There’s an excellent case to be made for bestowing the “paper of record” title on The Washington Post. The New York Times essentially resigned from that position with its godawful election coverage (failure to vet homeboy Trump in favor of hysterical focus on Clinton’s emails), its subsequent refusal to engage in post-election introspection and its inexplicable decision to add a climate change denier to its op-ed page.
As valued commenter Baud frequently reminds us, “The New York Times is garbage.” But the WaPo has its problems too, and one was illustrated vividly in a self-proclaimed “smart analysis” piece published today. The article explores Trump’s chummy relationship with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and the recently extended invitation for Duterte to visit the White House, rightly questioning why a US president would warmly embrace an authoritarian who has presided over thousands of extrajudicial killings.
The article notes that Priebus played the North Korea card to justify inviting the bloodthirsty Duterte to Washington (North Korea is becoming something of a go-to boogeyman to excuse all ills for Team Trump). Other officials cited the need to balance China’s influence in the Philippines. The analysis also quoted experts who correctly observed that Trump has a worrying affinity for strongmen. This is all perfectly relevant, and Trump’s admiration for authoritarians is both undeniable and worrisome.
But the piece was marred by the complete absence of the corruption angle. As Bloomberg reported back in November, Trump’s business partner in the Philippines was appointed special envoy to the US shortly after the election:
Century Properties Group Inc. of Manila, the company behind the $150 million tower that’s set to open next year, paid as much as $5 million to use the Trump name, in a licensing agreement that’s common for the president-elect. Trump has at least 10 similar licensing deals around the world, each of which might complicate his administration’s international diplomacy, according to ethics specialists.
But in Manila, there’s an extra connection: Century Properties’ chief executive and controlling stakeholder, Jose E.B. Antonio, was appointed last month to serve as a special government envoy to the U.S. for Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who has vowed to expel American troops from his country and ranted against President Barack Obama. Antonio says he sees no conflict between his public role and private partnership.
What a coincidence — Trump also doesn’t see any conflicts between his public role and private business dealings. Neither does his special presidential adviser/daughter, whose visage is currently being was used to hawk Trump-branded luxury penthouses, jewelry collections, etc., in Manila (h/t: Kay):*
Assistant to POTUS models in an ad for POTUS's new Tower in Manila. President of Philippines just got WH invite. pic.twitter.com/zEDxTkGN17
— Peter Brack (@peterbrack) May 1, 2017
So yeah, let’s keep an eye on Trump’s affinity for authoritarians, speculate about how much the Trump-Duterte bromance might be connected to Duterte’s insulting behavior toward President Obama, etc. But let’s not forget to follow the money. The Washington Post, of all publications, shouldn’t need that reminder.
*Kay informs me in comments that’s a photo from 2012, so as far as we know, Trump’s Filipino business partner/the Philippines’ special envoy to the US isn’t using Trump’s daughter/special adviser to sell Trump-branded shit right now. But the business conflicts remain.
Villago Delenda Est
Betty, this is all so right on that I don’t have the words aside from “Right On, Sistah!” or the equivalent in the original French circa 1789.
schrodingers_cat
Vichy Press is not going to save us.
Kay
Betty, I saw later that the Ivanka photo is from 2012. They’re saying the billboard is no longer up although it’s the Trump’s so I’d have to travel there myself and verify :)
Anyhow- it’s an old photo. I thought it was current. Sorry. My mistake.
rikyrah
Congressional Republicans Dump Trump On Spending Bill
by Nancy LeTourneau May 1, 2017 10:17 AM
Last week Congress passed a short-term spending bill to avoid a government shutdown through Friday. Before the end of this week, they need to pass a longer-term version to keep the government funded until September. As I noted last week, passage of the short-term version demonstrated that Republicans are likely to need Democratic votes to get it passed.
Today we learn that an agreement was reached on how to move forward with a spending bill through September.
Notice that the bill not only rejects Trump’s demand to fund his border wall. It also rejects increased funding for his deportation force and attempt to de-fund sanctuary cities. That is a huge blow to the nativists in his administration. But even more telling, it specifically stops him from being able to use increased funding for border security to pay for his wall.
