bodner079

When I sent out my email yesterday, in which I took my criticism of Trump to a new level (calling him a monster, comparing him to David Duke and Joe McCarthy, and warning an acquaintance who's publicly supporting him that "The risk that your personal reputation is materially and permanently harmed has gone up a lot"), I braced myself for the blowback that always occurs when I send out a very partisan email: angry emails condemning me for using my email blasts for such purposes, requests to be removed from my email list, etc.   The response so far: crickets. I was so surprised that I went back and checked to make sure it had gone out (it had).   Of the 7,000+ people on this email list, I'd guess 1,000-2,000 are Republicans – and  not a single one emailed me to say, "Whitney, I think you're wrong about Trump. You're misunderstanding what he's saying and/or he doesn't really believe what he's saying and/or even if he does, he'll never be able...

Kudos to Ken Burns! Every prominent person needs to use their platform (like a commencement address) to heap scorn on Trump and make it clear that he and everything he stands for - narcissism, mendacity, misogyny, xenophobia, violence, hatred and bigotry - are completely unacceptable. "There comes a time when I and you can no longer remain neutral, silent — we must speak up and speak out," said Burns, who is known for historical documentaries. "For 216 years, our elections — though bitterly contested — have featured the philosophies and characters of candidates who were clearly qualified." "That is not the case this year," he said, to a round of applause.  [ Read the full speech ] During his takedown, Burns made several stinging points without even using the candidate's name. "He is an insult to our history," Burns said. A moment later, he implored: "Do not be deceived by his momentary good behavior. It is only a spoiled, misbehaving chi...

A spot-on editorial and cover story in this week's Economist about the importance of training teachers and how the current ed school system in the US isn't getting the job done: FORGET smart uniforms and small classes. The secret to stellar grades and thriving students is teachers. One American study found that in a single year's teaching the top 10% of teachers impart three times as much learning to their pupils as the worst 10% do. Another suggests that, if black pupils were taught by the best quarter of teachers, the gap between their achievement and that of white pupils would disappear.  But efforts to ensure that every teacher can teach are hobbled by the tenacious myth that good teachers are born, not made. Classroom heroes like Robin Williams in "Dead Poets Society" or Michelle Pfeiffer in "Dangerous Minds" are endowed with exceptional, innate inspirational powers. Government policies, which often start from the same assumption, seek to raise teac...

Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado (and former Denver school superintendent) generally eschews the national media so he's not well known, but he is an amazing guy – my favorite senator, along with Cory Booker – and would make my short list of possible future Presidents. This weekend's Washington Post magazine has an in-depth profile of him: In an era of ideological polarization and hyper-partisanship, he is a pragmatic centrist whose instincts run to bipartisan compromise. In the shouting match that American politics has become, he'd rather listen than talk, steering clear of the national media. In a capital seething in self-importance, his is the rare ego that does not precede him into the room. And at a time when politicians get ahead by being nasty, superficial and glib, Bennet gets by, as one Republican staffer put it, by being "the most affable and knowledgeable guy in the room." Bennet is the anti-Trump, the anti-Cruz — but also the anti-Hillary, straightforwar...

 Below are the two best NYT Magazine articles I've ever read, one from 2006 on anorexia and one from 2008 about suicide. Both fundamentally changed what I thought I knew about these two calamities. The first one argues that the best way to treat anorexia isn't sending your daughter to a shrink, but to force feed her (or threaten to do so unless she eats 3,000-4,000 calories/day and returns to a normal weight). The second argues that it is NOT true that putting up barriers on high bridges or removing guns from a house doesn't matter because someone who's suicidal will just find another way to do it.   This one on anorexia is still very much worth reading, especially if you have a daughter in or near her teenage years. A truly terrifying disease... Had the diagnosis been, say, diabetes, we would have been given a list of guidelines and medications -- a road map for recovery. We would have looked at research and treatment protocols. Look anorexia up on Amazon, and you'...

Here's an exc one on suicide: Little wonder, then, that most of us have come to regard suicide with an element of resignation, even as a particularly brutal form of social Darwinism: perhaps through luck or medication or family intervention some suicidal individuals can be identified and saved, but in the larger scheme of things, there will always be those driven to take their own lives, and there's really not much that we can do about it. The sheer numbers would seem to support this idea: in 2005, approximately 32,000 Americans committed suicide, or nearly twice the number of those killed by homicide. But part of this sense of futility may stem from a peculiar element of  myopia  in the way we as a society have traditionally viewed and attempted to combat suicide. Just as with homicide, researchers have long recognized a premeditation-versus-passion dichotomy in suicide. There are those who display the classic symptoms of so-called  suicidal behavior , who build up to their ac...

"If you are a dumbass, there will be consequences!"   Believe it or not, I used that line (what I tell my daughters is the "#1 Immutable Law of the Universe") in my commencement address on Friday at my alma mater, Eaglebrook, a private 6 th -9 th grade boarding school in Deerfield, MA. In 7 th and 8 th grades in 1980-81, I was a day student there, and it was a transformative experience for me: for the first time, I experienced what a first-rate education was.   Over the years, I've kept in touch with the school and was deeply honored when the headmaster invited me a few months ago to give the address at this year's commencement. There were just under 100 graduating students, plus younger students, family, friends, teachers, etc. – a total of maybe 400 people. This is what I saw from the podium:     I've done so many TV appearances and speeches over the years (mostly about investing and education reform), but this was the first time I'd spo...

A must-read article for anyone for anyone with an interest in college-age youth: At Middlebury College, I lived a double life. On the surface, I was successful. I was surrounded by diverse, intellectual friends. I led a popular student website and was active in the arts and athletics. I loved learning and made Phi Beta Kappa my junior year. I'm also a white, straight, cisgendered female. If you're thinking, "Please. Your privileged ass has nothing to complain about," you're right. But my internal life was characterized by paralyzing anxiety and depression. I judged myself harshly, to the point of disgust. I drove myself to excessive exercising and near-anorexia. I felt this way because of men—or so I thought. While there was a major gulf between my public self and my private one, the one thing that remained consistent were my politics. I told myself that I was a feminist, despite subjecting myself to unfulfilling, emotionally damaging sexual experi...

I'm on the board of Bridge International Academies, which runs more than 460 low-cost private schools, serving nearly 100,000 students, in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and, soon, India and Liberia . Bridge addresses one of the world's most severe and vexing problems: that children in the ~800 million families around the world subsisting on less than $2/day (roughly half in India and most of the rest in sub-Saharan Africa) are getting little/no education, thereby almost certainly trapping them in desperate poverty.   Bridge has its critics. The more successful it is, the more threatening it is to the local teachers union and educational establishment, so they've been stirring up lots of trouble, threatening regulatory action, spreading rumors, etc. Bridge's global ambitions have also drawn the ire of Education International, the global union federation of teachers' trade unions.   Diane Ravitch, not surprisingly, has criticized Bridge, writing:   "I have blogg...