Every now and then I browse through the archives of Earn This — and my colllege newspaper columns, and my old personal web-site, etc. — and I usually come away some combination of pleased and disgusted. Pleased, in that my writing has become progressively more readable. Disgusted, and that so much of what I’ve written has been so bad.

I don’t claim that I’m a good writer, or even a competent one. I do claim, though, that I have gotten at least marginally better at writing than I was in 2002 as a freshman in high school. Part of that has been simple quantity of practice. Part of that has been ruthlessly critiquing my own writing, sometimes months or years after I’ve written it, and taking away some lesson from that analysis.

But what I want to focus on in this post is a third habit that has had a strong impact on my writing: Reading lots and lots of articles and books in areas that I write about, and trying to emulate aspects of writing that I enjoy.

This year is the tenth anniversary of when I started writing for fun, so I thought it’d be interesting to collect the ten pieces of writing or writers that have (by my guess) most directly impacted my own writing — especially for this site. Most are in a relevant genre; some aren’t. Here are my ten biggest written influences, and a brief explanation of why I like them and how they’ve impacted me.

• Roger Ebert’s movie reviews

The majority of criticism of any medium usually boils down to consumer advice — should I expend money and time to consume this thing, or shouldn’t I? Movie criticism specifically tends to focus on plot and character elements, with sparse descriptions of visual style. Those that do strive to write something more meaningful or inclusive in their evaluation run the risk of sounding too jargony or pretentious.

No movie critic I’ve read balances these dilemmas as skillfully or enjoyably as Roger Ebert. He’s far from perfect; his biggest sins are that he spends too much of his time writing synopsis instead of analysis, and, recently, he too quickly rejects blockbuster, genre material. But he’s the best at showing you why he feels the way he does about a movie, concisely explaining the film’s visual and storytelling vocabulary, and injecting a likable and personal voice — all while maintaining accessibility and avoiding snootiness.

A lot of that has to do with his supreme intelligence and empathy, and also his unusual path to writing film reviews. He never received formal education in film study, if I’m not mistaken. He’s just smart, observant, and — importantly — an extremely passionate fan of cinema. As a quote on his collection of four-star reviews notes, that’s surprisingly uncommon of film critics.

• AllMusic.com’s album reviews and artist profiles

My go-to source for reading a review of an album or artist I like is AllMusic.com. It’s a site that is aptly named; its mission seems to be to have a review for every album ever made. It’s done a pretty impressive job thus far.

The reviews and artist overviews are assembled by a variety of writers, and the reviews vary vastly in quality and length. My favorite of the crew is definitely Stephen Thomas Erlewine — he makes the significance and unique personality of each album crystal clear, rather than just recount each track. (Less prolific, but even better, is William Ruhlmann.)

But the reliability of the reviews’ existence, the site’s well-written artist retrospectives, its effortless interface, and its occasionally masterful reviews (I actually sent an e-mail to Dave Connolly thanking him for this entry) make it one of my most-visited web sites.

• Bill Simmons’ columns and books

There are a few reasons that Bill Simmons took sports internet by storm when he started writing his “Sports Guy” columns for ESPN. He’s got a great, distinctive, conversational voice; he invents fun theories and systems to explain sports; he uses ample movie and pop culture references; he writes from the fan’s perspective, not the athlete’s or journalist’s perspective; and (underrated) he has an authoritative knowledge and passion for sports.

Since then, he’s released an encyclopedic Book of Basketball and spearheaded a new pop-culture/sports analysis site, Grantland (which I’ve written about). No matter the form of his writing, I’m always excited to read it, even if I don’t know or care much about the topic. The writer in me admires and tries to mimic the unconventional Simmons, from his command of a smooth writing voice to his substantial but readable long-form analysis to his thought-provoking theory building, to his ambition in starting projects and trying new things.

• Rick Reilly’s columns

It’s a shame that Rick Reilly seems so outdated in the Internet era. With so extensive and instantaneous sports coverage available for free online, his columns can seem quaint and meager. It’s become fun to bash Reilly’s idiosyncrasies and his cheeky wordplay and his large sentimental streak.

Don’t listen to any of it. Reilly’s body of work matches that of any ten bloggers. He tells concise — sometimes funny, sometimes moving — stories that capture the human side of sports or take some thought-provoking spin on the material. His style may seem old-fashioned or manipulative in a world where the Bill Simmons of the world are omnipresent, deconstructing and categorizing and bucking tradition.

But no writer has had a bigger impact on the way I think and the way I write, whether it’s sports or not. I hope there will always be room in the crowded sportswriting landscape for someone like Reilly, who can help us keep perspective and consider both sides and remember the human side of every story.

• The AV Club’s articles

The AV Club could just as well be number one on this list, because its superior New Cult Canon column was what inspired me to call up Grant and start work on Earn This. More recently, Earn This just released its first ever roundtable post, inspired by (or rather, directly aped from) their AVQ&A column.

What I love about The AV Club is its huge spectrum of writers, styles, and content. From the latest silly internet video, to episode-by-episode recaps of classic TV shows, to simple album reviews, to thoughtful deconstructions of pop culture trends, The AV Club takes its work seriously and has something compelling to read.

• Alan Sepinwall’s TV writing

I stumbled upon Alan Sepinwall‘s recaps while searching for reviews of Freaks and Geeks, and he’s been my go-to guy for TV writing ever since. He’s just that thorough, thoughtful, and entertaining to read. He’s the best in the business at breaking down what works for a television series, what doesn’t work, and what separates good TV from great TV.

There’s probably no pop culture writer I read more of these days than Sepinwall.  In my Wonder Years posts, you can see my poor man’s attempt at writing the kind of episode recap and analysis he’s popularized.

• Chuck Klosterman’s writing

My introduction to Klosterman (and enduring favorite piece by him) was his essay “Every Dog Must Have His Every Day, Every Drunk Must Have His Drink” from Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. I love this essay (which can be read in its entirety if you cleverly abuse Amazon’s “Look Inside” search feature, searching for “billy joel”) not just because it’s about my favorite musical artist of all time, but because it showcases much of what makes Klosterman fantastic.

He opens with a tangential theory and anecdote that’s equal parts amusing and poignant. Then he transitions into a defense of Billy Joel, which is notable for two reasons. One, Joel is an artist that rarely gets extended analysis from professional critics and pop culture analysts. Two, it goes against the usual take on Joel, that he’s derivative and sterile and manipulative.

Klosterman is defiant in the way he thinks about pop culture and the way he usually avoids falling into the typical hive mind (which is why I find it somehow meaningful that he, like everyone, adores Adele). Obsessive, thoughtful, and fun, Klosterman is a must-read for any pop culture enthusiast.

