining. "A Clinton television ad, torn right from Karl Rove's playbook, evoked the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, the Cuban missile crisis, the cold war, and 9/11 attacks, complete with video of Osama bin Laden . . . declaring in an interview with ABC News that if Iran attacked Israel while she were president," she would wipe the aggressor off the face of the earth. "Clinton is saying almost exactly the same things about Obama that McCain is," Chait lamented: "He's inexperienced, lacking in substance," unprepared to stand up to the world. She has said her opponent is ill-prepared to answer the phone, should it ring in the White House at three in the morning. Her ads are like the ones McCain would be running in her place, and they'll doubtless show up in McCain's ads should Obama defeat her. She has said that while she and McCain are both prepared to be president, Obama is not. They act, he makes speeches. They take heat, while he tends to wilt or to faint in the kitchen. He may even throw like a girl.

And better--or worse--she is becoming a social conservative, a feminist form of George Bush. Against an opponent who shops for arugula, hangs out with ex-Weathermen, and says rural residents cling to guns and to God in unenlightened despair at their circumstances, she has rushed to the defense of religion and firearms, while knocking back shots of Crown Royal and beer. Her harsh, football-playing Republican father (the villain of the piece, against whom she rebelled in earlier takes on her story) has become a role model, a working class hero, whose name she evokes with great reverence. Any day now, she'll start talking Texan, and cutting the brush out in Chappaqua or at her posh mansion on Embassy Row.

In the right-wing conspiracy, this adaptation has not gone unobserved. "Hillary has shown a Nixonian resilience and she's morphing into Scoop Jackson," runs one post on National Review's blog, The Corner:

She's entering the culture war as a general. All of this has made her a far more formidable general election candidate. She's fighting the left and she's capturing the center. She's denounced MoveOn.org. She's become the Lieberman of the Democratic Party. The left hates her and treats her like Lieberman. . . . Obama is distancing himself from Wright and Hillary is getting in touch with O'Reilly. The culture war has come to the Democratic Party.

She might run to the right of McCain, if she makes it to the general election, and get the votes of rebellious conservatives. Or she, Lieberman, and McCain could form a pro-war coalition, with all of them running to pick up the phone when it rings in the small hours. The New York Times and the rest of the left would go crazy. Respect can't get stranger than that.

To the right of John McCain?

Hey, maybe Ann Coulter had it right all along!

Racial Divisions Lingering on Campus Despite Obama Appeal

With the best of both worlds this season - a woman and a minority candidate to choose from in the Democratic race - there's bound to be some angst and uncomfort on the left of the spectrum (remember James Wolcott's great piece on the Democratic split in the left blogosphere).

It seems, though, among young people on the nation's college campuses, Barack Obama's captured the spirit of change.

Yet support for Obama across the range of college-age demographics has yet to break down the entrenched self-segregation of in-group racial dynamics: Young white and black voters are still sitting on opposite sides of the cafeteria.

The Wall Street Journal's got more on the Democrats' campus disunity:

Walking into his "Race and Politics" class recently, David Sparks, a white Duke University political-science graduate student, considered whether to move from his usual seat in the group of white students who always clustered at one end of the seminar table to sit with the black students who typically sat at the other end.

Mr. Sparks didn't do it. "It would have felt too conspicuous," he says. Still, on Tuesday's primary here, Mr. Sparks plans to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president. That's an easier choice, he says.

"When you're actually trying to change your behavior, you are putting more on the line compared to voting in the privacy of the booth," he says. "There are millions and millions of people voting for Obama. In no way are you sticking your neck out."

Across the country, college campuses have become hotbeds of support for Sen. Obama. Nationally, 70% of Democrats ages 18 to 24 favor Sen. Obama compared with 30% for Hillary Clinton, according to a recent poll by Harvard's Institute of Politics. Many black and many white students wear their Obama buttons and "Got Hope?" T-shirts proudly as a sign that they are part of a post-Civil-Rights generation more welcoming of change and diversity than their parents.

But after classes -- and after the occasional Obama rally -- most black and white students on college campuses go their separate ways, living in separate dormitories, joining separate fraternities and sororities and attending separate parties.

"It's much harder to be a white person and go to an all black party at Duke than vote for Obama, says Jessie Weingartner, a Duke junior. "On a personal level it is harder to break those barriers down."

Jazmyn Singleton, a black Duke senior agrees, After living in a predominantly white dorm freshman year, she lives with five African-American women in an all-black dormitory. "Both communities tend to be very judgmental," says Ms. Singleton, ruefully. "There is pressure to be black. The black community can be harsh. People will say there are 600 blacks on campus but only two-thirds are 'black' because you can't count blacks who hang out with white people."