JPL
The Ivanka picture was taken in 2012, but the point is still valid. In a perfect world, the indictments will come soon. I just want the Ossoff voters to have a strong turnout, and the Handel voters to stay home.
liberal
Nope. NYT lost that status when it promoted the claim that Saddam had WMDs. WP was far better on that (in the news section, anyway).
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodingers_cat: Lots of shaved heads in the offing for the Vichy Press.
Villago Delenda Est
@liberal: Fred Hiatt’s name is in indelible ink on the tumbrel manifest.
Kay
@rikyrah:
I knew that was coming. People realize that 90% of lobbying for military spending has to do with people making money, right? The reason they attacked Obama on his alleged “weakness” was he wasn’t pouring as much money into the giant maw of defense spending?
It’s never enough. Never.
Elizabelle
And the Fuck the Fucking New York Times, Vichy edition, top story is the temporary budget deal. They make it sound like a victory for Trump and Republicans in the blurb. Which is all most people ever see, checking the website.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Why does no one ever say “let’s not throw money at the problem” with defense spending?
Kay
@Elizabelle:
They’ve gotten worse since the campaign. They’re Politico now. Politico with recipes and lifestyle pieces.
Elizabelle
Has someone told Ruth Marcus?
Love-hate with the WaPost. They’ve got too much deadweight, but also some very good reporters. Sad Fred Hiatt and crew was allowed anywhere near; had more love for the Post years ago.
That is not true anymore for the Fuck the Fucking New York Times, Vichy edition. Liz Spayd’s most recent idiot public editor column (well sure, people are calling to complain about the Bret Stephens hire, but I am told not that many are actually cancelling) — I am taking as a personal challenge.
Seriously. Here is the Spayd column. She’s a moron.
Seeking More Voices, Even if Some Don’t Want to Hear Them
Elizabelle
@Kay: Yes. It’s obviously their plan.
The Washington Post is now the paper of record. Period.
I like the Los Angeles Times so much more than the NY Vichy Times.
jacy
“extra-judicial killings” sounds so much less charged than “state-sponsored murder squads.” Also less accurate.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
I don’t have to say this to people here but we could subscribe to our local papers- the people who cover statehouses. They’re hugely important and they make next to nothing. I buy a local and a “state” – The Toledo Blade. The local paper pays reporters less than 15 dollars an hour, much less if you did their hours over a month.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Thanks — correction made! And yeah, I’d have to inspect every billboard in Manila too before taking that corrupt pack of grift-mavens’ word for anything.
different-church-lady
@Kay:
Assuming your lifestyle involves being an abundantly affluent white person with a family.
bystander
I gave up the NYTimes after the election because they contributed so heartily to Clinton’s defeat, most notably with the anonymously sourced report of Clinton’s imminent criminal charges. But WaPo is sickening, too. EJDionne is a mealy mouth, BTW.
The first 100 days were “tumultuous”. Euphemising is the order of the day at WaPo.
jacy
@Elizabelle:
Pisses me off. It feels much more to me like a Democratic victory. They shut some shit down, which is the best they can do right now. Dems just need to get into the habit of not blinking, because that’s all Trump seems to be doing.
chopper
@Elizabelle:
the post has a story up about the agreement about how much trump got rolled. just to compare.
Yarrow
Didn’t WaPo also do a glowing report on Trump’s rally the other night? No mention of the protests and citizens detaining protesters (against the law, apparently). No mention of Trump reading the “snake” story. No mention of the lie about the arena being full–it wasn’t. Just coverage about how much his fans love him.
Kay
Mnuchin is out crowing that they’re gutting finance sector regulation.
I don’t think it’s fair that I have to go thru 16% unemployment and foreclosures with Big Wheels piled at the curb again twice in one working career. The brightly colored toys killed me. That and feeding kids at the library. We had never fed kids at the library before.
We’re doing it AGAIN. Christ.
Elizabelle
@chopper: Great to hear.
@jacy: It is a Democratic victory. And we must tell the miners who saved their healthcare funding. And all those who benefited from the Democrats holding cuts at the EPA to one percent (Trump had requested a gutting of 31%). Lot to like in what our brave and principled Democratic representatives did.
