The Retroactive Table of Contents : Jan 26 – Feb 3

(Note: This week Rufus brought up the point that with so many posts these days it’s easy to miss stuff.  He suggested we begin doing a weekly review, similar to The Dish.  Great idea!  So starting today, each Friday(-ish) I will do up a quick list of the posts from the past week.  This will now be a regular feature that all can look forward to, until such time as I get bored of it and no one steps in to do in my place.  Which is to say maybe this may well be a one shot deal.  Since it took longer than I thought it would to put this together, I would appreciate hearing honest feedback as to whether people actually find this helpful, or if no one’s ever going to be checking it out.  Thanks.)

The Big Headline

Promising a series of posts on Government 2.0, this past week was most notable for the return of beloved prodigal son Scott Payne.

The New Bright Shiny Object of the Week

The topic of the week was probably Charles Murray’s How Thick Is Your Bubble.  Jason had us take the quiz to determine exactly how thick that bubble was, and then – after reviewing the results – was unsure that Murray’s thesis stood up.

Part of there reason for that might have been that Murray was confusing preference with facts, according to guest writer Sam Wilkinson.

JL wondered where the middle class went in Murray’s thesis.

Pat, on the other hand, riffed off of Murray and tackled the issue of realistic bigotry in the workplace.

Politics, Government & Elections

Elias confessed his feelings in a swooning, flowery love letter to David Frum, and then willingly walked the minefields of Israel-Firsters.

Eric asked everyone to join him as he live-blogged the last Florida debate, and then did Newt a solid in his newest Atlantic piece.

Elias was not overly impressed with those debaters.

Ethan was not overly impressed with the entire state of the Union.

Mark showed how the question of whether or not federal workers are overpaid is actually a complicated one to answer.

Jason lamented the state of our prison system.

Pat finally confessed to being a terrorist. We were all very surprised.  He was always such a quiet boy, and kept mostly to himself.

Education

In education, Mike looked at the competing benefits of roots and mobility where public education is concerned.

Shawn strapped himself in the Way Back Machine to take on an old Freddie DeBoer reaction to the POTUS sending his kids to a private school rather than a public one.

Pat submitted a mandatory library for the techie-to-be, not one volume of which I will be able understand a word of.

Entertainment & the Arts

Ethan weighed the merits of ebooks vs. book-books following Jonathan Franzen’s recent comments.

Noting that we never seem to feature country or bluegrass, Mike took a big stick to last week’s Friday Jukebox and rectified the situation.

Rufus looked at heredity and eugenics through the lens of Nana on his second Zola post.  He also promised to discover you at a bus station and make you a star on Broadway, baby, if you could just help him with a plot device.

Focusing on issues of Hollywood and morality, I argued that Red Tails is not proof that Hollywood is not un-American; also, I vowed to never eat a human fetus – or at least not when I was in Oklahoma.  In either case, I sought God for forgiveness.

Burt wondered if the porn industry would survive mandatory latex.

Ryan dove into Homeland on Showtime, only to find that he was not so comfortable with its politics.

Essays & Cultural Issues

Following up on early posts, guest writer Stillwater connected conservative politics and racism.

Not to be outdone with third-rail subject matter, Mike threw down on class warfare and why it’s so hard to resist.

Christopher wondered to what degree immigration status should play in green-lighting life and death operations.

I submitted that even though his legacy should be positive, Joe Paterno had to be fired.

David mused on the tragic fate of the Pelican as he continued his Mon Tikki project.  He then fessed up to his first missed deadline, so as you can imagine he could use some help. (This week’s I-Am-A-Moron Confession: It wasn’t until I read the Pelican post that the penny finally dropped and I realized David & Tony Comstock are the same person.)

Philosophy & History

Murali continued his philosophical journeys with a post on Justification and Argumentation.

Christopher and Jason continued mining Hobbes, who is apparently Mr. January and Mr. February in this year’s LOoG Philosophers Swim Suit Calendar based on the posts he’s been racking up.

JL Continued with his series of posts on the Civil War, this week focusing on Meade & McClellan.

League News

Jaybird announced a book-club style group watching of Fringe over at Mindless Diversions; the homework, due Tuesday, will be to watch the pilot.

Burt finalized a group rate at the LVH in Vegas for this May.  League-fest 2012, here we come.