The racial divisions among college students are striking both because of the fervor for Obama and the increasing diversity on campus. Colleges offer a unique opportunity for students to get to know each other in a relaxed atmosphere where many of the issues that often divide blacks and whites, like income and educational levels, are minimized amid the common goals of going to class, playing sports and going to parties.

I wonder what that means, "there's great pressure to be black"?

Is it that "the poison of identity politics" has drastically consigned the races to their respected quarters of campus racial politics, with race grievance and victimization as the driving forces of separation?

A black conservative would likely be just as out of place at one of those "all black parties."

I don't think this is what Dr. King fought and died for, but hey, at least we have Obama's "post-partisanship" and purported "post-racial" appeal to heal the country of its divisions.

And not a moment too soon!

Tory Defeats Labor Incumbent in London Mayoral Election

All is not lost for conservative politics in the Anglo-American democracies!

Boris Johnson, a colorful conservative up-and-comer in British politics, defeated incumbent left-wing Ken Livingstone in London's municipal election Friday.

The New York Times reports:

Boris Johnson, the floppy-haired media celebrity and Conservative member of Parliament who transformed himself from a shambling, amusing-aphorism-uttering figure of fun into a plausible political force, was elected mayor of London on Friday.

Mr. Johnson’s surprising victory was not only a triumph of his own singular style, but also a resounding public rebuke to the Labor government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown in a day full of such rebukes. As votes were tallied across the country after Thursday’s elections, it emerged that the Labor Party had suffered its worst local election results in at least 40 years.

With final votes in for the 159 local councils in which seats were being contested, Labor lost 331 seats overall, and the Conservative opposition gained 256. The Labor Party took an estimated 24 percent of the overall vote, placing it a woeful third behind the Conservatives, with 44 percent, and the Liberal Democrats, with 25 percent.

But it was the mayoral race, in which Mr. Johnson, 43, defeated the experienced Labor incumbent, Ken Livingstone, 62, by 1,168,738 votes to 1,028,966 votes, that was the biggest shock — a sure sign of a deep national weariness with the Labor government. London has been resolutely Labor in recent years, and its loss is a bitter blow to the national party .

“This was the first big test of Gordon Brown and David Cameron,” said Stephan Shakespeare, a co-founder of YouGov, a polling company, speaking of the Conservative Party leader. “We’ve had a lot of ups and downs, a lot of debate and a lot of polling, and until this moment the general feeling of malaise that hung over this government hasn’t been made concrete or specific. Now it has. It shows that something has profoundly changed in British politics.”

In his colorful career, the new London mayor has survived public airing of an extramarital affair whose existence he originally denied as an “inverted pyramid of piffle”; has apologized to whole cities, like Liverpool, that he offended in one way or another; and has been prone to saying things like: “Voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW M3.”

He has developed a reputation for having a fearsome but un-serious intellect and for wading into and out of embarrassing scrapes. But a man who has previously poked fun at the political process, saying: “I can’t remember what my line on drugs is. What’s my line on drugs?” and “I’m backing David Cameron’s campaign out of pure, cynical self-interest,” has been kept under a tight rein this time around, sticking to issues like crime and transportation.

After the votes were read out — under the British system, the losers stand in public alongside the winner as the results are announced — Mr. Johnson gave a sober and gracious victory speech. He acknowledged that many Londoners, even some who had voted for him, had misgivings about his qualifications for the job, but pledged to “work flat-out” to earn their trust.

“Tomorrow we’ll work like crazy,” said Mr. Johnson, who gave up alcohol during the campaign, “but tonight we’ll have a drink.”

I'm thinking London voters threw out the Labor incumbent because, among other things, they agreed with the views of Mark Steyn, who said Livingston...

...after the 2005 Tube bombings, artfully attempted to draw a distinction between Muslim terrorists blowing up his own public transit (which he didn't approve of) and Muslim terrorists blowing up Israeli public transit (which he was inclined to be sympathetic to).

Hopefully some of London's voters' common sense will rub off on this side of the Atlantic come November.

The picture of Johnson and Livingston is here.

Democrats See Tight Race in Indiana

Tuesday's Indiana primary is crucial for Hillary Clinton's political survival.

A loss in the Hoosier State will sink her significant claims to winning the heartland, and combined with a Barack Obama victory in North Carolina, the political momentum will once again have shifted from one campaign to the other.

Yet a win in Indiana gives Clinton a powerful reason to continue in the race, even though the math in the delegate race is not in her favor, and even though the superdelegates are most likely to abide by the wishes of the popular votes in the states.