Elizabelle
@Kay: Can they actually gut it? Is it a done deal? Or is Mnuchin just crowing?
Peale
@Kay: as a coincidence, I’m in Manila this week. I shall look for billboards (although I tend to focus on keeping a lookout for pickpockets, I might be able to multi task).
Yarrow
@Kay: Nothing about this is fair. But I think using the word “fair” is bad framing. You can’t look at a narcissistic traitorous looter who wants to take you for everything you have and burn your house down on the way out the door and say, “That’s not fair!” They don’t care if it’s fair. If they cared about fairness we wouldn’t be in this situation. We need something stronger to frame our arguments and push back against them.
Elizabelle
A tale of two newspaper websites.
The Washington Post.
Contrast with the Fuck the Fucking New York Times. (OK, he didn’t get the wall, but increased defense and border enforcement spending. Suck on it, Dems.)
liberal
@Villago Delenda Est: Yeah, that guy’s always been a major prick.
liberal
@Kay: Come on, it’s always been that way.
Elizabelle
@Kay: Good advice re local paper, but what passes for mine is not worth the paper it’s printed on. So I subscribe to the big nationals.
Although: if anyone has a suggestion on a good regional paper, maybe mid-sized market, that’s doing good work … could do some roving subscribing there.
Someone will be getting the money I can no longer send the Fuck the Fucking NY Times’ way …. (and at this point, I am pretty much hate-reading them and enjoying their publishing outsiders’ contributions, with Krugman, etc. They have fallen far, fast.)
Bess
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-38311655
Killing a suspect is murder.
Can we please start saying that Donald Trump has invited confessed murderer Rodrigo Duterte to our White House.
joel hanes
NYT lost that status when it promoted the claim that Saddam had WMDs
NYT lost that status early in its CDS-fueled scandalmongering during the nothingburgers that were Whitewater/Travelgate/Vince Foster/Rose Law Records
Substituting press-release stenography for real reporting is an automatic forfeit.
It’s too bad; even today, they employ some superb reporters, but they don’t assign them to cover DC.
Oatler.
Duterte will always be tolerated by drug-prohibitionist administrations which is all of them and Not To Be Talked About Ever.
randy khan
Realistically speaking, nobody’s ever going to call the current iteration of the Washington Post the newspaper of record. Whatever anyone thinks of its U.S. political coverage, the Times is much stronger on international issues, business (the Post essentially has no business section) and the arts. The Post cut back in all of those areas over the past 10 years, and while the Times has had some cuts, they are nowhere near as deep. You can read the Times as an alternative to the Wall Street Journal and keep up pretty well on business, for instance, but there’s no way you could do that with the Post.
Granted, the Times doesn’t have comics and its sports section is not as good, but neither of those really count in this particular sweepstakes (and the sports section actually is getting better, and covers some things, like soccer, better than the Post). Plus, the Times doesn’t have Hiatt, which is a big thumb on the scale, even with the stupid choices the Times has made for Op-Ed columnists recently.
SatanicPanic
@randy khan: I pair WaPo with Bloomberg (I know, McMegan and Eli Lake) and that seems good. I guess if I need a print edition I’d be bummed, but who has the time to read a print edition?
Yarrow
@joel hanes: The NYT has been getting important stuff very wrong for a long time. Remember their first coverage of Hitler?
Despite what several reliable well-informed sources said, the NYT decided to ignore or pooh-pooh his obvious anti-Semitism. They ignored Trump’s links to Russia too, despite well-informed sources like Harry Reid telling them they were real. They have a long history of ignoring well-informed sources if it upsets their agenda.
BTW, my link is to the Snopes article on it so you can check it out without going to the NYT.
germy
@Yarrow: But their “life and leisure” people did some simply wonderful pieces on his vacation home.
SatanicPanic
@Yarrow: They’ve been wrong since I started reading them September 18, 1851.
Close down the thread, I am officially the most hipster here.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat:
Nope. They are not. And they’re enabling cynicism and ignorance, every single day.
ETA: I wonder if Trump looks at them and thinks, “I might as well rattle their chains about doing away with the First Amendment, because they won’t use it.” He’s ignorant and a bully, but he knows lilly-livers when he sees them.
