Education, the unnecessary evil
JANUARY 30, 2004 9:32PM
That's kind of what it feels like out here in California. With state university and college fees going up and enrollment needs to be pared down, all to meet ever limited budgets, access to higher education is being cut. This is hardly the way to ensure a class of well-educated leaders and a highly trained workforce for the future, but I suppose none of those skills are terribly important. And now there are school closures, at least in both Oakland and San Jose, which really perplexes me. The idea is that it saves a lot of money, but I don't get how it can be done without increasing class sizes or limiting opportunities for some kids. At least they have their after school programs. Maybe we can pass an unfunded mandate for primary and secondary school education on the next ballot. Though it was predictable that the money shortage would affect services for the poor, the sick, and kids, by reducing what goes to cities, probably no matter who was governor, it's still going to hurt. It's also pretty funny that there's not much support for the $15 billion bond measure on the March ballot. Californias like change and cool people, but even the ludricous promise of "this is the last time, we promise" isn't enough to sway people into letting the state take out a gigantic loan that we still have to pay for down the road. We may be flaky, but we're not that stupid.

Who are these people?
JANUARY 30, 2004 8:22 PM.
I've been delinquent in posting, but this question was issued by Dahlia Lithwick, one of my top five legal heroes for her unfailing ability to make so much sense. In her Supreme Court Dispatches for Slate recapping the events in Tennessee v. Lane, a case that's basically about whether the ADA means Tennessee's got to put an elevator in a courthouse or make the wheelchair bound crawl up the stairs, she really nails the ludicrousness of the way some members of the Supreme Court seem to look at the world. The whole piece is great, as usual, but her last paragraph really nails it:

"It's truly surreal to witness a court that has cheerfully accommodated its own collective disabilities—the chief justice's bad back (he ambles around throughout oral argument) and Justice Souter's seemingly pathological fear of strangers (no cameras while he sits on the court)—sit utterly unmoved by the plight of Americans who can't even fight a traffic ticket or a custody battle for want of a ramp."

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