• The Rolling Stone Album Guide

When I was a senior in a college, I started getting severe nausea after almost every meal. I spent a lot of time lying in my bed or sitting in the bathroom, trying to forget my discomfort. My go-to book was the 2004 edition of The Rolling Stone Album Guide, which my now-fiancée bought for $3 at a bookstore that was going out of business. It was perfect for my situation. Thoughtful enough to sustain my interest, broken into consumable bits, and a light enough read that I could enjoy it while only paying half attention, the Guide was just what I needed. It’s stuck with me, too.

All of the caveats that normally apply to reading The Rolling Stone — the obscenely opinionated and dismissive writers, the general yuppie liberalism and obsession with “authenticity,” the seemingly arbitrary picking and choosing of what qualifies for their coverage, their large-scale rejection of numerous genres and styles, etc. — also apply here. But there’s no more engaging introduction to the rock canon, no more colorful big-picture evaluation of the past seventy years’ musical greats, than this book.

Since reading the book, I’ve bought about a half-dozen books with similar aims to chronicle all of the important figures and albums in the history of rock (I buy a lot of books; this is me). None has come close. The Guide‘s fusion of opinion, history, and anecdote makes it a standout, even if you have to sometimes have to take its opinions with a grain of salt.

• Jerry Beck’s Animated Movie Guide

I found The Animated Movie Guide while I was browsing my local library’s media and arts section. I’ve always loved animated movies, so I grabbed the book. When I got home, I started reading it; two or three hours later, I put the book down when I realized I hadn’t eaten dinner. It’s one of those books I adored from the first page.

It’s not that the writing in The Animated Movie Guide is particularly outstanding (though it’s perfectly fine). It’s the book’s goal (overviewing every animated feature) and attitude (that animation is and always has been serious art, not just kiddie fare) that finally made me comfortable bringing animated features out of the “guilty pleasure” ghetto in my brain.

If you’re looking for an overview of the history of animated films (a very different beast from animated shorts and animated television), then this is by far the best starting point. And you might also consider taking a peek at the month of animated feature-related material I started and never finished.

• The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

Okay, this is a dopey inclusion for some obvious reasons. I’ve never published a piece of fiction in my life. There’s really no overlap between Rowling’s writing style and my own. More people have read these books than any other set of novels, ever, by a considerable margin, so I can’t claim my connection to the series is unique.

Yet, I feel like her shadow lingers over everything I wrote. During my most formative years, the Potter books taught me an awful lot about how narrative can function, what works and what doesn’t, and why I spend my time trifling through fiction in various media.

So: thanks, Rowling.

Also, I send my thanks every other writer who contributed to what’s on this list. The work of every one of you is, by and large, exceedingly popular (probably most pop culture internet writers would include at least a few of these ten, and certainly most twentysomething sportswriters would include Reilly and Simmons). But I’ve connected with your work on a personal level, and you’ve helped me figure out why I love writing.

Inspired by the AV Club’s enjoyable AVQ&A series, Earn This writers and friends teamed up and decided to do their own roundtable, question-answering session.

The question we stole directly from a recent AVQ&A entry:

You’ve discovered a genie, but he has some limitations: He can only grant one wish, and it must be within the pop-cultural sphere. You can change any one thing about popular culture, no matter how big or small, from “I wish Artist X was the bestselling musician on the planet” to “I wish musical formats stopped evolving at vinyl” to “I wish all media was free somehow.” Show your work: Why do you want this, and what effect do you think it’ll have?

Here are our answers.

☆☆☆

Hunter T.

I love the Internet. Most of my entertainment these days comes to me through a browser, and I couldn’t be happier. With the Web’s low barrier to entry and the ease of reaching a huge audience, there’s a whole world of entertainment available that most networks would never take a chance on before they’d proven themselves online.

But while Internet phenomena have occasionally made the leap to the “real” world, it’s mostly been in only the least challenging or interesting ways. Take Shit My Dad Says as an example. Even during its earliest, best days as a Twitter feed, it was basically Ray Romano’s dad in 140 characters or less. Is it any surprise that it went from an unimaginative string of one-liners online to an unimaginative string of one-liners on TV?

Instead of embracing the side of the Internet happy to keep pandering to the lowest common denominator, I wish for more mass media acceptance of the kind of weird, high-risk- high-reward entertainment that makes the Web special. Intersperse commercials with dramatic readings of@Horse_ebooks tweets. Make an Achewood miniseries. Hell, Katie Notopoulos alone could probably fill a whole network. There’s been some of this – Brad Neely’s China, IL is a notable example – it’s still the exception rather than the rule. And that’s a shame.

☆☆☆

Grant J.

I wish music artists chose their singles better.

This has always bothered me about the radio and popular perception of groups.  Countless artists I love get, in my opinion, an entirely misguided appraisal thanks to their selections of singles and what’s played on the radio.

To wit: The Police’s “Roxanne” is my least favorite song on its album.  The Cure’s “Love Song” and U2’s “Mysterious Ways” are each my second-least favorite off their phenomenal albums.  The only mainstream appeal that the relatively obscure Placebo seems to have is via “Pure Morning,” even though they have many dozen others with better melodies and more style.  The ubiquitous “Love Will Tear Us Apart” doesn’t really sound like Joy Division.  And what in the world are languid tracks like Green Day’s “When I Come Around,” The Clash’s “Train in Vain,” and Jay-Z and Kanye’s “Otis” doing as flagship singles off their respective albums?

My frustration peaked in the middle of 2011, when the Arctic Monkeys’ first three singles released off the excellent Suck It And See were my least-favorite three on there.  Honestly, is something wrong with me?  I understand that singles are chosen for maximum expected appeal, but it’s hard to hear people offer opinions on artists without really knowing what they’re like. Furthermore, how many groups have I ignored because I didn’t like a single or two that didn’t represent them well?

Naturally, there are exceptions to this feeling; my taste isn’t that weird (I think).  Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” rules, as does Oasis’s “Wonderwall,” AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long,” The Offspring’s “Self Esteem,” and Fugazi’s “Waiting Room.”  But, genie, I would like for more people to be able to, say, judge American Idiot on the basis of more than freaking “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”  That’s my wish.

☆☆☆

Katy R.

I wish that reality TV wasn’t so popular. It amplifies the voyeurism of the Facebook generation while simultaneously diminishing the impact of the efforts made by creative television writers. Reality show viewers take time that could be spent engaged in insightful, plot-driven entertainment to instead watch brawls and tears. I especially wish that Snooki was not a celebrity.

However, if we must keep reality TV around, I propose a show about research scientists competing for ground-breaking discoveries. At least something useful might come from the drama.

☆☆☆

Martin V.

I’m not sure if this counts as part of the pop culture sphere, but if I had one wish I would use it to get rid of CNN, Fox “News” and all other 24 hour news channels (and their corresponding radio stations). I think they are literally destroying America, or at the very least making it a much shittier place to live.

