Tag: Blithe Spirit

Flunking govt test ain’t necessarily bad

Wheeling Jesuit U. is not alone in flunking the government’s “financial-responsibity” test, as was reported yesterday. Some of the others are knocking down the feds’ argument:

The test is founded on a business model, and nonprofits dont really operate in the same way, Daniel Anderson, who since 1981 has served as president of Appalachian Bible College near Beckley said.

Because the test rewards schools that have a large amount of liquid assets, a school thats expanding and spending money on new facilities will score lower, Anderson said.

. . . theres a fallacy in the formula the Department of Ed uses, and Ive been saying that for many years, he said. A school like ours isnt going to just build up cash. When we get money, we want to put it into use.

Another days it’s old news:

At Ohio Valley University in Wood County, the news, well, wasnt news. I still dont understand all the excitement about OVU being on the (Education) Departments list, Steve Morgan, the schools executive vice president, said in a news release.

Morgan, who previously served as the schools chief fiscal officer, said Ohio Valley has been on the list for a decade as it purchased land and made other upgrades to become a full baccalaureate program.

The Education Departments tool to measure financial strength depends heavily on a comparison of a schools debt to its assets, Morgan said. By that definition, he said, Ohio Valley University has continued to score poorly despite growing enrollment, a top ranking in US News & World Report and other indicators of strength.

Anyhow, Ohio Valley U. is staying on the flunk list: Its a fact of life here and will continue to be so for years to come, said Morgan. The OVU president, E. Keith Stotts also demurred:

What I regret is the implication that Ohio Valley University is teetering at deaths door, he said. . . . . Just because the school shows up on the governments list doesnt mean the school is struggling, Stotts said. OVU is a true success story, the Departments list not withstanding, Stotts argues. Lord willing, our university will continue its mission of transforming lives for many years to come.

Besides Wheeling Jesuit, two other West Virginia institutions were cited: Alderson-Broaddus College in Philippi; and Davis & Elkins College in Elkins.

I like the spirit the first two show.

Smart set

Ezra Klein of Wash Post started the infamous listserv JournoList in Feb . of ’07 to provide:

An insulated space where the lure of a smart, ongoing conversation would encourage journalists, policy experts and assorted other observers to share their insights with one another.

That “smart” gets to me, smacking as it does of — may I say it? — elitism. A place for smart people, for people who produce smart conversation. The kind a fellow or gal can take seriously, without feeling impulse to raise brow ever so slightly, casting quick glance toward one’s intimate. Nothing crude, you know: “You’re full of shit” and all that. Just the brow and the glance and, with luck, managing to ignore the gauche thing you just heard.

It was to be an exchange that honored certain premises. “The membership would range from nonpartisan to liberal, center to left,” among people unlikely to “embarrass each other.” It was to be nobody-here-but-us-chickens time. Take off your shoes and kick back, folks. You are now entering the comfort zone.

All well and good for a night on the town or in a bar or around a dinner table. But for working journalists, college professors, and the like for whom the truth presumably will out, whatever it may be, as part of their work day? Nope.

Chicago-connected JournoLister Goozner

Here’s one of three Journo-listers with Chicago identities, the only one with a media position. (Will be posting about the other two, both academics.) This fellow was with Chi Trib, but not since June 2000 (long before JournoList was started in 2007), when he “left daily journalism to teach journalism at New York University,” per his GoozNews on Health site.

He’s currently at TheFiscalTimes.com, which has partnership arrangement with Wash Post and has been a landing spot for (probably) buyout-takers and others mostly from NY Times and Wash Post, whence this is taken.

He has impeccable liberal credentials, as one may judge from what’s below. He was perhaps an amused bystander to the conspiratorial goings-on at Journo-List. In any case, he kept them under his hat.

