Diversity has long been the watchword in college admissions, and among elite schools in particular.  Yet as Princeton professor Uwe Reinhardt writes, diversity advocates tend to focus on race and ethnicity to the exclusion of differences in class and culture. Reinhardt, whose son graduated from Princeton and joined the Marine Corps in 2001, notes with dismay that […]

With elections for the French presidency set to take place later in the spring, the Wall Street Journal reports that a new organization, Young & Poor, “has set itself the task of rating candidates in the presidential election campaign on their youth policies and their credibility in the fight to bring down youth unemployment.” Borrowing the […]

Two articles (1, 2) in today’s New York Times show just how quickly change is coming to higher education. A series of experimental Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) offered by Stanford, MIT, Georgia Tech and others have proven to be quite popular and have spawned at least two start-ups, Udacity and Udemy. The professors seem […]

Judging from newspaper headlines, one would think the Syrian rebels are surrounded by friends. Turkey and Qatar have joined America and Europe in lending them verbal support, and now even Saudi Arabia is adding to the chorus. But the support doesn’t extend far beyond rhetoric. The Wall Street Journal reports that, despite their promises of […]

For years, analysts have been predicting that China, like Japan before it, would experience a rapid slowdown in growth after its initial economic burst. While it’s still too soon to tell if that is happening, some recent data is suggestive. CNBC reported Sunday that China has revised its growth targets down to 7.5 percent for […]

This week, the Turkish press covered several points of ongoing debate regarding the country’s foreign policy in the Middle East. Reporting by Seymour Hersh on Turkey’s pursuit of its first aircraft carrier received front-page coverage. (Takvim) In an interview with Milliyet, Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja described Turkey, which maintains the world’s ninth largest army […]

President Obama’s policy of pressuring Iran through economic sanctions got a big boost over the weekend: India’s biggest oil importer announced plans to cut its Iranian crude purchases by 44 percent in 2012-13, Reuters reports. The cutbacks suggest that Indian imports from Iran will fall by about 20 percent overall, with much of the replacement […]

As the blue social model collapses across Europe and the United States and Britain grope to replace it, China is trying to build a blue social model of its own.That at least is the message of outgoing premier Wen Jiabao in the speech China-watchers compare to the US State of the Nation. As the Washington […]

Frank has written a tribute to his friend and colleague James Q. Wilson on his TAI blog.Writes Frank: Jim Wilson was known as a conservative who cherished limited government in the American tradition. But he also understood that government was needed for all sorts of functions, and that it could do its job better or […]

In news that surprises no one, Vladimir Putin has been elected President of Russia with almost two thirds of the vote — well over the fifty percent he needed to avoid a runoff.Via Meadia suspects the Great One would have won in an honest count; Russia has been through Hell since the collapse of the […]