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Brief thought exercise: why do we keep applying business and market principles to the idea of education?

This will be a pretty short post, because if I wrote everything I wanted to write about it, I’d be here for hours and probably get off into a series of meandering sub-points that wouldn’t ultimately benefit anyone. Lest you… Continue Reading

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Where do low-income residents tend to live together the most? (As well as high-income residents.) Er, San Antonio and Memphis.

Cities have become increasingly economically segregated in the last decade or so, according to various studies (for example, this one). There’s been some pretty substantial discussions about this and what it all means across the Internet by people far more… Continue Reading

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“Pimps are bitches” and other revelations from the $100 million sex worker industry in major American cities

From here: The Urban Institute’s report, released this week, draws on interviews with dozens of child pornographers, sex workers, pimps, traffickers, and local law enforcement officials in a bid to outline the inner workings of the business in eight American… Continue Reading

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Demographically, is the U.S. now in a reverse migration? Are African-Americans moving back to the South?

I just spent about five days in Memphis, TN. That’s a (generally speaking) very black, very historical, very proud, very connected back to the US historical landscape (rock n’ roll) place. I’m not from the South, I’ve never lived for… Continue Reading

We love to talk about drones and Amazon. But what if drones could really help Africa?

First off, to anyone that actually reads this thing, apologies for not blogging since last Wednesday; I was at a conference and ’twas hard to sit down and compose some posts. I’ll be at similar conferences twice in April, so… Continue Reading

Political trend line: young white millennials are basically libertarians. Can they save the GOP?

The electoral map isn’t very favorable to the GOP, and their strategy/culture isn’t either, and while they may do OK in the midterms — midterms typically favor the non-Presidential party anyway — their 2016 prospects look dim at present. But ah ha!… Continue Reading

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2014 Elections Trend: Anti-incumbent attitudes are near a record high, but there’s very few toss-up races. Why?

Check out the chart above and some of the charts herein, and you could argue that the 2014 midterms have the highest anti-incumbent polling stance in about 22-24 years — seems like 68 percent of those polled are saying they want to… Continue Reading

If you interview inmates about their decision-making when they were younger, what can you learn?

That’s the idea behind a photo exhibit from Trent Bell (there’s an accompanying video embedded above). Only 12 men volunteered for Bell’s project, which came about when one of his good friends was sentenced to 36 years in jail — and… Continue Reading