Three cheers for actor Matt Damon! You know, Matt and I have a lot in common. Both our mothers are retired school teachers. Both of us went to school in Cambridge, Mass. And both of us are devilishly good looking! But seriously, both of us know that the answer to bad teaching is not job…
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From the AP: The number of homicides in Mexico rose by nearly a quarter in 2010 compared to the year before as the drug war intensified across the country, Mexican statisticians said Thursday. The National Institute of Statistics and Geography recorded 24,374 homicides over the course of last year, a 23 percent increase from 19,803…
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Thoughtful piece by Thane Rosenbaum in today’s New York Times: It’s difficult to have honest conversations about revenge. Seeing someone receive his just deserts often feels righteous and richly deserved, and yet society regards vengeance as primitive and barbaric. Governments warn citizens not to take justice into their own hands, insisting that the state alone…
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Omar from The Wire, that is. The story from the Balto Sun. [thanks to a reader]
USA Today has five ways to fix our prison system. I have a sixth.
…enters it’s second week. From the S.F. Weekly: Activists and inmates say the strike is meant to call attention to inhumane conditions in Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit (SHU), where dangerous prisoners are lodged in small, windowless cells, often without access to other people or open space for extended periods. Critics of the SHU say…
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Those Mexican drug kingpins are dropping like flies. By my count thismakes eight! Let me know when the violence stops.
Gregory Hladky of the Hartford Advocate writes one of the better pieces on In Defense of Flogging (not that I like to pick favorites, because like the children I don’t have, I love them all). But this one ismore interesting than many.
Play with these census data. In the past, to gather data like this (change in neighborhood population and demographics over 10 years) used to be so much work and take so long. From 1990 to 2000, the Eastern District lost about 30% of its population. (In 2002 it took me days of work to figure…
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I’m off to New Mexico for a few days. Don’t expect much action here till next weekend. Happy 4th! Don’t forget to read the Declaration of Independence.