† Pundits To The Left! Pundits To The Right!: Democratic strategist/pundit Donna Brazile offers this startling analysis in her contribution to a Washington Post feature, “Twelve things the world should toss out”: “It's time to abolish punditry.” She adds:

If your only credentials are "GOP shill" or "Democratic hack," you've no business cluttering up the airwaves or the op-ed pages. …

[R]eplace the pundits with people who have genuine expertise - whether from their academic work, professional life or personal experience - on the key issues of the day. Instead of partisan talking heads or mad hatters from the "tea party" preaching their views on, say, health care and taxes, let's hear from doctors and insurance professionals, or the number-crunchers from the Congressional Budget Office. They're much better equipped to help viewers, listeners and readers wade through the facts, arguments and data.

Some pundits could remain as political analysts. (I'm not crazy, am I?) There is insight to be gained from the dark, secret knowledge they hold from their decades pacing the political corridors. But let's not mistake the gallery for the game.

Yes, but whenever we hear from these folks – car dealers who object to the Obama administration shuttering their successful businesses or corporate executives who say that accounting rules require them to write down millions of dollars in anticipated Obamacare costs – they are accused of being part of a vast right-wing conspiracy to make Dems look bad.

† All The News That’s Fart To Print: Congress wants “potty parity” in all federal buildings so that women won’t have to stand in line as the call of nature becomes increasingly insistent, but legislators can’t agree on how to apportion the commodes, reports The Washington Times:

Some argued that it means equality of opportunity, as judged by the number of stalls, while others said equality of outcome is the key, which could be measured by the length of lines.

"Women on average take about twice as long to use facilities as men. The result is still going to be much longer lines for women than men," said John F. Banzhaf III, a law professor at George Washington University who has helped craft some of the potty-parity laws enacted in states.

Mr. Banzhaf said some courts have ruled that providing the exact same facilities still could be seen as having a disparate impact because of the inherent different challenges the two sexes face.

He pointed to a federal appeals court decision that held a construction site that provided portable toilets was in violation because women, unlike men, always have to sit down, and so face a less-clean situation. …

Robert Brubaker, a spokesman for the American Restroom Association, said his association is nudging the government to comply with building codes, which have been worked out and tweaked over years to match restroom-use patterns. He said the ARA doesn't want to see a specific ratio mandated, because that doesn't work in facilities where the sex ratio of workers is skewed, such as military bases.

Rather than ensuring men and women face equal wait times, he said the goal is to have enough facilities so there are no lines.

Potty problems have also been created by well-intentioned policies and regulations:

[Banzhaf] said Wolf Trap, the National Park Service's outdoor concert venue in Fairfax County, had two men's and two women's restrooms, and men breezed through while women waited in long lines. So one men's room was converted to a women's room and now "today everyone waits in line." …

In some instances the Americans with Disabilities Act has sparked the problem. In order to comply, some owners of small shops and restaurants have converted rooms that used to be multi-stall into big single-stall, accessible rooms, Mr. Brubaker said.

† Putting The “Boo” In Boomer: Dr. Darrell S. Rigel, 59, a past president of the American Academy of Dermatology, attributes increased rates of melanoma to “Baby boomers out baking in the ’80s,” reports The New York Times: “As to why … boomers were the first to metastasize in a big way, Dr. Rigel [cites] increased wealth and leisure; the explosion in air travel, allowing more vacations in sunny Florida, California and Arizona and at ski resorts; a thinning ozone layer; and a longer life span that gives us the opportunity to die of more things.”

† Too Much Information: Fugitive Maxi Sopo, whose Facebook status updates enabled U.S. authorities to track him to Cancun, pleaded guilty to bank fraud charges, reports The Associated Press:

Prosecutors said Sopo and an associate falsely obtained more than $200,000 from Seattle-area banks and credit unions.

Sopo is a native of Cameroon who previously was convicted of fraud in the United Kingdom.