U.S. News and World Report has an overview of the state's primary:

It's the kind of political hullabaloo the Hoosiers haven't seen up close in 40 years. In the days leading up to Indiana's primary on Tuesday, the presidential candidates have bombarded the state. They've dominated Indiana's airwaves, they've showed up at Indiana's gas stations gasping at the high prices, and they've sat on Indiana's picnic tables and listened to the Hoosiers' qualms.

The state hasn't held an important Democratic primary since Bobby Kennedy was running for the presidency in 1968, and it has been so reliably red in general elections that candidates seldom stop in. But this time around, Indiana is playing the role of political barometer. It is seen as one of the last states where Hillary Clinton's campaign can boast that the tide is turning in her direction or Barack Obama's campaign can claim that this nomination is all but wrapped up. Indiana has become not necessarily a must-win (neither campaign will go that far) but a should-win in order for either candidate to clinch the nomination.

Last week an Indianapolis Star/WTHR poll had Obama 3 points ahead of Clinton, but that was before the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy resurfaced. In a Rasmussen poll that came out Thursday (after Wright's inflammatory remarks and Obama's strong words denouncing the pastor), Clinton had pulled ahead of Obama by 5 points, and in a Zogby poll out Friday, the two candidates were tied. And in all of these polls, 9 percent or more have said that they are still undecided....

There are some factors that differentiate Indiana from the primary in Pennsylvania, where Clinton pummeled Obama by 9 points in April. Indiana's population is slightly younger—which could help Obama, who has done well with younger Democrats,—but it's also slightly more rural and white, which could give Clinton a boost. "What seems to be the pattern is that she will do better downstate," says Edward Carmines, a professor of political science at Indiana University-Bloomington. "And he will do better in the western and northern part that borders Illinois." There are about equal pockets of support coming from different areas of Indiana....

The big wild card could be that independents and Republicans are allowed to vote in Indiana's Democratic primary. "In Indiana you have an open primary, which really lets the flood gates open," says Selzer. In the Indianapolis Star poll, Democrats favored Obama and Clinton evenly, but both Republicans and independents favored Obama by 10 points. "It is really the independents and some crossover Republicans who are giving Obama a lead," says Selzer. "There is a dead tie among Democrats."

It'll all be speculation until Tuesday, when Hoosiers will be joined by voters in North Carolina to make the big presidential pick. North Carolina has long been considered Obama territory, though Clinton has recently trimmed his lead. In Indiana, it will take hefty voter turnout, and probably some help from independents and "Obamicans," for the Hoosier State to turn into Obama territory too.

The New York Times has an interesting story on these so-called "Obamicans":

Until now, Shirley Morgan had always been the kind of voter the Republican Party thought it could count on. She comes from a family of staunch Republicans, has a son in the military and has supported Republican presidential candidates ever since she cast her first ballot, for Richard M. Nixon in 1972.

But this year Mrs. Morgan exemplifies a different breed: the Republican crossing over to vote in the Democratic primary. Not only will she mark her ballot for Senator Barack Obama in the May 6 primary here, but she has also been canvassing for him in the heavily Republican suburbs of Hamilton County, just north of Indianapolis — the first time she has ever actively campaigned for a candidate.

“I used to like John McCain, but he’s aligning himself too closely with what Bush did, and that’s just not what I want for this country,” Mrs. Morgan, who is 56, said when asked to explain her rejection of the presumptive Republican nominee.

Since the start of the primary and caucus season in January, Republican voters have been crossing over in increasing numbers to vote in Democratic contests — supplying up to 10 percent of the vote in states that allow such crossover voting — and they are expected to play a pivotal role in the fiercely contested primary here. What is less clear, however, is the motivation for their behavior: are they genuinely attracted by the two Democratic candidates? Or are they mischief-making spoilers, looking to prolong a divisive Democratic fight or support a candidate Mr. McCain can beat in November?

Local Republican Party leaders in Indiana concede the attraction of the Democratic candidates to some of their party members. And interviews with roughly a dozen Republican voters in central Indiana suggest that they are driven mainly by concerns about the economy, with discontent over Bush administration policies driving their involvement in the Democratic race.

“Much as I like John McCain as a war hero, I am fearful he does not have the depth of experience to fix the economy,” said Darlene Boatman, 62, a just-retired sales clerk who favors Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. “We’re all struggling here to make ends meet. I haven’t had health care coverage in about 10 years and jobs are fewer and farther between. The economy is my biggest concern, and I think Hillary has the best understanding of how to pull off the recovery we need.”

About 5 percent of voters in Pennsylvania were Republicans who switched parties, and these people split their votes evenly between the two Democratic candidates.