TFT VOICES

Merrill_Goozner.ashx Merrill Goozner

Columnist, Contributor

MERRILL GOOZNER is an award-winning writer based in the Washington, DC. He spent 25 years as a foreign correspondent, economics writer and investigative business reporter for the Chicago Tribune and other publications, filing stories from more than a dozen countries while posted in Chicago, Tokyo, New York and Washington. Winner of numerous journalism awards, his freelance writing in recent years has appeared in various publications including the New York Times, Washington Post, Columbia Journalism Review, The Nation, The American Prospect and the Washington Monthly. He taught journalism for three years at New York University while writing “The $800 Million Pill: The Truth behind the Cost of New Drugs,” a 2004 explanatory exposé of pharmaceutical industry research and development practices.

Wheeling Jesuit hard-pressed

Hard times at Wheeling Jesuit — one of 321 privately operated colleges (for and not for profit) that failed the U.S. Department of Education’s 2009 financial responsibility test. That means more hoops to jump through to keep aid going to the 97% of WJU students who receive it.

[Interim Pres. Sister Francis] Thrailkill said this is the first time WJU failed the test. . . . [C]olleges who score a 1 to 1.4 on the test are considered to have failed, but can still participate in federal financial aid programs, but there are a few restrictions. If a school scores in the negative, they are subject to extra requirements. WJU scored a 1.1.

Thrailkill wants to point out that WJU was notified about this issue several months ago, and said they have taken steps to improve their financial situation.

It may be standard to keep this quiet, but The Chronicle of Higher Education apparently operates under no such compulsion.

More details:

All private colleges that award federal student aid must participate in the Department of Education’s financial-responsibility test, which is based on information from their audited financial statements. The department develops a composite score on a scale of 3.0 to minus 1.0, based on financial ratios that measure factors such as net worth, operating losses, and the relationship of assets to liabilities.

Yet more, from a separate Chronicle story:

A total of 150 private nonprofit colleges failed the . . . test, [which is] based on their condition in the 2009 fiscal year . . . That’s 23 more than the 127 that failed the test in the 2008 fiscal year, and an increase of about 70 percent over the number of degree-granting institutions that failed two years ago.

WJU has company.

Psst! It’s Alinsky you’re talking about, fella!

Does this fellow know what he’s talking about?

The Industrial Areas Foundation (637 S. Dearborn St. #100, Chicago, IL 60605; http://www.10percentisenough.org), a 70-year-old national network of community organizations, has launched a “Ten Percent Is Enough” anti-usury campaign. IAF’s material, which refers to religious tradition, suggests that they understand legal victories and legislative changes are insufficient. A solution must include moral change.

Moral change, yessss! But that’s Saul Alinsky’s IAF he is recommending. Does he know that? It’s the name that dare not be named, apparently.

Sister sez — what the hell does she say?

What a display of uncertainty and mealy-mouth assertion by Chi Archdiocese’s Master (Mistress?) Educator! Italics added:

Sister Mary Paul McCaughey, superintendent of schools in the archdiocese, told Chicago Public Radio: “The schools have very traditionally been tied with the life of the parish and in the parish accounts, and this kind of pulls them out a little bit from under that former umbrella to let us take a look and put them under a microscope a bit.”

Why does Sister McC. talk that way, even on public radio?

State vs. market: take your choice

Where’s this distinction been all my life?

State capitalism has been tried before. It didn’t work. Market capitalism works better because it doesn’t depend on one set of actors to make all the choices.

The estimable Michael Barone here.  He speaks of “the limits of expert knowledge and of the ability of political actors to make optimal economic choices.” Brain trusts and all that, vs. billions deciding and moving, even shaking, the world.

“Intellectual firepower” vs. The People’s choices.

(From: Instapundit)

Australian Jesuit mixes it with cardinal

You don’t see this sort of candor in our country:

Brennan of the Bleeding Heart savaged Pell in the Melbourne Jesuit magazine Eureka Street, saying that some Greens policies were arguably more Christian than those of the major parties.

Brennan is Rev. Frank, S.J.  Pell is the archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell.

Jesuits are probably no less liberal here than down under, but they are considerably more, ah, circumspect.  Less forthright, you might say, less direct, more devious, i.e. jesuitical.

Of course, neither do we have a cardinal like Pell.

via Federal Election 2010.