Because news channels are private companies, they exist for the sole purpose of making money, which they do by getting people to watch and listen to their shows. Unfortunately everyday life boring as hell, so these channels scour the country looking for the most sensational stories imaginable. This creates a distorted sense of reality among viewers and listeners, and they come out thinking the country is a much more fucked up place than it really is.

Then, on top of that, in a quest for ratings, they employ pseudo-intellectual blowhards like Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Keith Olberman, et al., who have found that the crazier the shit they say is (“Obama is a terrorist!”), the higher their ratings are, so they start saying crazier and crazier shit. As a result, the millions upon millions of people who watch these channels think that the country either going to be destroyed at the hands of the evil socialist Democrats (Fox News), or that the goal of the Republican Party is for all poor people to either starve or die from preventable disease (MSNBC).

The very worst part about it is that the people who watch these channels come out of it thinking that they are “informed” and that they have a better “grasp of the issues” than the common person. They refuse to listen to the other sides of issues because they are so ingrained  in their beliefs, and as a result they elect more and more radical politicians (e.g. Tea Party). The more radical the politicians are the less likely they are to negotiate with the other side of the aisle, so instead of working together politicians result to blaming one another for the country’s faults.

To be fair, this part of politics existed before the advent of cable news, but I just think that it has pushed this issue in the wrong direction, and the country would be a better place to live if you didn’t have to listen to some dumbass tell you how Glenn Beck proved that Obama was seven degrees of separation from a drug lord.

Anyways, I hope that counts as being part of the pop culture sphere. If it doesn’t then my wish is that Roger Waters didn’t have the unimaginable arrogance that caused him to leave Pink Floyd.

☆☆☆

Jane M.

I wish that there wasn’t such a stigma attached to artists licensing their music. The minute a musician has their music attached to a commercial, they are labeled a sell-out. We expect these people to continue to make solid albums, yet we scorn them when they attempt to make money in order to continue innovating in their craft.

I saw an interesting interview with The Black Keys where they defended having a couple of their songs featured in advertisements. They said that they held off from licensing their music at first, because they felt their fans might view them as less genuine, but they were broke and living in a van. Contrary to popular belief, artists produce better work when they aren’t starving.

The same as “selling-out” is generally considered to be basing your creative endeavors on what outside influences feel is best, I feel that there is also a sort of negative selling-out, which is not making the music that you would like because you are unwilling to accept monetary help, all because you are worried about what snarky music critics will think.

I’m not saying that musicians should feel obligated to license their music, but rather do what they feel will better help their art, rather than worry that some housewife might hear their song during a Target ad and somehow destroy the value of their work.

It’s well known that with, music being as available as it is on the internet, artists can’t rely on record sales for a living. Perhaps we need to consider it as a modern day art-patronage, such as that of the Medici’s during the Renaissance. Do we view several of the great Italian master painters as any less influential, because they had the support of a family of bankers?

☆☆☆

Colton O.

I’ve had a couple of really crummy concert experiences. Sometimes the band is too shoegaze, so the crowd just stare at their feet and bob. Sometimes the band is too classic, or the arena too large, so the crowd stay in their seats or stand idly sipping beer as if they were at a tailgate.  And sometimes the whole sea of attendees succumbs to “dancing like white kids,” i.e., not actually dancing, just singing all the words they memorized to compensate.

Well, I say the live experience ought to be the pinnacle of the musical experience, and I say there’s a simple solution: at every concert, require at least half of the audience to be ska fans. These are people who know nothing but happiness. I have no trouble picturing ska fans skanking hard to Kelly Clarkson, the Stones, Aphex Twin, or Yo-Yo Ma.  Guaranteed to enhance any experience, liven up the dance floor, and bring people together, ska fans are the solution.

☆☆☆

Dan S.

I wish that there were more, and better, management simulation/grand strategy/open-ended RPG computer games. Games that have complex rules, drown you in information, teach you something, last for hours, have procedurally-generated and unscripted challenges, challenge your problem solving, pique your curiosity, have infinite replay value. Games like Europa Universalis 3, Mount and Blade: Warband, Capitalism 2, and Out of the Park Baseball (or franchise modes of non-management sports games). Most “mogul” or “tycoon” games don’t cut it — they’re too short and simple.

Here’s a list of five games I’d really like someone to make, in no particular order:

• TV Network Manager — Take over a tiny niche channel, a major broadcast network, or anything in between. You buy shows, either as new pilots or through syndication, and choose the time slots. You compete for major contracts from sports leagues and other content-providers. You manage staff, choose a target audience, and buy out other channels. Not only would this be fun as hell and fascinating, but it may give me some insight into why networks do things that seem idiotic from the outside, like NBC shelving Community or FX canceling Terriers. I’m sure there’s a whole world of ratings and economics and psychology behind it, beyond TV By the Numbers.

• Rock Band Manager — You wouldn’t actually create or listen to the songs. Instead, you’d find band members, carefully allot your time between practicing/recording/performing/etc, choose genres and styles, track album sales, read (pre-formatted) reviews of your work, deal with fan backlash, etc. Of course, there could be some trashy fun to it too (groupies, drugs?) but I’d be most interested in crafting a band and navigating their creative career.

• A fantasy-themed kingdom management game - I’m thinking of a game with the open-world army-raising, kingdom-running gameplay of the Mount and Blade series, but with a fantastical roster of characters and an element of magic and legend to it. I just imagine charging into hundred-person battles with my hand-picked armies under my banner just beyond a castle I built; I’m riding a huge griffin or something; and I’m immediately willing to drop $50 on this game. (There is a LotR overhaul of the original Mount and Blade that I should probably look in to.)

• Football/Basketball/Hockey/College Sports management games as good as OOTP Baseball — The problem with NBA2k12 and Madden is that their suite of “Franchise” or “Dynasty” features is built on top of the on-field game. Games like Football Manager and Out of the Park Baseball are built from the ground up as management games and are thus much more robust and deep on the simming front. I’d really like some great management-oriented sports games in sports other than baseball and soccer. There are the obvious pro sports and college sports, but a cool twist would be running an entire athletic program for a college.

• A decent, open-ended, open-world, unscripted Harry Potter RPG  – Come on, is there any chance that a game that lets you play some role in Hogwarts, maybe get a job at the Ministry of Magic or open your own competing magic academy, wouldn’t make JK Rowling another billion or two?

☆☆☆

We hope you enjoyed our responses!

A record-setting number of people watched The Big Game yesterday, so I’m sure everyone and their grandmother has something to say about the proceedings. Nonetheless, I couldn’t resist sharing my own take on a few aspects of yesterday’s Super Bowl.

The matchup

Really, was there a worse possible matchup? Both teams have won Super Bowls within the past seven years. Both teams have overexposed personalities. Both teams come from spoiled sports cities (particularly in the past decade).