People who're leaving the GOP must be facing some rough times, or these are moderate Republican likely to go which way the wind blows when the chips are down.

As I noted last night, the policies on the Democratic side look increasingly neo-socialist, for example with Barack Obama's proposed $15 billion windfall tax on oil profits. So it's not as though former-GOPers are leaning over to some centrist Democrats.

If a Democrat wins the White House, either Clinton or Obama, public policy will move in a radically new direction.

I'd prefer Hillary Clinton if push came to shove, though I dread the thought of the Republicans falling completely out of power.

The Gallup poll, in a survey of Republican preferences in the Democratic primary, finds GOP voters evenly split betweeen Clinton and Obama:

With the Republican nomination long since settled, whom would the GOP faithful rather see John McCain take on in the fall campaign? According to the April 18-20 USA Today/Gallup poll, Republicans -- like Democrats -- are divided in their preferences, with 48% saying they would rather see Hillary Clinton win the Democratic nomination and 44% Barack Obama.

Given the ongoing attention to the Democratic nomination campaign in the news media and on talk shows, Republicans have competing motivations for deciding whom they would rather see McCain compete against in the general election. Some have more serious concerns about one of the two Democratic candidates possibly being elected than the other, and thus would rather see the "lesser of two evils" emerge as the nominee. Others are more strategic in their preferences, and regardless of how they feel about the two Democrats, want the outcome to be settled in a way that gives the GOP the best chance of winning in November. In other words, they would rather see the Democrats nominate the candidate they think McCain would have an easier time defeating, even if that candidate is the one they would least like to see as the next president.

In my case, I think Obama as the nominee will give McCain a powerful target to portray the Democrats as mired in '60s-era radicalism and Carter-esque appeasement in foreign policy (on this, see "Polls Show Obama Struggling to ‘Close the Deal’").

While Hillary Clinton has her history of far-left wing politics, there's something in Clinton's mein that's more Machiavellian, more realist, and hence more suited to the centrism demanded of the nation's highest office and America's role in the world.

At some deep level, though, Obama's dream campaign may continue on, capturing the genuine feelings of the people for a new direction in America.

To where the nation will go is anyone's guess, and I for one am not like these other "Obamicans" in some willingness to throw caution to the wind.

Photo Credit: "Melissa Achtien, a Republican, canvassing for Senator Barack Obama in Fishers, Ind., ahead of next week’s Democratic primary, in which she plans to vote," New York Times

Obama Proposes $15 Billion Windfall Tax on Oil Profits

I've been focusing more and more on the economy and healthcare recently, because it seems things are starting to really come into focus.

The Democrats, of course, are craving a return to big government liberalism, but the scope of some of the proposed programs on the Democratic side really do auger a radical shift in the public philosophy.

Bloomberg, for example, reports that Barack Obama campaign's proposing a $15 billion windfall profit tax on "big oil," which would then be used to fund aggressive social policy redistribution:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's proposal for a windfall profits tax on oil companies could cost $15 billion a year at last year's profit levels, a campaign adviser said.

The plan would target profit from the biggest oil companies by taxing each barrel of oil costing more than $80, according to a fact sheet on the proposal. The tax would help pay for a $1,000 tax cut for working families, an expansion of the earned- income tax credit and assistance for people who can't afford their energy bills.

``The profits right now are so remarkable that one could trim them 10 percent or so, which would turn out to be somewhere in the $15 billion range,'' said Jason Grumet, an adviser to the Obama campaign.

Obama's plan may be three times larger than the $50 billion, 10-year plan contemplated by his Democratic rival, New York Senator Hillary Clinton. Republican candidate John McCain, an Arizona senator, has no plan to raise oil and gas industry taxes, said his economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin.

It's hard to argue against middle-class relief from rising costs, for example, in retail gasoline, but the notion that it's economically logical to tax corporate profits for economic distribution is more than populist, it's part of the ideology of economic class struggle, currently making a come back in the raging currency on the left for "progressive" politics.

But to really get an idea of the left's confiscatory folly, spend some time reading the Wall Street Journal's outstanding editorial today on Exxon's recent corporate receipts.

It turns out that descendents of John D. Rockeffer, who are major stakeholders in Exxon, have warmed to some of the au courant policy proposals for "green" energy, and they've pressured the Exxon board to reorient corporate investment priorities toward "fuels of the future." This comes just as the company "reported a 17% rise in first-quarter profit, to $10.9 billion":

Could it be that the heirs of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil empire (founded 1870) are angry that Exxon's management made them too much money? Probably not. Instead, the family warns that the company will lose out to competitors in the future if it doesn't shift its climate-change policies and invest more in alternative energy....