Jeffro
@Kay:
Um, because defense spending is GOOD spending, and most all other government spending is BAD spending? C’mon, Kay!
I remember PJ O’Rourke once trying to make the point that given a choice between an aircraft carrier or 1,000 community centers, we should choose the aircraft carrier because in a pinch, it could serve as a floating community center. HYS-terical. But perhaps not the best way to look at ‘opportunity cost’.
Jeffro
Btw for those who are interested, there is an AWESOME short clip going around on Twitter of John Dickerson interviewing Trumpov and pressing him on his Obama wiretapping claims. To the point where the Head Snowflake quits the interview and walks away.
From. John. Dickerson.
schrodingers_cat
You guys keep cursing Vichy Times by the Hudson but give them clicks and your subscription $$. They are not going to learn a lesson unless they are boycotted en masse’.
Ella in New Mexico
@Betty Cracker: I believe I saw on Teh Twitterz yesterday that even though that is an old picture, the project is a franchise-type deal, and they included the rights to use Ivanka’s image to go with it. So I’m betting they’re using it like a rental vehicle…
This is at least the second time I’ve seen Daddy use his daughter’s sexy image to sell a hunk of real estate. This one at least didn’t require her to look like a cheap prostitute from the Balkans
rikyrah
Trump sees US policymaking process as ‘archaic’ and ‘a bad thing’
05/01/17 11:30 AM
By Steve Benen
Donald Trump conceded last week he’s surprised by the difficulties of the presidency. “This is more work than in my previous life,” the Republican told Reuters. “I thought it would be easier.”
Part of this extends from the fact that Trump knew very little about the job he sought, having no real sense of what a president does, but he’s also learning the basics of how a bill becomes a law – and he doesn’t seem to care for it. Here’s what the president told Fox News the other day:
Trump’s frustrations are, to a degree, understandable. The legislative and policymaking process is difficult by design. There are any number of choke points, procedural hurdles, institutional checks, legal limits, and court interventions.
This is, however, a feature of the American system, not a bug. The process is arduous because it was created to be that way: the point has long been to prevent reckless policymaking by having a system that’s slow and demanding.
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: Not me! And that’s why my link was not to the NYT.
Gin & Tonic
@Yarrow: See also Walter Duranty.
Origuy
Looks like Trump’s buddy Rodrigo is going to be washing the cat that day. Link
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: I know. I think about that several times each day. My situation: I travel, I am out of the US, and the FTFNYTImes is comprehensive, even while I know it’s batshit crazy on politics. Their US section has gone to shit — it’s predominantly the bad political reporting, Trump and very little else. Any day, they’re going to run a lifestyle feature on their front page about living with nose hair.
The NY Times has gone to shit. BUT, it’s useful for seeing what people in the bubble in the US are responding to. And it is a bubble, because it’s amazing how much news we are aware of that is apparently not fit for them to print.
If I had a hometown with a good paper, I’d be happy to support it. My temporary hometown paper in the US is truly shit. When I come across a paper copy, I can get through it in five minutes. If that.
But Liz Spayd’s column has challenged me to cancel, and that might feel really, really good.
Have realized the stuff I like isn’t even by their reporters (unless it’s the climate change reporters; they’re wonderful). It’s by op ed contributors and memoirists.
Yarrow
@Elizabelle: If you cancel your subscription you get the chance to tell them why and possibly influence their coverage. Then see how it goes. If you can’t live without then you can always resubscribe.
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: BBC is pretty good, although Katy Kay is no less a Villager. Their coverage of international events is far superior to any US website.
chopper
@Bess:
yeah and people wonder why drumpf likes the guy. drumpf keeps talking about how he could shoot a guy down and people wouldn’t care, well duterte has actually fucking done that.
Keith P.
Well that’s gonna be a nice campaign ad in a few years.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: He wants to be a dictator.
Elizabelle
@Yarrow: That is so true.
I entertain myself writing mental Facebook posts “Dear New York Times”, which I probably should type up and post.
Makes me wonder about pissing in the tent, vs. from outside, but I feel sick to know I am giving them money for what they have become. And then they’re harping their exceptional journalism all the time, and wouldn’t I like to sponsor a sub for a student?