† Updates To Previous Posts (sixth item, Mortgage Loan Modification Less Than Advertised): According to the latest monthly report on the Home Affordable Modification Program by the U.S. Treasury Department, of the 1.2 million trial modifications initiated under the plan, some 281,000 homeowners had been dropped by the end of April, reports The Wall Street Journal:

Under the program, launched in early 2009, homeowners are first offered trial modifications. If they make the payments and satisfy other criteria, those trial modifications are made "permanent," ensuring a cut in payments for five years.

At the end of April, about 295,000 homeowners had been given permanent modifications, up 30% from a month earlier. The number of borrowers in trials was down 18% from a month earlier to 637,000. Many people have been eliminated during the trials because they failed to make payments or didn't provide documents on their income and assets to show that they qualified for the program.

According to the Treasury, homeowners who successfully get their monthly mortgage payments reduced are still spending a median of 64 percent of pretax income on property-related debt (property taxes, insurance, and homeowners association or condo fees) and on personal debt (credit cards, car loans and alimony).

† Updates To Previous Posts (fourth item, Obama’s Family Values: Part V): After a five-hour closed-door hearing, Boston immigration judge Leonard Shapiro has granted President Barack Hussein Obama's aunt, Zeituni Onyango asylum, which means the recently illegal immigrant who ignored a previous order of deportation can stay in the U.S. and possibly become a US citizen, reports The Boston Globe:

"I'm tired," said Onyango, whose case caused a stir when it was revealed sad [sic] been living illegally in a South Boston public housing complex.

In Cleveland, Onyango's lawyers Margaret Wong and Scott Bratton said that now Onyango will be allowed to receive a work permit, a Social Security number, and a driver's license or state identification card. She must wait for one year to apply for legal permanent residency, or a green card, and five years to apply for US citizenship.

It is unclear whether Onyango will be required to reimburse MA taxpayers for the rent subsidies she enjoyed while living in an apartment that she was not entitled to occupy as an illegal alien. If not, one would hope that her nephew would have the decency to reimburse the city for the largesse extended to his aunt at the expense of an impoverished American family.

† Updates To Previous Posts (sixth item, Now Is Not The Time To Talk About Race): The Associated Press offers an 800-word disquisition on the meaning of “nude” – not as a state of undress, but as a color:

In fashion, it's a common description of the shade a little darker than champagne, lighter than sand and perhaps with a hint of blush or peach.

But when Michelle Obama wore, in the words of designer Naeem Khan, a "sterling-silver sequin, abstract floral, nude strapless gown" to a state dinner at the White House - and it was reported as such - that sparked questions about the definition of nude and its relation, if any, to the wearer's skin color.  
 

 

The Associated Press called Mrs. Obama's dress color "flesh" and got immediate retorts: "Whose flesh?" one newspaper editor asked. "Not hers." The description was revised to "champagne."

"We talk of nude now, and there is no one color. It's politically incorrect," says Gale Epstein, creative director and co-founder of undergarment brand Hanky Panky. 

Someone at the AP is colorblind - and not in the PC sense. The dress is clearly ecru – a champagne-hue would have a golden tinge.

† Updates To Previous Posts (fourth item, How To Tell When A “Hate Crime” Has Been Committed): Yet another case of young blacks beating up on Asians – this time, not fellow classmates but entire neighborhood in San Francisco, reports The Associated Press:

Police Chief George Gascon has played down the role of race in the attacks, and pointed to statistics to show Asian Americans are not disproportionately targeted in street crimes in San Francisco.

Asian Americans make up 30 percent of the city's population, and account for 19 percent of the victims, Gason said. African Americans are 7 percent of the population, but make up 21 percent of victims. …

Racism is not a word thrown around carelessly in this politically correct city. Accusations of that sort are hard for Mrs. Cheng to square with the smiles she trades with her African-American neighbors of 20 years, or with her teenage daughter's black friends, who walk her home to keep her safe.

When Asian-Americans moved into black neighborhoods … it may have created tensions that were exacerbated by economic stresses and deep language and cultural barriers, experts say.