Give us lefties to match those media

The Great Left-Wing Conspiracy uncovered so far:

Here is the list as it stands today, courtesy of Buckeye Texan, as published on Free Republic (hat tip: Clarice Feldman):
  1. Spencer Ackerman – Wired, FireDogLake, Washington Independent, Talking Points Memo, The American Prospect
  2. Thomas Adcock – New York Law Journal
  3. Ben Adler – Newsweek, POLITICO
  4. Mike Allen – POLITICO
  5. Eric Alterman – The Nation, Media Matters for America
  6. Marc Ambinder – The Atlantic
  7. Greg Anrig – The Century Foundation
  8. Ryan Avent – Economist
  9. Dean Baker – The American Prospect
  10. Nick Baumann – Mother Jones
  11. Josh Bearman – LA Weekly
  12. Steven Benen – The Carpetbagger Report
  13. Ari Berman – The Nation
  14. Jared Bernstein – Economic Policy Institute
  15. Michael Berube – Crooked Timer, Pennsylvania State University
  16. Brian Beutler – The Media Consortium
  17. Lindsay Beyerstein – Freelance journalist
  18. Joel Bleifuss – In These Times
  19. John Blevins – South Texas College of Law
  20. Eric Boehlert – Media Matters
  21. Sam Boyd – The American Prospect
  22. Ben Brandzel – MoveOn.org, John Edwards Campaign
  23. Shannon Brownlee – Author, New America Foundation
  24. Rich Byrne – Playwright
  25. Kevin Carey – Education Sector
  26. Jonathan Chait – The New Republic
  27. Lakshmi Chaudry – In These Times
  28. Isaac Chotiner – The New Republic
  29. Ta-Nehisi Coates – The Atlantic
  30. Michael Cohen – New America Foundation
  31. Jonathan Cohn – The New Republic
  32. Joe Conason – The New York Observer
  33. Lark Corbeil – Public News Service
  34. David Corn – Mother Jones
  35. Daniel Davies – The Guardian
  36. David Dayen – FireDogLake
  37. Brad DeLong – The Economists’ Voice, University of California at Berkeley
  38. Ryan Donmoyer – Bloomberg News
  39. Adam Doster – In These Times
  40. Kevin Drum – Washington Monthly
  41. Matt Duss – Center for American Progress
  42. Gerald Dworkin – UC Davis
  43. Eve Fairbanks – The New Republic
  44. James Fallows – The Atlantic
  45. Henry Farrell – George Washington University
  46. Tim Fernholz – American Prospect
  47. Dan Froomkin – Huffington Post, Washington Post
  48. Jason Furman – Brookings Institution
  49. James Galbraith – University of Texas at Austin
  50. Kathleen Geier – Talking Points Memo
  51. Todd Gitlin – Columbia University
  52. Ilan Goldenberg – National Security Network
  53. Arthur Goldhammer – Harvard University
  54. Dana Goldstein – The Daily Beast
  55. Andrew Golis – Talking Points Memo
  56. Jaana Goodrich – Blogger
  57. Merrill Goozner – Chicago Tribune
  58. David Greenberg – Slate
  59. Robert Greenwald – Brave New Films
  60. Chris Hayes – The Nation
  61. Don Hazen – Alternet
  62. Jeet Heer – Canadian Journolist
  63. Jeff Hauser – Political Action Committee, Dennis Shulman Campaign
  64. Michael Hirsh – Newsweek
  65. James Johnson – University of Rochester
  66. John Judis – The New Republic, The American Prospect
  67. Foster Kamer – The Village Voice
  68. Michael Kazin – Georgetown University
  69. Ed Kilgore – Democratic Strategist
  70. Richard Kim – The Nation
  71. Charlie Kireker – Air America Media
  72. Mark Kleiman – UCLA The Reality Based Community
  73. Ezra Klein – Washington Post, Newsweek, The American Prospect
  74. Joe Klein – TIME
  75. Robert Kuttner – American Prospect, Economic Policy Institute