Uh, no.
Patricia Kayden
But let’s not forget that the Washington Post has annoying people like Ruth Marcus demanding that the Obamas stop earning additional money because surely the Negroes can live off of $60 million.
D58826
@Keith P.:
Truer words were never spoken by Der Fuhrer.
But it seems Duarte just flipped the bird at Trump when he said he was to busy to come to the US. He is off to Russia and Israel.
Capri
Sort of off topic, but last week, Purdue University bought the on-line Kaplan University “system.”
Ex-GOP governor, Purdue head Mitch Daniels claims it’s to give Purdue a huge on-line presence in this vital, growing area and seems to believe it’s a huge coop. It’s more like he just saddled the Purdue brand with a pig in the poke. The board of trustees were all appointed by Daniels when he was governor, so they are always 100% behind every stupid thing he does. Key faculty members were informed of the deal 1 hour before it was done, something that might be called a tell. It was reported that after they were told of the move he was met with stunned silence.
Looking more closely at the deal, the Kaplan is retaining the parts of its company that make money and getting rid of it’s money loser. It was sold for $1.00 although there’s a 30-year-long deal that delivers profit (assuming there is any ever) back to Kaplan.
Yarrow
@Gin & Tonic: It has long been my impression that the NYT is deliberately wrong on important issues. I don’t know who directs their coverage but they have been wrong on too much. I know individual articles and columnists can be good from time to time, but that seems much more an accident or luck. Their goal does not appear to be to strive for truth even if that truth upsets the powerful and certainly not if it upsets the money.
I am not a subscriber and I have never thought they were liberal.
Elizabelle
@Yarrow: Well said. Your impression is undeniable. I see it too.
schrodingers_cat
@Yarrow: Vichy Times is not liberal, it is the paper of the TPTB and the status quo.
Brachiator
Good basic reporting by Bloomberg News. Too bad it doesn’t matter. At this point, Trump is the Teflon Don, and the Teflon is wrapped with a coating of asbestos. I’ve heard supporters say, “of course, Trump is going to make money. He’s a businessman. And he’s going to make money for America, too.”
The entire idea of “conflict of interest” and “financial improprieties” is quaint and old fashioned.
Equally quaint is the bashing of the New York Times and the Washington Post. They have already been dismissed as part of the Fake News Cabal by Trump. Nothing that they could ever publish will have any impact on Trump supporters, who have already fled traditional news sources for alternative media.
ETA: The LA Times news rack near my local coffee shop has been removed. The place gets a pretty good breakfast and lunch crowd, and typically two or three copies would be left for anyone to read. The other day, a customer half asked about it, and then just shrugged his shoulders and continued his discussion with his buddy. Just another sign of the eventual demise of old media.
Jeffro
@Capri:
We’re reading all the details here at my work and will be watching closely to see how it develops…not defending the deal (it’ll likely do very little for Purdue) but it does look like there are significant financial protections for Purdue. Kaplan did indeed keep the money-marking parts (and I’m sure they’re hoping to keep making bucks off of Purdue, ‘consulting’ to the very branch of Kaplan they just sold off) but at least Purdue didn’t put up big bucks here.
We should see in just a few years if it helps Purdue ramp up online in a big way. If not, then probably not much of a big deal either way (which is not to discount the faculty concerns, I’m just sayin’)
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: Yep. They will be the last paper to rock the status quo. How did people end up thinking they were liberal anyway? Was that some Republican accusation that stuck?
Brachiator
@Bess: RE: Philippines’ President Rodrigo Duterte has admitted he personally killed criminal suspects as mayor of Davao.
Doesn’t count if you are a head of state.
Tokyokie
@Kay:
I haven’t subscribed, or really read, my local paper since it laid me off nearly five years ago. Its full-time newsroom staff is probably about 20% of what it was around 2000 or so, and the few holes it’s plugged, it’s filled with part-timers earning about 40% less than those they replaced (who had fewer job duties). Newspapers in small markets have done a lot better than metro dailies in recent years, because they have fewer competitors for local news or advertising. But their product is still awful, and, with the newspapers in larger markets no longer hiring, the staffers at the small-market papers no longer have much of an avenue for career advancement. In other words, the newspaper industry is basically dead. Wish I hadn’t been caught in its death throes.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
The Times and other newspapers are slowly dying. A boycott won’t speed the old media death rattle by very much. The only problem is that what will remain or replace these entities will be worse. I expect Rupert Murdoch and his buddies will try to fill the vacuum.
