EdCone.com

The government estimates that more than 80% of America’s crop workers are Hispanic (mostly Mexican), and more than half are illegal aliens. But Rob Williams, the director of the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project (which represents farmworkers in court), considers those numbers grossly misleading because they rely on self-reporting. He estimates that more than 90% of farmworkers are sin papeles (without papers)...

...America’s farm jobs, which are excluded from almost all federal and state labour regulations, are not normal jobs. Americans refuse to do them.

It's curious that media coverage and public policy around immigration focuses so little on the moneyed interests that profit from illegal immigrants.

Actually, when you consider who owns the media and the government, it's not really surprising at all. Better to get people riled up about those service-sucking brown people than thinking about where their strawberries come from...

New Year's Eve, apparently.

A New York weekend for $100, sort of. First, find a free place to stay. And teleport yourself there at no cost.

But the overall idea is a good one -- you can enjoy the city without spending a ton of money. One of my favorite things to do in any city, sitting in a park and people-watching, is free.

The [Virginia Department of Education] is required to find texts that meet the state's stringent Standards of Learning, which includes lists of themes that each textbook must cover.

Factual accuracy optional.

I gave myself Jonathan Franzen's Freedom for Christmas -- not the book itself, which Lisa bought and read long ago, but the pleasure of reading it in big chunks over the holiday, instead of a few pages a night during the regular work-year. It was worth the wait.

Like Chabon, Franzen is a writer of envy-inducing skill, and he's funny, too. Not a perfect book -- Patty didn't quite work for me -- but a page-turner that deals in big ideas. Critics who sneer at it for being a soap opera should reread War and Peace before declaring that such a bad thing.

Now I'm on to Stacy Schiff's Cleopatra: A Life, which was an actual Christmas gift.

One of the good guys, Dr. Raymond Tannenbaum, died this morning in Greensboro. Funeral is tomorrow at 11:30 at Temple Emanuel on Greene Street.

Local boy makes news in Asheville:

Buncombe County government will consider adopting rules on retaining walls next year following worries about the appearance and safety of an 80-foot-tall wall that looms over Charlotte Highway...

...An official with the complex developer, Greensboro-based Carroll Investment Properties, could not be reached.

Thnx to Hugh for the pointer.

Previously: Winstead's Great Wall of Boone.

This version lacks the underlying pathos that makes it a great song, but it's the best I could find on the internet.

Bora on blurring the line between science and journalism.

OMG Snow!! is the new Hot Enough for You?

R. Larry Campbell, the bank's interim president and chief executive, said CommunityOne is "fully engaged" in efforts to boost its capital.

Asheboro-based CommunityOne is among 98 TARP-funded banks the Wall Street Journal deems "in jeopardy of failing." I'm not sure what "fully engaged" encompasses, but I guess they've already checked the couch cushions for change.

Wars create self-perpetuating war-making organizations that perpetuate war.

Eisenhower knew it.

The DEA exemplifies it.

Dave slums at The Atlantic: "Can we use S3 and EC2 to host free speech?"

Related, related, related from Dave on WikiLeaks fallout.

Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.

Eight years ago today: "For a nice Jewish boy from North Carolina like myself, the whole Jersey Italian Christmas is a multicultural awareness event, and the food is really good, too."

Davenport Jr mentions in this morning's column (GPV) his inability to refrain from joining his dog on the floor at playtime. I suffer from the same affliction.

I was thinking while walking with Luna that this blog reflects my interest in politics and pop culture, but if it really represented my thoughts in proportion to frequency and intensity it would be mostly about dogs, stuff I see while walking the dog, and food.

Previously: "And then there are those people who drop immediately to dog level to commune with the beast."

I find your belief system fascinating.

England and the United States and other "free-market" Western powers employed many of same government controls that the Chinese are now employing to develop their economy and manage trade. The closer you look at how countries such as Britain and the United States became prosperous, the less you see of laissez-faire and the more you see of government intervention.