I guess America’s gut reaction is to root against the dynastic Patriots whenever possible. I definitely get it: They give off an air of arrogance. They’ve won huge during the Tom Brady era and sometimes acted like spoiled brats. And there’s Spygate, Gisele, Tom Brady’s hair, etc. etc. So many easy reasons to vilify them.

On the other hand, I’m a Redskins fan and thus predisposed to cheering against the Giants. Plus, the Giants have won much more recently. Eli isn’t all that more likable than Brady, nor is Coughlin than Belichick. Lastly, if the Giants won, it would mean a) they have more trophies than the Redskins do, and b) Devin f-ing Thomas has a ring, but London Fletcher/Santana Moss/Lorenzo Alexander do not.

So, despite proclaiming at the beginning of the playoffs that the Patriots were the last team I wanted to win, I found myself completely on the fence, dreading any outcome.

I decided to choose a preferred team based off of which winner seemed a more appropriate fit for football history. Here’s a list of some of the implications of the Patriots winning vs. the Giants winning. Out of each pair, which one feels better, more correct?

• The Patriots tying the Cowboys and 49ers with 5 SB wins vs. The Giants tying the Packers with 4 SB wins
• Tom Brady tying Joe Montana with 3 SB MVPs vs. Eli Manning tying Brady, Terry Bradshaw, Bart Starr with 2 SB MVPs
• Countless features about Tom Brady securing his status as a top 2 or 3 QB ever vs. countless features about Eli now officially being “elite” (whatever that means) and, whose legacy is better — Peyton or Eli
• Poetic cap to a decade-plus of great football vs. a repeat little Giants over big bad Pats

I thought about each of these and decided that the former felt better in every case. I’m okay with the Patriots being the best football team of my formative years. I’ve come to grips with that. Let them put the whipped cream (Super Bowl) and cherry (Brady SBMVP) on their dynasty sundae.

To solidify my pick, the media spent this past week going over and over and over the “can the underdog Giants win again?” stories. Really? The line is 2.5 points, and they’re playing at a stadium that hugely favors them, and they have superior momentum, and you’re calling them the “underdogs?”

There have only been two real Super Bowl underdogs in the past ten years: The Giants in ’08 and the Patriots in ’02. This game was as close to a toss-up as there will be. Don’t compare it to 4 years ago.

I really just hate it when everyone in sports, media and fans, all pile on the same person or the same team — especially when the team/player isn’t winning big. Yeah, I’m that guy who defiantly cheered for Michael Vick (pre-re-emergence) and LeBron James (post-Decision). The Patriots haven’t won a title since 2005. That’s about a generation and a half in sports terms. So why is everyone acting like they won last year?

In summary, I wouldn’t have minded the Patriots solidifying their legacy — would’ve seemed apt, in fact — and I think the Patriots are overhated, the Giants underhated.

The game

It was pretty entertaining. Came down to the wire. Couldn’t ask for more.

A few isolated thoughts:

• The butt touchdown was a hilarious way for the Giants to take a lead. It’ll be uncomfortable for the Giants to show that go-ahead touchdown without blushing a little bit. Ahmad Bradshaw will probably always feel a little embarrassed when it comes up at parties for the rest of his life.
• So, what were the odds on Brady-called-for-intentional-grounding-safety as the game’s first score? Anyone out there make that bet?
• Good God was Cris Collinsworth annoying. He’s my least favorite sportscaster, so maybe I just listen for the dumb things he says. I know that he does much better than I could. And he sometimes makes very salient points. But when he says Welker makes catches “100 times out of 100″ (he had 122 catches and 5 drops this year, so he makes them 96 times out of 100) and tries so desperately to make Manningham’s impressive-but-not-extraordinary catch seem like a Tyree-peat, it makes me want to hit the mute button.
• After a kicker-heavy postseason, and the Patriots’ history with kicking game-winners, everyone assumed kickers would play a vital, decisive role in the Super Bowl. But all the field goals were few and routine. If any kicker had a tangible influence on this game, it was the Giants’ punter, Steve Weatherford.

The commercials

The ads were more or less what I expected: A couple great ones, several good ones, plenty of forgettable ones. Off the top of my head: None made me laugh harder than Hyundai’s cheetah turning on its trainer, none made me smile more than King Elton John’s Pepsi, and none stood out as classic more than Clint Eastwood’s Chrysler/Detroit defense (even if it was a bit over-dramatic).

The halftime show

This kind of lip-synced, overproduced, gaudy display is a different kind of performance from Bruce Springsteen or U2′s authentic-feeling show. But it can be great nonetheless. And I thought that Madonna’s show was, almost unequivocally, a great one.

First, the music is iconic. “Music” and “Vogue” are relics of pop eras past and still enjoyable. Her new song is an overt Gwen Stefani and Avril Lavigne rip, but enjoyable enough. These three combined provided a nice, kaleidoscopic take on the past quarter century of girl-pop.

And then there was “Like a Prayer” which is one of my favorite songs. Uplifting, anthemic, subtly sexual — it’s a fantastic song made especially memorable by the background choir. The performance yesterday was definitely a high-point of the show, even though I could have done without Cee-Lo Green’s appearance.

Madonna and crew pulled out all of the stops, with a wide variety of guest appearances and elaborate spectacles, all covered in a fine glaze of strangeness: The Dustin Diamond/Will Ferrell slack-rope jumper, the Babylonian theme, the “World Peace” message following Madonna’s dramatic disappearance.

The one thing I can’t decide whether or not improved the show was Madonna’s appearance. She was trying so hard to be sexy — and kind of pulling it off. She’s almost 55, with a body and face that have been artificially (thought artfully) enhanced, so the fact that she looked and danced like she was 25 years younger was some combination unsettling, impressive, incongruous, wonderfully weird. I just can’t figure out what the balance of those was.

The unexpected delight

After the game was over, I went on twitter, and I didn’t emerge for about a half hour. Apparently people watch the game with their computers/iPhones out, because there were a few hundred tweets from the game to sift through. I didn’t think I’d want to, but the Madonna, Clint Eastwood, Eli Manning, Butt Touchdown, “Anything good on TV?,” Danny Woodhead, etc. jokes were actually quite hilarious.

Rather than post them all, I’ll just point you to Ken Jennings’ (yes, the Jeopardy guy) twitter feed. He had a couple of my favorites.

When I saw Dan’s predictions, I felt compelled to follow up with a batch of my own.  But I knew I had to one-up him somehow, so I went for the old snazzy-synonym-in-the-title trick.  Works every time.  I’m gonna classify these as “Temerarious (But Not Lunatic).”