Even the BBC gets bashed for being too liberal. And they have their own budget woes to deal with, and political forces which push them to be more accommodating to the powers that be.
ETA: One thing that comes across clearly in the various “100 Days” coverage of Trump supporters by the NY Times, WaPo, the Guardian, BBC. They have totally bought into his claims that the press is unfair to him.
ruemara
@Yarrow: The entire concept of America having a liberal media is an accusation that stuck.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: I couldn’t care less about his supporters.
Yarrow
@ruemara: Yes, but some of the media, like Fox News, escapes those accusations.
@Brachiator:
Repetition works. He keeps saying it. People start believing it.
HRA
I came across this moments ago and I need to share it.
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
TenguPhule
@Kay:
The first time was tragedy.
The second time is farce……….who am I kidding? It’s going to be even worse then last time.
TenguPhule
@Yarrow:
Bush, Iraq & Torture. They pretty much became a Republican media whore at that point.
/apologies to anyone offended by the metaphor
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
High time to change “even the liberal New Republic” to “even the liberal New York Times” in the BJ Lexicon. Or at least add the Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap construction “Fuck the Fucking New York Times.”
Elizabelle
@HRA: So true. We live in those times. Lucky us.
Ella in New Mexico
@D58826:
Makes me wonder if he believes there’s some kind of legal issue in play and that he might get arrested if he touches down on US Territory…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
one thing I’m not seeing/hearing this time around is Trumpcare being pre-emotively trolled by Senators like Paul and Cruz (and Heller and Flake) who last time seemed like they really didn’t want to have to vote on this steaming pile.
Capri
@Jeffro: What’s odd is that in my corner of academia, the on-line ship has sailed. It’s been tried for a while now (long enough to get the bugs out) and the consensus is that it is no match for face to face class time. There are some subjects that are more amenable to distance learning than others, and certainly a population of older, employed students who can’t spend 4 years on a campus, but noone on the faculty are saying that it’s the university of the future – 10 years ago or so that was all anyone heard.
The existing Kaplan faculty is an issue that’s been raised, over half don’t have the correct degrees for the subject matter they are teaching.
Mnemosyne
@Capri:
I suspect it’s going to be more common for graduate degrees than undergraduate. G is currently getting his online MLIS from San Jose State University, which is part of the Cal State system.
Bess
There’s no meaningful face to face time when you’re one of hundreds sitting in an auditorium listening to lectures for Bio 101, whatever. There’s no meaningful face time when a bored instructor paraphrases the book or reads their old out of date notes.
Some classes do need small class size and lots of instructor interaction but some don’t. Why not take those classes that we now treat like passengers in economy and build ‘best of the best’ series of lectures and video presentations that can be watched on a student’s schedule. Better to watch a half hour of a carefully constructed presentation by Carl Sagan than sit through an hour of mumbling and fumbling by Professor Jones who never learned how to teach.
Can you imagine US history taught at the level of a Ken Burns documentary?
The set up required online discussion groups, monitored by advanced students and subjected to quality control checks by the lead professor. Let the session leader assign points/grades based on participation and quality of input. Keep the groups small. (Almost everything I learned during two BAs, three masters, and a Ph.D. came from interactions outside the classroom.
Set up remote testing sites where students can conveniently take weekly quizzes and final exams. This is something that could be done at a high school and remotely monitored.
Let people get some of the coursework out of the way cheap. And make it high quality. Then spend our money on the places where we need small classes, labs, etc.
Capri
@Bess: Research has shown that students get more from interacting with their fellow students than with the instructors. Nobody is arguing that every on-campus course is fantastic, but the experience of attending a class is way more than who is at the podium.
Jeremy
Trump puts his daughter gazing into the camera the way a model would on the cover of a porno on a billboard… and he’s the president. *sigh*