Kathleen Geier

Yesterday, the New York Times reported on an alarming new study: researchers have documented that the least educated white Americans are experiencing sharp declines in life expectancy. Between 1990 and 2008, white women without a high school diploma lost a full five years of their lives, while their male counterparts lost three years. Experts say […]

Aside from the day off from the work, the parades, and the barbecues, we can expect the display of another annual tradition on Labor Day: the hand-wringing editorials and opinion pieces about the state of the American labor movement. Amongst all the journalistic chaff, you may even find some wheat — like this Washington Post […]

Lyricist Hal David, the songwriting partner of Burt Bacharach, has died. He was 91. The David-Bacharach collaborations are among the glories of 1960s pop. They wrote so many amazing songs, but I have to say, of all the artists they worked with, my favorite is the great Dusty Springfield . . . which is why […]

The invaluable National Employment Law Project (NELP) has published a depressing new report which documents the disappearance of mid-wage jobs in our economy and the fact that job growth is concentrated in low-wage jobs. Specifically: — Lower-wage occupations constituted 21 percent of recession losses, but 58 percent of recovery growth. — Mid-wage occupations constituted 60 […]

The brilliant feminist Shulamith Firestone, author of the second wave classic The Dialectic of Sex (1970), has died, apparently of natural causes. She was 67. For decades, she had battled severe mental illness, and the circumstances of her demise were especially sad; she lived alone and, according to reports, her death was not discovered until […]

Here are a few stories that are making news headlines this morning: — Bad news for Mitt Romney: a new Reuters poll suggests that his post-convention bounce was modest and is likely to be short-lived. — Forecasting models by political scientists are often surprisingly accurate about predicting election outcomes, and this year, most models are […]

Andrew Solomon in the New Yorker, on the children of rape (he’s writing a book on the subject). It’s powerful stuff: Even women who try to learn their child’s blamelessness can find it desperately difficult. The British psychoanalyst Joan Raphael-Leff writes of women bearing children conceived in rape, “The woman feels she has growing inside […]

Here are some interesting stories in the news this afternoon: — Ben Bernanke is making some serious noises that suggest that the Fed may be ready, at long last, to take forceful actions to stimulate the economy. Well, it’s not like we’re in the middle the most horrific economic disaster of the past 75 years […]

Due to technological difficulties at home, I am today blogging from the boyfriend’s place, where my hosts include two cats who are easily the most fabulous felines in the Chicagoland area (and, possibly, the world). I’ve never been able to have cats of my own because I’m allergic to them but I recently discovered the […]

The latest controversy involving Rep. Paul “Lyin’” Ryan concerns whether, in a recent interview, willfully misrepresented the time it took him to run a marathon, some 20-odd years ago. He claims it was under three hours, but apparently it was actually over four. While I do believe he’s probably deliberately lying here, rather than innocently […]