I predict that, in 2012…

1. Five different dance albums will reach the number-one spot on Billboard, and one of them will hold it for two (or three) weeks.
2. The video game industry — and reviewers — will take Naughty Dog’s challenge seriously and begin building a new age of story-based gameplay.
3. If there’s a slow news day and no elderly royals are on their deathbeds, Kate Middleton will divorce her husband.
4. In the mode of Rocky Balboa and Live Free or Die Hard, we’ll receive word of another manly reload in the making with a title that distracts from the age of the franchise.  I’d probably guess Lethal Weapons if it weren’t for this, which may or may not end up with a number in its name.
5. Equestrian events at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London will be delayed to the point of infuriation by rainfall and fog.
6. There will be a movement on Twitter and Facebook suggesting that Americans should be allowed to cast their votes for president via Twitter and Facebook.  Many will sign the online petitions, but none of those who do will get out of bed on election day.
7. Six months in, Ashton Kutcher will reveal that his starring role in Two and a Half Men is all part of an elaborate prank for the premiere of a new season of Punk’d.
8. A few progressive American high schools will make available loaner copies of e-books in place of the hard copies for English students with Kindles and Nooks.
9. Taylor Swift will not attempt a nationwide summer tour as she focuses on her acting, which will earn her no accolades whatsoever.
10. Within Q2 of FY2012, Apple will finally top last October’s stock prices and continue rising as Tim Cook finds the secret notes Steve Jobs left hidden around his office: “Northern European indie music,” “All-black exterior,” etc.
11. The minimum latitude at which a person may admit to following NASCAR will jump up to 43 degrees north.
12. Lady Gaga will, by sheer concentrated mystique, form a supergroup including Stevie Nicks, Don Henley, Meat Loaf, and Afrika Bambaataa, but still will not produce a single track as compelling as what Ke$ha recorded into her laptop mic while alone in her bedroom with the lights off.
13. Simon Cowell will leave The X-Factor before its second season to rejoin American Idol, simply because he can no longer abide Steven Tyler as his replacement.
14. “Greece Voted Out of EU” will appear in millions of Google Reader feeds right below The Daily Bunny.  One of those things will be forwarded by thousands.
15. I’ll be one of about 500 people who notice when Spock’s Beard goes into studio with their new lineup; one of about 5,000 who buys tickets to a brief Gatsbys American Dream tour, hopefully with a stop on the eastern seaboard; and one of about 500,000 who hear about it when Eve 6 releases their fourth album.

I know I’m delinquent on my end of 2011 posts, but after seeing this post on Grantland, I couldn’t resist interrupting my countdown to make a few predictions for 2012, mostly in the pop culture department. Like Grantland, I will classify these predictions as “Fearless (But Not Insane).”

I predict that, in 2012…

1. JK Rowling will announce a non-Harry Potter project.
   I’m still convinced that there’s at least a 10% chance that she has already released something else under a pseudonym.
2. One of the following people will die:
   Chuck Berry, Elton John, Billy Joel, Ringo Starr, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, Little Richard, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie
3. One of the following people will have a big public meltdown (an arrest could be involved):
   Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, The Situation, Jennifer Aniston, John Mayer, Ashton Kutcher, Kim Kardashian, Katy Perry, Paula Abdul, Steven Tyler
4. The Dark Knight Rises will get an 84% on Rotten Tomatoes
   Brave, meanwhile, will earn an impressive 94%
   
5. At least six sports-related child abuse scandals will emerge — at least one of them major
6. There will be a failed assassination attempt on a major public figure
7. Major competitors to both Steam and NetFlix streaming will emerge
   And they’ll both be Amazon, which will release a slick, unified content manager
8. I will get married
9. At least half of the following long-running comedies will announce a date or a year of their final episode:
   The Office, How I Met Your Mother, Two and a Half Men, iCarly, South Park, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Daily Show, The Simpsons, South Park, 30 Rock
10. There will be a major Facebook backlash
    And a sexy new competitor with a name of five characters or less will emerge
11. Relient K will release a top-ten album and a top-twenty single
    I think it will be a back-to-basics album packed with catchy hooks that will make some radio noise
12. The world will not end
13. Mass Effect 3 will earn an 89 on MetaCritic, far from the year’s best score, but will go down as the 2012′s best game
    Discontent over EA’s DLC habits and co-op bugs will drag down the score a few points
14. A non-SEC team will win the national title
    And I have an inkling it will unexpectedly be Boise State
15. 2012 will be remembered as a fantastic year for movies, music, games, television, and writing
    For at least some of those media, 2011 was a soft year. 2012 will is shaping up to be great on every one of those fronts, though.

This is part of my 2011 wrap-up series, A Few of My Favorite Things, in which I discuss what I enjoyed this year, regardless of when it was released.

12. Grantland

Sports and pop culture web site (debuted 06/2011)

I was hitting 40, and I was like, “What do I want to do long-term?” I always wanted to create a site that was sports and pop culture. 30 for 30 had a big impact because I loved how that was about finding, empowering and working with these incredible directors, and I thought the same thing could work for writers. I researched different sites and looked through all of my favorite magazines and tried to find people who were on their way up.

(from The Hollywood Reporter)

This is part of my 2011 wrap-up series, A Few of My Favorite Things.

Before I jump into my top fifteen for 2011 — read the overview here — I wanted to discuss a few items that I chose not to include on the list for one reason or another.

Parks and Recreation

This is a brilliant sitcom that made “The Leap” in 2011 — from great to one of the greatest.

It’s a show that seems to fire on all cylinders week in, week out. It doesn’t have the varietyof Community or Louie (though its incredible polish and tonal consistency mask quite a bit of experimentation). Instead, it thrives on television’s best comic writing and acting, a fleshed-out setting full of vivid minor characters, and a deep love for public service and everyday people.

This banner year included highlights such as the Harvest Festival, an unforgettable flu season (“Stop— POOPING!”), April and Andy’s surprise wedding, and heart-rending reunion between Leslie and Ben at Indiana’s smallest park. And those are only a few of the highlights.

Suffice it to say that Parks and Recreation would be near the top of my 2011 list if I deemed it eligible.

Community

Growing ever more ambitious, Community scored a high batting average in 2011, which coincided with the second half of its second season and the first half of its third season.

Unlike the uniform Parks and Recreation, Community thrives on the fact that it can be a completely different show from one week to the next. A consistency of character and humanity run underneath even the most bizarre episodes, but the structural design of this show can radically alter every seven days.

While Parks and Rec has leapt it as my favorite comedy on television, that show can’t claim such out-of-left-field classics as Paradigms of Human Memory — a clip show where all the clips were new — or Remedial Chaos Theory — a multi-timeline comic masterpiece.

NBA 2K12

Technically, NBA 2K12 is eligible for this list. And I did enjoy it enough that it should be included on this list. But I chose to exclude it for a couple of reasons.

First, this is basically a makeover, tweak, and roster update to NBA 2K11. (I don’t mean this as an insult; it’s exactly what I wanted. This series is one of my favorites ever.) Thus, it’s mostly an extension of a game that was on last year’s list.