The well-to-do Rockefellers have embraced the eco-enthusiasms of the day, and perhaps for some of them this is one way of assuaging any guilt over a multibillion-dollar fortune built on carbon....

But even if they're not dressing up their political goals as concern about Exxon's long-term viability, it's useful to ask whether their agenda serves the interests of all shareholders, which is maximizing returns on investment. Certainly Exxon's earnings are high in absolute terms, given surging crude oil prices, but they have to be compared to the huge capital requirements for exploration and development. In 2007, the company spent nearly $21 billion on exploration and capital spending, and that will increase by at least 20% over the next five years or so.

Such long-range strategy to span both up and down cycles is essential because profits fall when commodity prices dip. That happened in the 1990s, with oil crashing below $20 a barrel after the altitudes of the 1970s. The oil majors and their shareholders swallowed these declines, as they should have.

Against such market fluctuations and supply shocks, what's distinguished Exxon is its discipline. The company is known for its careful budgeting and for avoiding speculative risks. More than others, Exxon seems to be guided by the fact that the current historic rise in oil and gas prices won't last forever, and that its spending decisions need to make sense in a world of $60 or even $30 per barrel oil. Such business prudence has paid off. Exxon's earnings per dollar of sales stood at 10% for 2007, compared to 8.3% for the larger oil and gas industry and 7.8% for the Dow Jones Industrial Average for major industries.

It's the prerogative of shareholders like the Rockefellers, even those without a major equity stake, to second-guess Exxon's results. Still, they've also got plenty of other investment opportunities, and they're welcome to try out Vinod Khosla and the other venture capitalists pursuing "clean tech." But these energy sources still can't compete economically with oil despite government handouts and other regulatory props, and the Chapter 11 courts are littered with companies that made such energy bets.

Anyway, a company that specializes in oil and gas isn't necessarily the best situated to operate, say, wind turbines. It may lack the expertise, or the fads might divert management focus from the main business. But even if Exxon chose to diversify more into alternatives, it would still be far more profitable to continue providing a product that the world can't do without. The notion that the carbon era is coming to an end is for the foreseeable future little more than a fantasy. Everyone – from the U.S. Energy Information Agency to the U.N. – agrees that fossil fuels will still account for as much as 80% of the world's energy needs though 2030, even with efficiency gains and major growth in alternatives.

Note that in over twenty year from now, the great bulk of the world's energy needs will still be derived from traditional fossil fuels.

But it's not the environment here to which I'm concerned.

The Journal's piece offers a reasonable look at corporate practices that are rational in terms of corporate viability, but also crucially important in the sense of the longer-term public good.

"Big oil" did not drive world petroleum markets to record highs. Increases in global demand, supply shortages in old-line producing states, domestic refinery incapacities, and the ramifications of international politics, have all affected the recent surges in fuel prices in the United States.

The Democrats' proposals to levy confiscatory corporate oil taxes reflect classic Robin Hood economics. But for all the talk of tax "fairness," sooner or later the costs of social policy largesse will be felt by middle-income Americans across the spectrum, in higher prices, higher taxes, and continuing out-of-control demands for greater government entitlements.

Clinton Comeback May Still Fall Short of Nomination

Although Hillary Clinton's speaking of next Tuesday's primaries as "gamechangers,"the New York Senator still faces tremendous hurdles in securing the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. The New York Times reports:

Have Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s chances of winning the Democratic presidential nomination improved as Senator Barack Obama has struggled through his toughest month of this campaign?

After weeks in which her candidacy was seen by many party leaders as a long shot at best, Mrs. Clinton’s advisers argued strenuously on Thursday that the answer was most assuredly yes, that the outlook was turning in her favor in a way that gave her a real chance.

Still, despite a series of trials that have put Mr. Obama on the defensive and illustrated the burdens he might carry in a fall campaign, the Obama campaign is rolling along, leaving Mrs. Clinton with dwindling options.

Mr. Obama continues to pick up the support of superdelegates — elected Democrats and party leaders — at a quicker pace than Mrs. Clinton.

On Thursday, he got a boost from a high-profile defection: Joe Andrew, a former Democratic national chairman appointed by former President Bill Clinton, said he had changed his mind and would back Mr. Obama. Even after Mrs. Clinton’s victory in Pennsylvania, Mr. Obama has held on to a solid lead in pledged delegates, those selected by the voting in primaries and caucuses.

Although Mrs. Clinton has cut into Mr. Obama’s popular vote lead, it would be difficult for her to overtake him without counting the disputed results in Florida and perhaps Michigan.

