Hillary’s Secret Emails

By Garrison Walters

Computer ignorance abounds in our society. It all began with the poster child of digital illiteracy, Ollie North, who wasn’t curious enough to ask whether “delete” really meant “gone forever.” The problem continues with the subscribers to the Ashley Madison website, who paid to have their accounts deleted and evidently truly believed that this had been done. Of course, the Ashley Madison affair (heh, heh) also shows the core failings of men. It turns out that 99 and a fraction per cent of the women registered on the site were fake. This means that the real women in the database, eleven by my count, have been either really, really busy or, far more likely, are graduate students writing dissertations in the fast-rising social science category of "Cognitive Dissonance and the Intermittent Male Appendage." 

I wrote a book about the problem of digital illiteracy, Total F*ing Magic, whose purpose is to help folks understand stuff like where email goes. But no one reads it. It seems that people just want to believe all is well and make the same mistakes over and over again. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the erstwhile Colonel’s handle is found on the Ashley Madison website. Hillary Clinton is another digital naif, so, to make a point – and possibly to sell some books -- I’m publishing some emails from her “deleted” archive.  

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Dear Chelsea:

My first day at the State Department! I’ve been told that all my communications using official systems or even written while in the office are public documents, so I’m using this private server and personal phone for my connections with family and friends. What could go wrong?

Mom, Wise in Washington

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Bill:

I’ve read carefully your request for a million dollar donation to the “Save the Miss America Pageant” foundation.

Kevin Carey: Evangelical Polemicist

by Garrison Walters

Introduction:  A Story, Not an Analysis

It was a chilly spring day when I turned on my iPad and started to read The End of College.

Actually, I'm not sure why that's relevant since I was on a Boeing 777 surfing the North Atlantic jet stream. But Carey likes to open sections in his ostensibly serious analysis of higher education with mood-setting weather and place observations, so I can too.

Another reason to begin a review in this fashion is to draw attention to the nature of Carey’s book.

The End of College includes lots of statistics and comments about data, and even has pages of footnotes. Given all this scholarly skin, you might conclude that it is a serious, objective analysis. If so, you would be wrong.

In fact, The End of College isn’t in any way objective, nor is it true analysis. Instead, this book is a story. Indeed, it’s a story told exclusively from one point of view. Typically, writing that presents a single perspective is called a polemic.

Carey approaches higher education the same way as anti-vaccination activist Jenny McCarthy does medical science:  find information you like and ignore everything else. Kevin and Jenny can both present things prettily, and when they do, the impact can be huge.

But are the results positive? Let’s discuss.