Somehow the American mythology of hands-off government and brawny capitalist self-reliance survives in the face of historical facts (e.g., ethnic cleansing of native populations to clear territory for development) and ongoing policy (e.g., agricultural protectionism and Pentagon spending).

John Cassidy's recent article (abstract here) is worth reading if you can find the full-length version.

Wharton kids on Instapundit?

Yep, Wharton kids on Instapundit (scroll down to end of post).

I seem to do this equation a lot, but if Sam is 21, that makes me...old.

Signs and portents of changes in the failed war on drugs.

Thnx to AB for the Pat Robertson link.

I wish more sportswriting got into the fundamentals of execution and strategy -- what really happened on the field, instead of human interest puffery about the players and coaches -- like this piece by former NFL tight end Nate Jackson about how the punting game is supposed to work and how it didn't work for the Giants last weekend.

While most of the corporate media snoozed, Jon Stewart and Shepard Smith helped get something done.

Joe has more thoughts on Burr's DADT vote.

NRO's Andrew Stiles, via Joe:

Maybe [Burr] simply knows how to read polling data. Or maybe he really meant what he said in his statement, that repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” was “the right thing to do” — is that so hard to believe?

One possibility does not rule out the other.

Joe says sincerity on Burr's part would indicate that he is a "covert social liberal," although I think "mainstream 21st Century American" would be more accurate.

As Burr himself put it, "A majority of Americans have grown up at a time [when] they don’t think exclusion is the right thing for the United States to do. It’s not the accepted practice anywhere else in our society, and it only makes sense."

Yes, it does. Thanks again, Senator.

Now about that obstructionist vote on START...

Jeri Rowe's column about Anna Freiberg and her team of volunteers providing free Christmas dinners for up to 2,000 people was so nice you can almost feel its warmth through the door of the GPV, in which some grinch has locked it.

Freiberg, now running Bender's Tavern on Market St., is continuing the family tradition started by her dad, the late Marc Freiberg, at the old Ham's on Friendly. She gets a lot of help, including financial support from Libby Hill's Ken Conrad, who also helps put together a free feast at Thanksgiving.

Along the way, she’s learned that she’s lived in what she calls a "bubble." She never knew there were so many people in her hometown in need. But she’s come to realize that every day with every ring of her phone.   

She takes their name, calls them "Sweetie" or "Honey," and tells them about Saturday.   

Like father. Like daughter.

After all the financial engineering of recent years, it's almost refreshing to see that old-fashioned market corners are back in style.

The latest example is in the copper market, where a single trader has reported it owns 80% to 90% of the copper sitting in London Metal Exchange warehouses, equal to about half of the world's exchange-registered copper stockpile and worth about $3 billion.

I remember the Hunt brothers and their silver escapade; it seemed slightly nutty, or Bond villainesque, at the time. And I've always heard that my great-grandfather's brother Sol fell into this unfortunate circumstance after losing a corner on the cotton market a century ago (the Greensboro paper went with the white-washed accident version of the story).

Unlike most of you, I lack extensive training and experience as a climate scientist, so I found this primer on the basic research behind climate change theory to be of interest.

The compromise is better than the original framework proposed earlier month, but it still has plenty of loopholes and rests on somewhat uncertain legal authority. That will ensure that the FCC is arbitrating network neutrality disputes for years to come and likely fighting for that power in the courts.

How we got to where we are.

A liminal journey into the cultural Ur-wound, indeed.

FPAF in this morning's locally-focused local daily was the big arms control treaty, of which ratification is looking more and more likely, and for which a case is made here.

Haley Barbour had roughly the same chance of being elected President in 2012 as I did, but his implosion is still interesting to watch.

(Related: Disrespecting Stringer Bell, a localish angle.)

UPDATE: Barbour changes tune.

Rewriting history seems to be in fashion these days.

Brian Clarey will read from his new book, The Anxious Hipster and Other Barflies I've Known, Weds 7PM 8PM at The Green Bean.

Copies of the book will be available at the reading, and are coming soon to fine retailers.

Digital advertising surpasses newspaper print ads: "The bad economy has actually accelerated the shift."

