technology -v- culture ... and whatever else is on our minds today

My latest World Cup-themed podcast for PBS’s Need to Know is now available. Includes gratuitous clips of right-wing nutjobs bloviating about a sport they hate.

I know I’m supposed to be blogging the Potter films — and I will — but –

When you try to craft a story — an analysis — and this is what you get in response (see comments), it’s just sad.

Does anyone really care about the threat of communism anymore?

Haven’t we moved on to another mortal foe?

Is Roy Edroso incisive, or what?

Transit funding has taken a big hit in the House version of the stimulus bill, and yesterday some bloggers were speculating that it was because House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman James Oberstar (D-MN) had rolled over and allowed the money to go to tax cuts instead. But the situation may not be as bad as it looks – yet.

Passenger rail funding went from $5 billion to $1 billion. Road-building and repair look set to receive $30 billion to transit’s $10 billion. And most worrying to transit advocates, a $2 billion subsidy to transit operating expenses (i.e. not capital construction, acquisition, or maintenance) has been completely eliminated. Those advocates say that’s a low blow, because transit agencies are staggering under the burdens of increased ridership (most passenger-trips cost more than they bring in at the fare box, which means each additional rider can actually increase an agency’s deficit). They warn that without the subsidy, transit agencies will have to cut service, lay off employees, or increase fares.

But those same transit advocates are optimistic that political wrangling in the House could restore a sizable chunk of the money that transit lost.

Here’s what happened, according to Blueprint America’s sources: Oberstar went into the negotiation process with high hopes for transit funding. But he met resistance from two places: First, Lawrence Summers, chair of President Obama’s National Economic Council, has been insisting that stimulus money go to “shovel-ready” projects. In the case of passenger rail money, the $1 billion that remains is apparently for Amtrak projects that are ready to go, while the remainder was slated for projects in their very early stages of development, like California’s high-speed rail line from the Bay Area to Los Angeles.

Second, the House leadership reportedly pressured Oberstar into taking the cuts in stride. Our sources say Oberstar bowed to the pressure because he’ll need the leadership’s support to move two big bills later this year – the transportation reauthorization and an increase in the Federal gasoline tax. Given both sources of resistance, Oberstar sat back while Rep. David Obey (D-WI), Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, gutted transit provisions in the bill.

Even if the bill passes as-is, transit advocates say there might be a silver lining for struggling transit agencies: A majority of the appropriation for roads can actually be reassigned to transit at a state’s discretion. That said, one source tells us that not many state Departments of Transportation are “quite that enlightened”.

More importantly, though, it’s not looking as though the bill will pass as-is. There are indications that the Senate isn’t happy with the cuts to transit and that the whole stimulus package could grow.

Finally, there could be a floor fight over the transit appropriation – especially the operating subsidy for transit agencies. There’s a rumor that Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) might take the matter to the floor. Sources tell us that depends on a few things: the political lay of the land in the House (and Senate); whether or not the American Public Transportation Association is willing to go to the mat to win back the subsidy; and whether or not transit agencies can add to the coalition – for example, by enlisting the support of the Congressional black and urban caucuses.

One bit of good news in the bill as it stands: Advocates for pedestrians and cyclists are apparently overjoyed with the appropriations for their projects, which are apparently the largest ever.

[Cross-posted at Blueprint America.]

If one of my students ever wrote something like this, I’d be deeply, deeply humiliated. And if I ever get that lazy, please slam me in the skull with a two-by-four.

Campaign ads are not automatically newsworthy. Certainly not worthy of time on newscasts until they’ve proven themselves so. That’s called “free airtime”, y’all. That is all.

I want to write a post heded: Ironic irony in which I point out pithily that conservatives decry ‘ironic detachment’ and lament that young people no longer embrace causes greater than themselves, their friends, and their possessions. Yet when the left coalesces with (some) enthusiasm behind an emphatically non-ironic and in-pursuit-of-something-bigger-than-any-of-us candidate, suddenly those values are worthy of mockery.

What I’m missing is links to articles in which conservatives decry ‘ironic detachment’ and so on. Any love?

On last week’s Bill Moyers Journal, I had a piece on the link between unionization and middle-class wages.

Earlier last week, I posted a web-exclusive video essay on the Bush Administration’s latest stupid plan to spy on you no matter what you do.

Last weekend’s New York Times Magazine piece on a student abstinence group at Harvard is, as others have pointed out, is all-around dumb. The abstinence-only movement is crap, but so is the assumption that college kids aren’t normal unless they’re hooking up on a regular basis. It’s just as annoying to tout one’s avoidance of sex as it is to brag about one’s conquests. Now, can we please move beyond this iteration of the Culture Wars?