By and large, the group that matters most at this point — the uncommitted superdelegates, who are likely to hold the balance of power — still seem to view their decision the way the Obama campaign would like them to see it. They suggest that they are more sympathetic to the argument that they should follow the will of the voters as expressed by the delegates amassed by the candidates when the primary season is done rather than following Mrs. Clinton’s admonitions to select the candidate they think would best be able to defeat Senator John McCain and the Republicans in November.

I touched on the possibility of a convention floor fight last weekend, noting how political scientists suggest some possibility for Clinton to sway party elites to her side.

Over 400 delegates are up for grabs in the eight remaining caucuses and primaries, and nearly 300 superdelegates remain uncommitted.

See the New York Times' graphic, "Paths to Victory," for more information.

No matter who wins the Democratic nomination, there's growing evidence that the long primary battle has damaged the party's image. See Gallup's new survey, "Is Ongoing Democratic Campaign Good or Bad for the Party?"

Photo Credit: New York Times

Poor Turnout for May Day Protests, but Longshoremen Take Advantage

Yesterday' s May Day rallies around the country were much smaller than those held in recent years, as the New York Times indicates:

Thousands of immigrants and their supporters marched in several cities on Thursday to demand civil rights at a time when crackdowns against illegal immigrants are rising.

The May Day demonstrations were significantly smaller than in previous years, and gone were calls for a nationwide boycott of businesses and work, as protest leaders had urged last year. The Spanish-language D.J.’s who had heavily promoted previous marches stuck largely to their regular programming. And disagreements among advocates over the best approach to winning legal status for illegal immigrants had diminished organizing firepower, with many groups turning their attention to voter registration and citizenship drives.

In many cities, including New York, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles, crowds were a small fraction of those in previous years, with few people outside protest areas even aware that marches were under way.

Some supporters said they had lost a rallying cry in the stalled effort in Congress to revamp immigration law. At the same time, with the government stepping up border and immigration enforcement, a cloud of fear has settled over immigrants who were worried that the rallies would lead to more sweeps.

Milwaukee had one of the more robust turnouts, with thousands of people gathering, as they did last year. Protesters called on the presidential candidates, each of whom has supported Congressional efforts to allow a way for certain illegal immigrants to gain legal status, to make immigration issues a priority.

“We want a commitment from the three presidential candidates to pass humane immigration reform in the first 100 days in office,” said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, director of Voces de la Frontera, the main organization behind the Milwaukee march.

In Los Angeles, where riot police officers beat and shoved demonstrators and journalists last year, some marchers were concerned about trouble, though across the nation the marches were largely peaceful.

So peaceful, in fact, that the West Coast dock workers, who argued for a work stoppage in protest of the war in Iraq, may have in fact took advantage of the nationwide events for some R&R outside of the legal framework on the longshoreman's ongoing labor negotiations.

See the Los Angeles Times, "Dockworkers Take May Day off, Idling All West Coast Ports":

Thousands of dockworkers at 29 West Coast ports took the day off Thursday, effectively shutting down operations at the busy complexes in what the union called a protest of the war in Iraq but employers worried might be a prelude to labor unrest.

The stand-down at ports including Los Angeles and Long Beach -- which combined handle 40% of the imported goods arriving in the United States each year -- idled ships and cranes, stranded thousands of big rigs and halted movement of about 10,000 containers during the eight-hour day shift.

The show of force by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which ended as workers reported for the Thursday night shift at Southern California's twin ports, came two months before its contract expires with the Pacific Maritime Assn., a group of cargo carriers, terminal operators and stevedore companies.

The action also, as one labor historian put it, added significant support for May Day, which has become the preeminent working-class and protest event of the year. The union may have taken a calculated risk that allowing its members to participate was worth potentially aggravating employers in the middle of contract negotiations.

What I found interesting is the longshoreman's union, which boasts some of the highest paid union workers in the country, appeared indifferent to the effects of their walk out on independent contractors and small-time laborers:

Perhaps hardest hit by the job action were the local ports' 16,800 independent truck operators, many of whom were greeted at terminal gates by guards with a blunt message: "We're closed. Turn around."

Among them was Guillermo Castillo, 35, of Calexico, who decided to wait it out near the TraPac Terminal in the Port of Los Angeles. Resting his head on a towel matted against his cab door, Castillo complained: "I heard nothing about this. I'm losing a whole day of work, and about $580."

A mile to the east at the Port of Long Beach, Nelson Hernandez, 25, of Bellflower was among half a dozen short-haulers killing time at a lunch wagon parked outside a terminal gate. Shaking his head in dismay, he said, "No work anyplace around here. Losing $400, at least. I'm going home."