Second, there’s only so much to talk about. I play Dynasty mode for hours on end, managing an NBA roster. There’s a lot of strategy involved; you can’t just accumulate the most talent, you have to balance playing time and budgets to keep everyone happy.

But it’s basically a sports nerd’s pastime, and there’s not much more to it than what I explained in the previous paragraph.

So: Sorry, NBA 2K12. You didn’t make the cut.

The Office (BBC)

I watched The Office UK during the last week of December 2010, so it only narrowly missed the 2011 window I set for this series. But if I had held off a week to watch this series, it’d be near the top of this list.

While the US version of The Office remains one of my favorite series ever, I totally understand everyone who says the original is superior. Per episode, it definitely is: It cuts deeper into the themes of the series at a more rapid pace, making it a lot more effective.

Even more impressive is just how unexpected and original it was. This pair of comedians, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, starterd with what could have been a one-note sitcom premise — a wretched boss makes his employees miserable. They turned it into a three-dimensional character study (of not just the boss, but of his employees who are just as lost as he is) and a formal innovation.

After The Office, not only were mockumentaries acceptable formats for television comedy, but the whole assumption that sitcoms had to be simple and structurally uninventive (setup-setup-punchilne) was blown up. I’d rank it behind only The Sopranos as the most obviously influential TV series of the aughts.

“Materpiece Collection” and “Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”

I went through two seriously music taste-broadening experiments in 2011.

The first was to find an overview of the greatest orchestral music of all time. I found this collection online, listened all the way through multiple times, and have found other classical music I enjoy since then.

Later in the year, I went song-for-song through Rolling Stone’s imperfect but compelling list of the 500 “greatest” rock and roll songs of all time. It gave me an overview of many of the greatest tracks of the past 50 years. Don’t take the rankings or inclusions/exclusions too seriously; this type of list is prone to trendiness and groupthink.

Still, it was utterly compelling to delve deep into the canon of many of rock’s most influential and well-regarded songs.

I decided not to include either of these mixes, because “classical music” and “classic rock” are entries that would be a bit too broad even for my list.

Next up: We have to go back and take a look at a show my fiancee and I watched together this year

I know we don’t write much about sports here at Earn This, but I’m going to file it under the “pop culture” part of our description.

Let’s rewind a decade. A dominant Shaq-Kobe Lakers team stifled MVP Allen Iverson in the Finals to go 15-1 in the playoffs. Chris Webber and Gary Payton were still two of the best players in the league. Tim Donaghy was just another NBA referee.

Now, suppose I described the following to you:

• In a few years, the best basketball talent since Hakeem and MJ were drafted in 1984 would be taken first overall by his hometown team in the NBA draft.
• For seven years, he would play hard every night, bring them to five playoffs, win two MVP awards, go down in history as by FAR the franchise’s best player, and bring millions (if not billions) of dollars to the city he plays for.
• That summer, he decides to sign with a different team where he can play more of a Larry Bird/Magic Johnson facilitator role instead of being an MJ-like primary scorer. He takes a pay cut and moves to a team with another star scorer. That team also signs a rising star rebounder/scorer.
• To signal his shift from being a scoring-focused player to being a winning- and leading-focused player, he changes his jersey number from Michael Jordan’s to Bill Russell’s.
• As he announces his intent to take a pay cut to try and go win a title elsewhere, he makes a public address — and uses it to raise $2.5 million for a children’s charity (that has a chapter near his hometown).

If I’d told you all of that a decade ago, there’s no way in hell you would have guessed that the transition I described would cause the athlete to become one of the top five most hated athletes in the world. Or that the fans from his hometown would burn his jersey. Or that the owner of the team he left would write a few days later: “This shocking act of disloyalty from our home grown ‘chosen one’ sends the exact opposite lesson of what we would want our children to learn.”

You certainly wouldn’t have guessed that taking a pay cut and going to a team where he has a better chance to win it all would have him denounced as an uncompetitive wimp or that he’d irreperably tarnished his chance to become one of the all-time greats.

Yet, this is exactly what happened to LeBron James. Granted, my bullet points left out a few key details, like the tremendous level of hubris in “The Decision” and the “Three Kings” vanity press event. It’s also true that LeBron didn’t pay much courtesy to Cleveland as he prepared to move to a different team.

But you know what? LeBron had already given all he had to Cleveland. He made the Cavaliers far more money than he cost them. He didn’t “owe” the team anything. Leaving without much notice wasn’t the classy way to handle his departure, but it wasn’t evil or “ungrateful.”

The betrayal here wasn’t LeBron’s Decision; it was Cleveland betraying LeBron’s prodigious legacy. Why is the question “Should Cleveland retire LeBron’s jersey?” greeted with laughter? It should be retired the moment LeBron leaves the league. He’s their best player ever by a huge margin.

It really seems like Cleveland just wants to feed its self-suffering complex. It would suck to be a Cleveland fan, but here’s some news, guys: You have an excellent baseball team, you got your Browns back, and LeBron gave you seven years of basketball that ranged from excellent to transcendent.

I’m rooting for LeBron because he’s not only (somehow) underrated as a player, but he’s the most overhated person in the world right now. I told my dad this earlier and he responded with something like “I don’t hate him, I just think he has a huge ego, and I don’t want him to win.” That’s not hate in a traditional sense, but it’s sports hate, and it’s what most of the world has for the Heat.

We should be celebrating the opportunity to not only witness one of the league’s all-time great talents, but to see him paired with another future hall-of-famer. Will they win a title? Will they win five titles? I don’t know. But I’m going to have a blast watching them try.

There are still heroes left in the NBA. Kevin Durant, for example. LeBron is something else: a misunderstood “villain” with plenty of good left in him. It’s a redemption story waiting to happen, except he doesn’t actually need any redemption. I’m rooting for him because most of the world doesn’t seem to realize this.

I have written many columns about the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County. Some readers have suggested I stop. They ask: Why is one school so important?

Well, the U.S. News and World Report has had them as the best high school in the country every year since ‘07.  TJ’s average SAT score is 2,184, compared to the national average of 1,509 and the Fairfax County average of 1,664.  Per Wikipedia, “For schools with more than 800 students in grades 10-12, TJHSST was cited as having the highest-performing AP Calculus BC, AP Chemistry, AP French Language, AP Government and Politics: U.S., and AP U.S. History courses among all schools worldwide.”  This doesn’t seem particularly hard to grasp.

Here’s the situation. I am an education writer who focuses on the best teachers and best schools, as measured by how much value they add to students’ educations and lives. Jefferson is the most selective high school in the country.

I addressed this last time, but it’s worth repeating: I’m pretty sure the statement about selectivity isn’t true.  TJ may be the most selective public HS in the country, with an admission rate of around 16%.  But Stuyvesant in New York seems to have an admission rate under 10%.  Is Jay allowed to make up whatever he wants?

