personal
Presidential Popularity
The American Presidency Project lists the results of presidential popularity Gallup polls since 1941. Data compiled by Gerhard Peters.
Looking over the data, I was surprised in retrospect how consistent Clinton’s ratings were, how un-remarkable the changeover from Clinton to Bush was, the affect 9-11 had on Bush’s popularity compared to Pearl Harbor, and Bush and Obama’s near exact swap of approval and disapproval.
Short link: http://jkat.me/eEUIHv
Technological fiasco enablement
From Gothamist, “NYU Accidentally Makes Fools Out of 489 Prospectives”
NYU sent an email to nearly 500 students this week that they should pack their bags and get ready to make their way over to Greenwich Village this fall as members of Wagner School’s next graduate class. An hour later, the school sent another email telling those same students to scratch that—they were actually rejected.
Short link: http://jkat.me/lZ5Vxg
The exercise of power over others
“Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will.”
– Frederick Douglass
“Power takes as ingratitude the writhing of its victims.”
– Rabindranath Tagore
Short link: http://jkat.me/eIx5Fx