So much for worker solidarity?

Photo Credit: "Flag-waving and placard-carrying marchers crowd Broadway in downtown, L.A.," Los Angeles Times (notice the Che Guevara images of totalitarian chic).

Reading Results Raise Questions on NCLB

A new report from the Department of Education has raised questions about the Bush administration's learning initiatives under the landmark No Child Left Behind Act.

The Washington Post has the story:

Students enrolled in a $6 billion federal reading program that is at the heart of the No Child Left Behind law are not reading any better than those who don't participate, according to a U.S. government report.

The study released yesterday by the Department of Education's research arm found that students in schools that use Reading First, which provides grants to improve elementary school reading, scored about the same on comprehension tests as their peers who attended schools that did not receive program money.

The conclusion is likely to reignite the longstanding "reading wars." Critics say that Reading First places too much emphasis on explicit phonics instruction and doesn't do enough to foster understanding.

Among Democrats on Capitol Hill, the report also revived allegations of conflicts of interest and mismanagement. Federal investigators have found that some people who helped oversee the program had financial ties to publishers of Reading First materials.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey (D-Wis.) yesterday called Reading First a "failure." Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate education committee, said the administration "put cronyism first and the reading skills of our children last."

Education Department officials said the study will help them better implement Reading First and said the program has the support of many educators across the country. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings recently likened the effort, aimed at improving instruction in schools with children from low-income families, to "the cure for cancer."

About 1.5 million children in about 5,200 schools, including more than 140 schools in Maryland, Virginia and the District, participate in Reading First.

Yesterday's report did not diminish the support of some local educators. Michele Goady, Maryland's director of Reading First, said she remains convinced that the effort is producing better readers. "We firmly believe we are having greater success with our beginning readers as a result of Reading First," she said.

The congressionally mandated study, completed by an independent contractor, focused on tens of thousands of first-, second- and third-grade students in 248 schools in 13 states. The children were tested, and researchers observed teachers in 1,400 classrooms.

Reading First was established as part of President Bush's signature No Child Left Behind law. It requires participating schools to use instructional techniques supported by scientific research.

Teachers in Reading First classrooms spent about 10 minutes more each day on instruction in the five areas emphasized by the program -- awareness of individual sounds, phonics, vocabulary, reading fluency and comprehension -- than colleagues in schools that didn't receive program grants, the study concluded. There was no difference when children were tested on how well they could read and understand material on a widely used exam.

"There was no statistically significant impact on reading comprehension scores in grades one, two or three," Grover J. "Russ" Whitehurst, director of the Institute of Education Sciences, the Education Department's research arm, said in a briefing with reporters. He said students in both groups made gains.

"It's possible that, in implementing Reading First, there is a greater emphasis on decoding skills and not enough emphasis, or maybe not correctly structured emphasis, on reading comprehension," he said. "It's one possibility."

Whitehurst said there are other possible explanations. One, he said, is that the program "doesn't end up helping children read." He said the program's approach could be effective in helping students learn building-block skills yet not "take children far enough along to have a significant impact on comprehension."

My own take (non-statistically significant) is that the study's poor results on Reading First capture problems of learning outside of the classroom.

In-class activity is only a partial component of skills mastery. While the probe's population appears large, we'd likely see variations in improvement across social-demographic lines. But see Joanne Jacobs' analysis:

A preliminary study of Reading First finds no improvement in reading comprehension by third grade compared to schools that didn’t receive RF funds.

Jay Greene says it’s a well-designed study. The lack of effect may reflect weak implementation or the fact that some control-group schools used the same reading curriculum without federal funds.

Fordham’s Mike Petrilli says the study didn’t look at a nationally representative sample of RF schools. Early adopters weren’t included in the study; neither were the lowest scoring schools that probably are the most likely to benefit. Instead the study compared schools that barely qualified for funds with those that barely missed qualifying. If RF makes a difference in very needy schools but not in borderline schools, that wouldn’t show up.

The Bush administration already has slashed RF funding; it would be a shame if one interim study causes it to vanish. Many principals and superintendents think it’s working in their schools.

I'll update on this if I see more information, because a desire and opportunity to read in the home is a powerful predictor of reading skills acquisition in the early grades (again, that's my common sense talk, but see Annette Lareau, Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life).

McCain Birth Eligibility Remains Controversial

John McCain's eligibility for the presidency raises fascinating questions, especially in my case, as I was born overseas at an American military hospital in West Germany.