"From the African-American community's perspective, they feel like they're being invaded by outsiders, and they want to defend their own turf," said Edward Chang, a University of California, Irvine, professor who has studied race relations. "It invites a sense of resentment."

Editorial Note: AP leads off with the story of a woman 4 feet 10 inches tall who was “pushed off a public transit platform” by a 15-year-old more than a foot taller than she, “coming to minutes later with front teeth knocked out and her mouth full of blood.” The woman’s 83-year-old neighbor, was beaten into a coma – both attacks occurring within a block of her home – yet AP describes the Asian community’s anger over these and other assaults as “simmering perception that they are targets of racially motivated violence.” If Asian kids were wilding on elderly blacks you can bet that the AP would be able to discern the difference between perception and reality. AP also casts the perpetrators of the violence as “victims.”

† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, How Poor Is Poor?): The Census Bureau is planning to unveil its Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) in September 2011 and some conservatives are already bracing themselves for the resulting data to be used to justify increasing the tax burden on the middle class, reports The Washington Times:

Policy experts have been working for at least 15 years on a new poverty standard to supplement - or eventually replace - the measure that has been used since the 1960s, a measure that many critics say does not reflect contemporary realities and needs. The problem: some experts think the current measure overstates the number of poor Americans, while another group argues it vastly understates the number.

"Call me cynical, but I can see this [measure] as an attempt to redistribute more wealth further down the road," said Pamela Villarreal, who studies tax issues at the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas.

"I think that what is going to happen is that, even though this is an alternative measure [today], there's going to be a lot of political pressure to make this alternative measure the standard measure. And then you're going to see a lot more money devoted to fighting poverty," said Ms. Villarreal.

† Updates To Previous Posts (ninth item, Garbage In, Garbage Out: Part II): The Central Falls (RI) Teacher's Union reached an agreement with Superintendent Fran Gallo to rehire the teachers fired from Central Falls High School without requiring them to reapply for their old jobs. In return, the teachers will working longer days in an effort to improve student math and reading proficiency at one the state’s lowest-performing schools, reports The Associated Press:

The agreement lengthens the school day by 30 minutes and requires all teachers to spend one hour tutoring each week. Teachers would be required to eat lunch with students once a week, face a more rigorous evaluation system and undergo up to 10 days of professional development every summer and 90 minutes of weekly planning time after school.

Those conditions are similar to but more stringent than the ones proposed by Gallo before the firings. …

Teachers would receive an annual stipend of $3,000, plus $30 per hour of professional development time.

State Education Commissioner Deborah Gist said in an interview Monday that the firings were never intended as a knock on the performance of individual teachers, but rather emerged from concern that the staff was not sufficiently committed to making necessary reforms.

† Updates To Previous Posts (sixth item, You Are What You (Can’t) Eat): At an event with TV personality Rachael Ray at P.S. 29 in Brooklyn to promote a new program to help urban schools plant vegetable gardens, nutrition scold Mayor Michael Bloomberg – a self-described "iceberg lettuce guy" – danced around a reporter’s question about his favorite vegetable ("I like most vegetables. I'm not big on a handful of them") and then confessed, "But I love steak."

Meanwhile, thanks to Bloomberg and other nutrition scolds, Heinz ketchup is desalinating its ketchup recipe, reports the New York Post:

Mayor Bloomberg and other politicians are leaning on big food companies to kick the salt. Heinz was one of 16 major food manufacturers that last month signed onto the National Salt Reduction Initiative, a plan led by Bloomberg to get companies to cut back on the salt in their products. …

The new Heinz ketchup recipe will contain about 15 percent less sodium, dropping the amount per tablespoon from 190 to 160 milligrams. Heinz will also make changes to the secret spices. …

The new bottles are set to hit shelves in the summer.

All of which makes The Stiletto go, “meh.” She can’t stand ketchup, and never touches the stuff unless it is doctored with lemon juice, horse radish, Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce – in other words, it gets transformed into shrimp cocktail sauce.