  76. Paul Krugman – The New York Times, Princeton University
  77. Lisa Lerer – POLITICO
  78. Daniel Levy – Century Foundation
  79. Ralph Luker – Cliopatria
  80. Annie Lowrey – Washington Independent
  81. Robert Mackey – New York Times
  82. Mike Madden – Salon
  83. Maggie Mahar – The Century Foundation
  84. Amanda Marcotte – Pandagon.net
  85. Dylan Matthews – Harvard University
  86. Alec McGillis – Washington Post
  87. Scott McLemee – Inside Higher Ed
  88. Sara Mead – New America Foundation
  89. Ari Melber – The Nation
  90. David Meyer – University of California at Irvine
  91. Seth Michaels – MyDD.com
  92. Luke Mitchell – Harper’s Magazine
  93. Gautham Nagesh – The Hill, Daily Caller
  94. Suzanne Nossel – Human Rights Watch
  95. Michael O’Hare – University of California at Berkeley
  96. Josh Orton – MyDD.com, Air America Media
  97. Rodger Payne – University of Louisville
  98. Rick Perlstein – Author, Campaign for America’s Future
  99. Nico Pitney – Huffington Post
  100. Harold Pollack – University of Chicago
  101. Katha Pollitt – The Nation
  102. Ari Rabin-Havt – Media Matters
  103. Joy-Ann Reid – South Florida Times
  104. David Roberts – Grist
  105. Lamar Robertson – Partnership for Public Service
  106. Sara Robinson – Campaign For America’s Future
  107. Alyssa Rosenberg – Washingtonian, The Atlantic, Government Executive
  108. Alex Rossmiller – National Security Network
  109. Michael Roston – Newsbroke
  110. Laura Rozen – POLITICO, Mother Jones
  111. Felix Salmon – Reuters
  112. Greg Sargent – Washington Post
  113. Thomas Schaller – Baltimore Sun
  114. Noam Scheiber – The New Republic
  115. Michael Scherer – TIME
  116. Mark Schmitt – American Prospect, The New America Foundation
  117. Rinku Sen – ColorLines Magazine
  118. Julie Bergman Sender – Balcony Films
  119. Adam Serwer – American Prospect
  120. Walter Shapiro – PoliticsDaily.com
  121. Kate Sheppard – Mother Jones
  122. Matthew Shugart – UC San Diego
  123. Nate Silver – FiveThirtyEight.com
  124. Jesse Singal – The Boston Globe, Washington Monthly
  125. Ann-Marie Slaughter – Princeton University
  126. Ben Smith – POLITICO
  127. Sarah Spitz – KCRW
  128. Adele Stan – The Media Consortium
  129. Paul Starr – The Atlantic
  130. Kate Steadman – Kaiser Health News
  131. Jonathan Stein – Mother Jones
  132. Sam Stein – Huffington Post
  133. Matt Steinglass – Deutsche Presse-Agentur
  134. James Surowiecki – The New Yorker
  135. Jesse Taylor – Pandagon.net
  136. Steven Teles – Yale University
  137. Mark Thoma – The Economists’ View
  138. Michael Tomasky – The Guardian
  139. Jeffrey Toobin – CNN, The New Yorker
  140. Rebecca Traister – Salon
  141. Karen Tumulty – Washington Post, TIME
  142. Tracy Van Slyke – The Media Consortium
  143. Paul Waldman – Author, American Prospect
  144. Dave Weigel – Washington Post, MSNBC, The Washington Independent
  145. Moira Whelan – National Security Network
  146. Scott Winship – Pew Economic Mobility Project
  147. J. Harry Wray – DePaul University
  148. D. Brad Wright – University of NC at Chapel Hill
  149. Kai Wright – The Root
  150. Holly Yeager – Columbia Journalism Review
  151. Rich Yeselson – Change to Win
  152. Matthew Yglesias – Center for American Progress, The Atlantic Monthly
  153. Jonathan Zasloff – UCLA
  154. Julian Zelizer – Princeton University
  155. Avi Zenilman – POLITICO

via American Thinker Blog: JournoList update.