An Honest Assessment of Who Deserves the Blame for the Sequester
An Argument for Increasing the Minimum Wage
Political conventions provide parties an opportunity to make their case, craft their narrative, and focus their campaign. While the Democratic National Convention continues today, I’d like to give a few thoughts on one of the questions that Republicans are asking Americans: Are you better off today than when President Obama took office? Here’s Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan asking that question: There are two ways to answer that question. First, there’s the way that Republicans want people to answer. Second, there’s the right way. In the first way, Republicans want a direct comparison between where we are now to where we were when Obama took office. By that metric, today is arguably worse. For instance, there has been a net loss of about 300,000 jobs under Obama’s administration. Such facts help the Republican case. Such facts are also completely misleading. The proper way to judge where America is today is …
So, here I am. Still in New York, but now I have a job! That doesn’t mean I’ll stop editing for The Handle, because you guys are awesome. Obviously. It just means that maybe I will finally have something to blog about! I’ve started working for the German Book Office New York, which “is a small nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote German rights and licenses. It also acts as a liaison between the German and North American publishing communities. The GBO supports German rights holders as they sell their titles to North American publishers and works to make translated German titles available to a large reading audience in the U.S.” I didn’t write that last part. But I could if I wanted to! So I’m here, figuring things out. Last night, I attended the first of many book clubs I will attend hosted by my predecessor, …
So, it’s been longer than I had planned for another update from my New York adventures. I’m so behind because I’ve been so busy here! Life moves very quickly, and therefore I have quite a bit to share with y’all. I’ve officially been in the city for two weeks now, and experienced an impressive amount of the city in such a short period of time. Let’s see, here’s a rough break-down of what I’ve been up to: -I started my internship with the Waxman Literary Agency last Monday, and I love it! The agents and other office peoples are very pleasant, smart, and appear to have good music taste (or whoever keeps playing random singles that I love does, anyhow). At the internship I get to read Scott’s slush, which basically means I get to determine whether or not various queries are worth the agents’ time. That is a power …
The Pressing Need for Government Spending and the Harmful Effects of Republican Austerity