Headline reading is fascinating, fun, and maddening . . . but what I notice most with my own headline data-mining is how the news travels from East to West — the English-speaking news that is, much of which is controlled (as we all know) by one individual’s empire. So in the empire’s origin — Australia — the U.S. “clings” to affirmative action; whereas in New Zealand it’s more accurately “struck down,” and then by the time you reach London it’s “gutted.” But affirmative action is not a baby, or a needy dependent, or a fish – and history is not just what happened over 50 years ago. It’s all about IMPLEMENTATION — the title of Aaron Wildavsky’s famous book that I read decades ago and never forgot . . .
Professor Ruth O’Brien, who earned her Ph.D. in political science at UCLA, joined the Graduate Center’s doctoral faculty in 1997 and, in 2004, founded the “Writing Politics” specialization in political science. She also serves as an adjunct affiliated scholar with the Center for American Progress. In her research and books, she focuses on American politics, law, political theory without national borders, globalism, and American/global dichotomy. She edits the award-winning “Public Square” series for Princeton University Press, showcasing public intellectuals such as Jill Lepore, Jeff Madrick, Anne Norton, Martha Nussbaum, and Joan Scott. O’Brien is also launching “Heretical Thought,” an Oxford University Press political-theory series that is global in outlook. Her latest book, Out of Many One: Obama and the Third American Political Tradition (2013), with a foreword by journalist Thomas Byrnes Edsall, distinguished professor at Columbia’s School of Journalism, was honored with a 2013 “Author Meets Critic” American Political Science Association convention session. She also wrote Bodies in Revolt: Gender, Disability, and a Workplace Ethic of Care (2005), Crippled Justice: The History of Modern Disability Policy in the Workplace (2001), which received an honorable mention from Gustavus Meyers Center for the Study of Human Rights and Bigotry (“Meyers Center”), and Workers’ Paradox: The Republican Origins of the New Deal Labor Policy, 1886–1935 (1998). “Writing Politics” emanated from two books she contributed to and edited: Telling Stories out of Court: Narratives about Women and Workplace Discrimination (2008) and Voices from the Edge: Narratives about the Americans with Disabilities Act (2004), which earned another honorable mention from the Meyers Center. O’Brien’s controversial blog led Rush Limbaugh to dub her a “professorette.”
Headline reading is fascinating, fun, and maddening . . . but what I notice most with my own headline data-mining is how the news travels from East to West — the English-speaking news that is, much of which is controlled (as we all know) by one individual’s empire. So in the empire’s origin — Australia — the U.S. “clings” to affirmative action; whereas in New Zealand it’s more accurately “struck down,” and then by the time you reach London it’s “gutted.” But affirmative action is not a baby, or a needy dependent, or a fish – and history is not just what happened over 50 years ago. It’s all about IMPLEMENTATION — the title of Aaron Wildavsky’s famous book that I read decades ago and never forgot . . .
