links for 2009-11-05
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If we were transported back to 1972, some of us might worry that schoolchildren and their parents weren't ready for such an abrupt transformation as Title IX. Most people "accepted baseball as a male prerogative of some sort," complained a Little League vice president in 1974.
But as I watch my daughter do something that would have been unlikely for a girl of my generation, and see all that goes with it, I'm endlessly thankful to those litigators and legislators of the early 1970s who weren't at all afraid to give the culture and its assumptions a shove in the name of fairness. And so should my daughter be. Although for now, it's more exciting that last spring her coach declared her the team's Most Valuable Catcher.
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As a congenital optimist, I tend to see things this way too. But one has to admit there's an element of faith involved. Plus, Mr. Micawber spent an awful lot of time in debtor's prison, and things didn't really turn up for him until he moved to Australia.
Also, even if you buy the Leonhardt/Micawber/Fox forecast, we still have to make it to 2011. I get the feeling there will be so many economic crosscurrents and counterforces as to make the recovery seem awfully dubious for most of 2010. Still, something will turn up. Just can't tell you when.
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"Mainers, and national observers, have woken up this morning asking how the Yes on 1 coalition won this fight. Through most of the lead up to this vote, observers (including myself) felt that it would be extremely close, potentially to a recount, and that the No on 1 folks had the early advantage.
True, most of us were careful to couch our predictions with additional analysis that left the door open for a Yes on 1 victory, but I don’t think anyone really saw a more than 30,000 vote victory for the proponents of the veto. And make no mistake – this was a decisive, and unquestionable win for the Yes on 1 campaign. It wasn’t really very close."