Senate passes previously-bobbled food safety bill.

I was disappointed to learn in the comments beneath the article that this is just "another plank in the communist manifesto."

Here comes the sun.

Here Comes the Sun.

Here comes the Sun King.

The Sun King.

The Sun.

Census data almost certain to require redrawing of GSO city council districts (PDF of manager's weekly report, p. 6).

Timing could be tricky if the data is released toward the end of the allotted period (deadline is 3/31), since GSO needs approval from DOJ in time for candidates to start filing in July.

If Senator Sanders is correct, the debate is misplaced, because a government dominated by the financial industry helped orchestrate both federal subsidies and deregulation.

But he's a socialist, so nothing he says can be right.

Too bad, because I've been trying to make the same point about Fannie and Freddie being part of the Wall Street machinery.

"Of interest also is his religious affiliation. My understanding is that Burr attends a United Methodist Church, but his father was a Presbyterian minister. That might explain a lot."

Joe Guarino, trying to figure out Richard Burr's admirable vote on DADT.

Previously: Kay Hagan, Presbyterian.

I'd say that some of my best friends are Presbyterians, but I suppose that would only prove his point.

Yes, the N&R was first to report the facts of the Brenda Fox's side-dealing on County real estate.

But nobody at the daily seems to have grasped the importance of this information, leaving it to the Rhino to break the news in terms of meaningful context and impact. Big things are happening as a result of the weekly paper's coverage.

I started noticing a year or more ago that I'm getting news from the Rhino, and I've documented a couple of recent cases where the thinned-out N&R team has whiffed on context and institutional memory. The Biz Journal breaks a lot of news, too. Sometimes I even learn things from internet blogs!

That's just the way we media now.

The new website for Singletree Gun & Plough (previously) is up and running [UPDATE -- I should have noted the site is a work in progress]. Even if you're not a hunter, Singletree's worth a visit.

The Sauratown Mountains (along with the Uwharries) give the Piedmont a little extra geological oomph.

17 paragraphs into an article on the value of a college education, we finally come to this:

"Earnings, of course, and even graduate school attendance, are but two of many measurements of graduates' success post-college."

College is expensive, private college brutally so. Weighing it as an investment makes sense, but there are returns beyond earning power to be considered. 

Or maybe it's time for a wholesale motto rewrite, although changing Evergreen State's would be a crime.

My letter to Santa is in this morning's newspaper; you can read the whole thing after the jump.

Developments sprang up on the outskirts of cities ready to welcome many of the four million immigrants who had settled in Spain, many employed in construction.

Something Ponzi-esque about that arrangement. Not sure how the Spanish debacle fits into the mythological account of the meltdown, but I'm sure an intellectual shape-shifter like Wallison can explain it.

UPDATE: Well done, Senator Burr.

DADT is on the way out.

Until Maryland sells out its third-tier bowl game, that research report on Fox News lacks credibility.

Sedgefield sold to McConnell.

One member deeply involved in the discussions told me some time back that he was impressed by the way McConnell runs his clubs, and that the deal was a financial necessity for Sedgefield, but that a handful of mossbacks was holding things up. In the end, over 70% of voting members went for the deal.

Dear Guilford County Tax Department,

I would like to pay my property taxes with a credit card, but you still make this service ridiculously expensive, so we're doing the check-in-an-envelope thing again.

Your statement says the service provider charges a "nominal" fee. I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Irving became a National Player of the Year candidate and projected No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft, all in about 40 minutes of brilliant basketball. Then, by the end of his next game, he had been relegated to an orthopedic surgeon's waiting room and indefinitely reduced to a student with a whole lot of basketball talent.

Even those of us who find the premise of this series absurd have to feel bad for the kid.

I suspect Dook will still sneak by UNCG at the Coliseum later this month. Carolina will have more of a challenge when Texas comes to GSO this weekend.

The gap between the things the Post considers "scandals," and a development like this, so taken for granted as not to merit mention, says too much about our politics.

The banks own the government, and the press covers for them both.