The situation for McCain, who was born in the Panama Canal Zone, has never been squarely addressed constitutionally, according to Michael Dobbs at the Washington Post:

"John Sidney McCain, III, is a `natural born Citizen' under Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States."
--U.S. Senate Resolution, April 30, 2008.

On Wednesday evening, the U.S. Senate unanimously declared John S. McCain III a "natural-born citizen," eligible to be president of the United States. That was the good news for the presumptive Republican nominee, who was born nearly 72 years ago in a military hospital in the Panama Canal Zone. The bad news is that the Senate resolution is a non-binding opinion that fails to resolve one of the murkiest, untested areas of the U.S. constitution.

In an attempt to clarify the issues at stake, I am posting the key documents in the debate. For a more detailed look at the constitutional debate, see my story in today's print edition of the Post, available here. As a bonus for the conspiracy theorists out there, I am also posting exclusively an extract from the Panama Canal Zone birth registers for August 1936 that contains no mention of McCain's birth! Make of this what you will.

The Facts

Article two of the constitution states that "no person except a natural born citizen...shall be eligible to the Office of president." Legal cases have been filed in at least three states--New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and California--challenging McCain's eligibility for the presidency. You can read the New Hampshire filing, by a 49-year-old computer programmer named Fred Hollander, here.

The McCain campaign has consulted two leading jurists, Theodore Olsen and Laurence Tribe, on the constitutional issues. Olsen and Tribe were on opposite sides of the 2000 Bush vs Gore Supreme Court case, but they see eye to eye on the question of McCain's eligibility for the presidency. They argue that McCain is a natural born citizen because the United States exercised sovereignty over the Panama Canal at the time of his birth on August 29, 1936, he was born on a U.S. military base, and both of his parents were U.S. citizens. The Olsen-Tribe opinion is available here.

Sarah Duggin, an associate law professor at Catholic University, who has made a detailed study of the natural born issue, says the question is not as simple as Olsen and Tribe make out. While she believes that McCain would likely win a determined legal challenge to his eligibility to be president, she says the matter can only be fully resolved by a constitutional amendment or a decision of the Supreme Court.

McCain's birth on August 29, 1936, in what was then the Panama Canal Zone was announced in the English language Panamanian American, available here. The McCain campaign has declined to publicly release his birth certificate, but a senior campaign official showed me a copy. Contrary to some Internet rumors that McCain was born outside the Canal Zone, in Colon, the document records his birth in the Coco Solo "family hospital."

Exclusive tidbit for conspiracy theorists: There is no record of McCain's birth in the bound birth registers of the Panama Canal Zone Health Department, which are available for public inspection at the National Archives in College Park, Md. Here is a sample page from the August 1936 birth register.

While some people will no doubt seize on the missing birth record as evidence that McCain was not born in the Canal Zone, my own view is that it is probably a bureaucratic snafu. The combination of the birth announcement in the Panamanian American plus the McCain birth certificate plus the memories of his 96-year-old mother persuades me that the senator was indeed born inside the Canal Zone.

But that does not entirely end the constitutional debate. The question remains: how did McCain acquire his U.S. citizenship, by birth or by naturalization. Even though the 10-mile wide Canal Zone was effectively under American sovereignty between 1904 and 1979, when it was handed back to the Panamanians, it was not "in" the United States. Here is what a State Department manual on U.S. citizenship has to say about children born on U.S. military installations:

Despite widespread popular belief, U.S. military installations abroad and U.S. diplomatic or consular facilities are not part of the United States within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. A child born on the premises of such a facility is not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and does not acquire U.S. citizenship by reason of birth.

There are few precedents for someone born outside the United States proper running for president, let alone becoming president. The best one the McCain camp has been able to come up with is the case of Vice Preisdent Charles Curtis who was born in the territory of Kansas, in January 1860, a year before Kansas became a state. The twelfth amendment requires that vice presidents possess the same qualifications as presidents.

The Pinocchio Test

It seems common sense that a child born to U.S. citizens on a U.S. military base while his father was on active military service should be eligible for the presidency. But the constitution is ambiguous about the precise meaning of "natural-born citizen." According to Professor Duggin, the "McCain side has some really good arguments, but ultimately there has never been any real resolution of this issue. Congress cannot legislatively change the meaning of the constitution."

Recall in February the New York Times created a tempest in a teapot with its scandal-mongering piece on McCain's birth, "McCain’s Canal Zone Birth Prompts Queries About Whether That Rules Him Out."

See also, Dobbs' main article, "McCain's Birth Abroad Stirs Legal Debate: His Eligibility for Presidency Is Questioned."

(See Dobbs' update as well, "UPDATE FRIDAY 3 P.M.").