By many benchmarks — faculty quality, course level, equipment — it has to be considered among the best.

Not quite the best defense of the school, but OK.  Let’s not forget that Jay recently said that TJ’s teachers may not be any better than those at other FCPS schools.  Apparently faculty quality is now one of the primary pieces of evidence for TJ’s greatness.

That is irresistible to me. Now I have found a Jefferson graduate, Chelsea Slade, who has given me a way to drag into my Jefferson obsession everyone who didn’t go to Jefferson, which includes me and almost all of mankind.

That last sentence is practically a war crime. 

Slade sent me an e-mail challenging my view that it doesn’t matter whether you go to Jefferson or not. I think if you are as smart as the people who get into the school, you will find everything you need at any of Fairfax’s other fine high schools. Because the quality of high schools around here is so good, I would even argue that a Jefferson-quality student can get a Jefferson-quality education at most of the public and most of the private schools in the Washington area.

Jefferson does not make the students it admits more persistent, more intuitive, more charming or more gifted than they are.

This is veering dangerously close to a “Why even have great schools at all?” argument.  It’s one thing to say that other FCPS schools are pretty good themselves; now he’s just throwing in digs at TJ.  Also, more charming?  Really?  That’s one of the most important traits for a school to infuse into its students?

Jefferson provides great teachers, many learning options and smart, interesting classmates, but so do many other schools in this region that attract Jefferson-quality students.

OK.  It’s true that one’s own individual motivation greatly affects what he “gets out of” his education.  But Jay’s three pieces of evidence for TJ’s greatness were faculty quality, course level, and equipment.  He didn’t say they were its only benefits, but they were the first things he mentioned.  Wouldn’t those things set TJ apart?  That is to say, how could faculty quality be one of TJ’s biggest strengths if it doesn’t set it apart from other FCPS schools? 

Slade graduated from Jefferson in 2006 and from Brigham Young University in 2010, and she is a medical student at George Washington University. She said the environment at Jefferson is more conducive to achieving academic and career goals such as hers.

Here are her reasons, based on her impression of other schools, such as Langley and Marshall, which one of her siblings attended:

“1) Drug use at Jefferson is much less widespread, as far as I am aware, than at many other high schools. I felt my peers better understood the negative consequences of drugs and were smart enough to choose not to use substances. At other schools, the peer pressure to use drugs would have been much stronger.

I don’t have a huge beef with this, although it should be noted that upper-class adolescents use drugs a lot more than most people seem to think.  Also.  Nevertheless, this is her first point in TJ’s favor?

“2) Students at Jefferson use all of their spare time to study — lunch, between classes, in study hall, etc. At other schools, students are more inclined to gather and talk and gossip. I know when I have been in similar situations, despite being a well-motivated student, it’s much easier for me to give in and stop studying and start talking with friends. Whereas at Jefferson, people really did expect their peers to let them study during free time.

OK, I’m sorry, but now we’ve violently derailed.  First of all, the initial statement here is patently false.  Do you have any idea how many students spend not just lunch hours, but 8^th period, before/after school times, and, yes, even class time-gasp!-in senior lounge, playing ping-pong, playing video games, or just lounging?  A whole lot.  You know how many students found it amusing to figure out how frequently, and to what extent, they could be late for class without the teacher caring?  Or how many students snuck off campus during lunch-or class-when they weren’t allowed to?

Second, and probably worse, is this: if Chelsea’s claims were correct…THAT’S A GOOD THING?  To feel guilty about talking to friends?  To spend ALL of break time studying?  Are you serious?

“3) Students at Jefferson don’t tease each other for doing well. When my sister achieves a great score on an exam, she is mortified if anyone sees, because of the teasing and rude remarks that her peers make about her (“nerd,” “tight-wad,” etc.). At Jefferson, we got excited for each other’s high scores, and pushed ourselves harder to do better than our peers on the next exam. It was certainly a competitive environment, but that helped us all achieve much more than a degradative or rude environment would have done.

There’s something here, except for the bit about getting excited for others’ high scores.  False; fellow students are in competition with you for grades—no teacher is going to hand out 25 As—so you’re rarely all that excited to see someone excelling next to you.

“4) My peers at Jefferson had very high self-esteem. Eating disorders, self-mutilating behavior, and other things linked to low self-confidence in adolescents were much less frequent than what I have seen in other high schools. This environment of feeling good about ourselves helped us all feel and do better, be proud of our accomplishments, and help each other in achieving our goals.”

According to my Abnormal Psychology college textbook: “Research demonstrates that young women with eating disorders endorse perfectionist goals both about eating and weight and about general expectations for themselves.”  Doesn’t this sound a lot like TJ?  Also, “eating disorders are considerably more common among middle- and upper-class whites,” which makes up a considerable portion of TJ.

So, no, I’m sorry but I can’t subscribe to this one, either.  The TJ environment may preclude people from teasing others for good grades, but the uber-competitive environment doesn’t reduce behaviors like eating disorders.

It also would have been nice if Jay had noted that Langley, one of the schools with which Chelsea was comparing TJ, is one of the wealthiest high schools in Fairfax County-and thus similar to TJ in many respects.  But OK.

There are little or no data to buttress her view or mine.

An enjoyable statement on many levels.  First off, it’s not all that accurate.  Secondly, isn’t this a bad thing?  Shouldn’t people hold off on making proclamations without evidence?

Jumping off that a little bit…it seems that Chelsea was speaking from her anecdotal experience.  But relying on anecdotes is a prime way to get misled, for anecdotes lie easily.  I don’t care if Chelsea thinks this way–she’s not writing articles.  I mind Jay acting as though this is the best defense of TJ he can give us.

To the many observant teens out there, is your school so bad? Is Jefferson that good? Comment on my blog at washingtonpost.com/class-struggle.

None of this surprises me, of course: Jay Mathews came to speak to my journalism class when I was in high school, and we marveled at what a politician he was; he fawned on and on about TJ’s wonderfulness while in front of us, and then he would go back and spit out another column saying how nondescript we were.  Fun times.

By all accounts, he is one of the best math teachers in the country. The Mathematics Association of America has given him two national awards. He was appointed by the Bush administration to the National Mathematics Advisory Panel. For 25 years he has prepared middle-schoolers for the tough admissions standards at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, the most selective high school in America.

Slipped into the end of this obsequiousness is the claim that TJ is ‘the most selective high school in America.’  Per its Wikipedia page, it accepts about 480 students of 3,000 who apply—16%.  Take a stroll over the page for Stuyvesant HS in New York: its total enrollment is 3,000 students, so we’ll assume the freshmen class is roughly 800.  Admission is based solely on an exam, which about 26,000 eighth-graders take.  800/26,000: 3%.  And this was just one school I checked because I’d vaguely heard of it; it all took about 60 seconds.  Am I missing something?  Or is Jay just allowed to make up whatever he wants?

