Well, Duh

Online magazine Slate likes to position itself as a left-leaning, hiply intellectual voice. Like a lot of left-leaning thinkers they sometimes overthink things and articles get written that make "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" downright concrete. Witness this headline:

Why Are Indian Kids So Good At Spelling?

Have you seen their names? The defending National Spelling Bee champion is Kavya Shivashankar. You think she worries about spelling "hydrargyrum"? A twelve-year-old kid named Chidhambarathan can crank out "escritoire" with no more effort than some drk named Smith spells "kat."

I'm not saying this is bad. These kids are kick ass spellers; good on them. Wondering why they're such good spellers is like wondering why Shaquille O'Neal can dunk.

Disappointing

The beloved Spousal Equivalent has described Slate's Dahlia Lithwick as "[my] intellectual mistress." I love reading Ms. Lithwick's articles, especially her coverage of the Supreme Court. Thats why i was so disappointed to see this in today's story:

"Sanders explains that fabricated evidence itself doesn't constitute a constitutional violation because that can happen only when it's introduced at trial. Justice Sonia Sotomayor—sporting earrings the size of small saucepans today—cuts him off."

She described the adornments of none of the male justices. If a man had written this, his head would be on a pike in Slate's DoubleXX blog.