Newmark's Door

There will be no new posts here over the New Year's Day weekend and maybe for a few days after that. Here's some stuff that you might want to read until the Door is back. Happy New Year!

There's a veritable feast of stuff at Esquire's "What I've Learned: The Archive".

Attempts to answer 12 "Whys?"

"Why parents hate parenting".

"Why cold, dark, small, and depressive nations top the rankings".

"Why Are We Beginning to Hate Congress?" ["Beginning to"??]

"Why Do Harvard Kids Head to Wall Street?"

"Why Do IQ Scores Vary By Nation?"

"Why Are Fewer and Fewer U.S. Employees Satisfied With Their Jobs?"

"Why We Dream: Real Reasons Revealed".

"Why Texas is doing so much better economically than the rest of the nation".

"Why Geeks Hate the iPad".

"Why GPS voices are so condescending".

"Why the Latest Frontier of Statistical Research in Baseball Is Defense".

"Why Do Foreigners Like Fanta So Much?"

High school debate.

I've lamented before on this blog the awful decline of high school debate. Here is another, recent depressing example. Maybe even more discouraging is that a number of people are aware of the problems, but no change seems to be forthcoming. For example, a former debater was quoted nearly 15 years ago: "[contemporary debate is] an exercise which would provide good training for only two occupations: becoming an auctioneer and making Federal Express commercials. And that's all." What I hadn't known until recently was why high school debate has gotten so far off track. The answer it turns out, is connected to Harvard law professor, Lawrence Tribe. (Via the interesting Slate exchange, "Debating Debate Club".)