Yet this year, when Vern Williams looked at the Jefferson application, he felt not the usual urge to get his kids in, but a dull depression. On the first page of Jefferson’s letter to teachers writing recommendations, in boldface type, was the school board’s new focus:

I’d just like to remind everyone here that, in Jay’s aforementioned piece, he bizarrely asked for TJ to use teacher recs—as though they didn’t.

It wanted to prepare “future leaders in mathematics, science, and technology to address future complex societal and ethical issues.”

So far, doesn’t sound particularly offensive.

It sought diversity,

Ahh, of course, here comes the juicy stuff.

“broadly defined to include a wide variety of factors, such as race, ethnicity, gender, English for speakers of other languages (ESOL), geography, poverty, prior school and cultural experiences, and other unique skills and experiences.” The same language was on the last page of the application.

“This is just one example of why I have lost all faith in the TJ admissions process,” Williams said. “In fact, I’m pretty embarrassed that the process seems no more effective than flipping coins.”

Effective at what?  That’d be nice to know.  As Mathews points out later, the process is producing absurdly high SAT scores among TJ kids; certainly, that doesn’t entirely vindicate it—but that’s more evidence than Williams provides for his claims of a bad process.

Last year, he said, Jefferson rejected one of only two eighth-graders in Virginia who qualified to take the Junior USA Math Olympiad test, six scary problems to be done in nine hours. At the same time, “students who had very little interest [or] motivation in math and science were admitted,” he said. “Some admitted students had even struggled with math while in middle school.”

Oh. My. God.  This was the part that made this post inevitable.  By Williams’s logic, everyone who takes the Junior USA Math Olympiad test deserves admission to TJ.  Really?  Taking 1 of 2 said applicants tells us anything?  Really?  And, Jay, you’re going to pimp the awesomeness of said Olympaid by describing it as “six scary problems done in 9 hours?”  If nothing else, that description makes it sound not that bad; more detail and specificity would have been lovely if you wanted readers to be impressed with it.

And “some admitted students even struggled with math while in middle school”—NOOOO!!  What a disgrace!!  We can’t admit any student who wasn’t able to take his middle school exams blind, with no studying, one arm tied behind his back, and half as much time as everyone else.  I mean, are you serious?  It’s a problem to ever admit students who may have struggled with math in middle school, for any reason?  This sounds like something from The Onion: “Teacher complains that elite high school accepted a student ‘who even struggled with math in high school.’”

Williams knows that the school board is concerned that less than 4 percent of Jefferson students are black or Hispanic. He is black himself and was born in the District. He is familiar with the failings of math education for low-income minorities, but he doesn’t think rejecting top math students is the best way to make the school more diverse.

I love how any discussion of anything vaguely race-related has to point out that its instigator is a minority.  You know, because that’s relevant to his intellect.

The solution, he said, is to “get rid of all warm and fuzzy math programs at the elementary school level and teach real academic content to all students.” Textbooks are dumbed down, he said, to accommodate allegedly math-phobic children. Don’t get him started on the overuse of calculators.

What’s particularly interesting about this paragraph is that it markedly illustrates the limitations of Jay’s column.  Williams’s philosophy on teaching can be found at the link, and a good portion of it makes sense.  There are few bigger critics of conventional American teaching than me.  Yet, Jay doesn’t explain Williams’s cogent points (needless repetition of old material, inflexible teachers, excessive group work, to name a few); he lets him ramble that ‘some admitted students have even struggled sometimes in math OMGWTFFAIL.’  And Jay’s BUYING IT.

He showed me a copy of a Jefferson recommendation he filled out in 2004. It asked him to rate the candidate on “interest in math,” “self-discipline” and “problem-solving skills.” There was no mention of ethnic diversity. This year, recommenders are required to assess three qualities: intellectual ability, commitment to STEM [science, technology, engineering, math] and whether the applicant’s background, skills and past experiences “contribute to the diversity of TJHSST’s community of learners.”

Last November, I wrote a column endorsing that approach. I said that if the school put more emphasis on character and less on math scores, more black and Hispanic applicants would have a chance. I still believe that. But I have been so taken with the power of Williams’s teaching over the years that I feel obliged to present his contrary view.

He has run into several cases of Jefferson ignoring STEM commitment.

By the way, how does Williams know all of this?  He’s a middle-school teacher, not a TJ insider.  Is it from Bush’s advisory panel?  Just curious.

Humanities types are being accepted, and stars of Mathcounts, the nerd equivalent of youth soccer, are being rejected.

“Humanities types.”  Thanks, Jay.  I’m sure they enjoy being talked about like they’re not sentient.  The latter portion of the sentence is typical Jay claptrap; it might be perfectly defensible to reject some stars of Mathcounts when considering everything else about them.  And?

“And yet how many minorities have this corrupt process scooped up? Barely any!” Williams said.

Ah, is this what we meant by saying that the process isn’t effective?  It’s hard to tell conclusively; but this is something; addressing whether the admissions procedures have increased racial diversity would be worth noting, I suppose.  But we’re about to shift gears to fawn over Williams’s diligence in writing recommendations.

“I usually write between 45 and 60 TJ recommendations and spend at least 75 minutes on each because I make them all totally unique. I felt like last year’s effort was a total waste of time.”

Too bad you don’t fully understand the meaning of the word ‘unique,’ which never deserves a qualifier.

The Jefferson admissions committee’s careful sifting produced last year’s average senior class SAT score of 2233, the highest in the nation by far. That is impressive. But at least one gifted teacher who knows Jefferson well thinks it could do better finding the students who come for the love of math, not prestige.

Students who come for the love of prestige?  That’s the concern about the admissions process—that it’s finding 13-year olds who want status?

Look, changing admissions procedures to admit more minorities is one issue—a completely separate one.  But freaking out over the mathematical attitude of intelligent tweens is overwrought hand-wringing.  Jefferson receives tons of applications—not as many as Stuyvesant, it looks like, but plenty–all of whom come from one of the most-educated areas in the country.  In other words, there are TONS of qualified applicants.  We can parse words on the application packet to favor students with a slightly different approach to math, but, really, what’s that ruining?  Is there any evidence that this approach is dulling the school or producing less qualified graduates?

Jay, there’s a way to present a contrary viewpoint to your own.  Highlight its strongest, most persuasive points (not done) and compare them with your own (not done), ultimately either telling us why you still prefer your own (not done) or modifying your position into some sort of hybrid/synergistic/new model (not done).  Instead, Jay wrote some Vern-is-wonderful filler, printed some of his dumber claims and ignored his stronger ones, and, as always, ignored the concept of a thesis.  Well done.