SPORTS POLITICS--Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has never been afraid to be unpopular if it meant taking a stand for what he believed in -- even if his legacy in the history books was at stake. This past week, he expressed sadness and just a hint of judgment when he said the greatest basketball player of all time, Michael Jordan, doesn’t share those same priorities. 

VOICES-The prolific Victor Davis Hanson wrote an excellent piece for National Review two weeks ago, in which he attributed California’s present middle-class stagnation and decline in economic opportunity to the devolution of California’s two-party system in the 90s and the Golden State’s emergence as a de facto one-party Democratic state. Hanson describes how a favorite Democratic policy inexorably led to the decline of the Republican voter base:

BLOG SOUP--Kevin Drum says people really aren't engulfed in existential despair after all: 

RACE IN AMERICA-Now former University of Missouri president Tim Wolfe (photo left) in a moment of rare candor for someone who just fired himself admitted what has been probably one of the worst kept secrets at American colleges. His words: “Racism does exist at our university, and it is unacceptable.” 

CALL TO ACTION--Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy Charter School (photo) were recently exposed for having a “Got to Go” list of students, which singles out the children they would like to see leave through suspensions, counseling-out, or by not sending annual re-enrollment forms.