Steve Ersinghaus

This post at Crooked Timber examines issues with reporting figures in the news:
To put this in some perspective, the budget deficit last year was approximately $4000 per household. If you assign that debt to each household, the median income has fallen by something like 10% since Clintons time. Now that is obviously unfair because that [...]

In terms of law and politics, lots of things are going on these days. For example, this from the Washington Post:
In offering to have an expert help him, Kopf noted comments earlier this week by Rep. Steve King that activist judges were using their positions to impose their personal views on the rest of society.
King, [...]

Bill H.R. 339, short titled as the Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act, street named, the “Cheeseburger Bill.” (Open the link and type in the bill no. at the search field):
The major text goes:
PREVENTION OF FRIVOLOUS LAWSUITS–The manufacturer, distributor, or seller of a food or non-alcoholic beverage product intended for human consumption shall not be [...]

Does obsessive moralism breed spatial morass, intellectual malaise, laziness, and spatial shrinkage. Consider the marketplace, which needs controls, either from the buying audience, the makers, or regulators, such as lawmakers.
I mean spatial in terms of definitions, extended or sensed. America, for example, is a wandering border, growing, shrinking, moving with its birthright across [...]

A quick search of Firstgov helped me snag the text of co-sponsor Musgrave’s Federal Marriage Amendment  H.J. Res. 56.
This is classic policy claim stuff, complete with all the stock issues associated with a problem solution bit of argument. The solution to the problem is, of course, the amendment, which reads
Marriage in the United States [...]

Now that people have headed away from the Superbowl imbroglio, moving on to other tragedies, I’d like to suggest a venture back into it.
In sport there are moments or long lines of what might be termed naked excellence. I remember watching John McEnroe begin and end his career, going from brat genius to even-tempered old-timer, [...]

I’ve been going through comp student lists of possible topics of study and am finding pretty standard stuff, which is fine. The question is what to do with an idea. I have one topic called: cars. Hm. What do with that.
Lots of things. Here’s one.
Thinking from the subject is a skill of extension, which is [...]

For writers, coming up with a subject can be backbreaking work. I’ve known Ph.D and masters students who’ve hit the brick wall of “the subject.” Some simply didn’t have one and the ticker just ran out. I used to give students “the subject” in composition but found over the semesters that this could lead to [...]

The Columbia Journalism Review weblog comments on misuse of the ellipses.

In a comment, Sarina Salemi had asked why Dennis Kucinich may be Beowulfian. In my estimation (and this is simply a guess really) and from taking some time over the last few months familiarizing myself with the Dem candidates for nomination–from Kerry’s tragic posture, to Lieberman’s desperation–I find that with Kucinich (perhaps the least nationally [...]

Reading some of the coverage of Governor Rowland’s political troubles is just weird. Christopher Shayes (R-4) claims that what Roland did was “totally wrong” but ventures that his gift-acceptence wasn’t illegal. Others, such as Dean Pagini, Rowland’s chief of staff, shadow this with observations that Rowland believes he broke no laws.
These people must [...]

I don’t know quite how to categorize this post but it’s essentially about politics and participation. I caught the last few minutes of the ABC News & WMUR-TV sponsored “debate” on C-Span tonight and pretty much liked what I saw. In typical C-Span style, there was no commentary or explanation and the display just [...]