Thoughts on Glenn Beck and "Restoring Honor"

Just got back to the house in DC from several hours on the Mall at the Glenn Beck camp revival known as "Restoring Honor." It was a bizarre experience. Quite aside from all else that's been said about it, the one thing that struck me was how amateurish and random the whole production was.

Take Ivy, Take Two

Back in this past year's Book Review issue I wrote about the phenomenon of Take Ivy, the Japanese campus style book from the 1960s.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on an original from Japan but those who weren't are in for some good news. Brooklyn-based powerHouse Books [their styling, not mine] is re-releasing the book, now with English translations. You can pre-order it here. It might just come in time to take up to school for fall term.

In the meantime, keep yourself occupied with an interview of a Dartmouth '68 who graced the pages of the book twice and is full of Hanover memories.

Schwartzman on NY's Gubernatorial Race

Dartmouth Review week editor and prolific Dartlog contributor Adam Schwartzman has a post up over on the Village Voice's Running Scared blog about the Republican contenders for New York's governorship and the vitriolic words flying out of upstate challenger Carl Paladino's mouth towards Long Island's very own Rick Lazio.

Paladino has jumped on Lazio's employment at Wall Street mainstay J.P. Morgan and accused him of being "Joe Lobbyist". Wait, is Paladino really claiming that business experience is a bad thing? To be fair, If Lazio is proven to have engaged in corrupt behavior then there's not much to say in his defense. However, if his largest crime is having worked downtown (rather than upstate, where Paladino hails from), then it would seem that Paladino's populist pandering is far off base.

Not that it really matters - it seems as if Andy Cuomo is going to win handily.

I know, I know - the Village Voice is a lefty rag. But do the right thing and head over there.

Administrators Cite Dubious Reasons for Improved Rankings

The newly released 2011 US News & World Report College and University Ratings bring an improved standing for Dartmouth: while the school maintains it's #1 ranking in "Best Undergraduate Teaching" for the second year in a row, it has jumped to #9 in "National Universities," up from #11 in 2010.

In an interview with the Daily D, Provost Carol Folt cited smaller class sizes as one of several reasons for Dartmouth's increased position. However, just a few short months ago the D offered plenty of coverage on what seemed like the college's likely response to the economic downturn: a permanently increased class size, beginning with the class of 2014. According to Dean of Admissions Maria Laskaris in a December interview with the Daily D, "I think it wouldn’t just be for one year, the decision would be to increase the size of the student body more long-term.”

With the new rankings out, all of this seems swept under the rug and the college is more than happy to extol the virtues of its dedication to a small class size. How is it that we were never informed of the final word regarding this "extensive discussion," as President Kim put it? More likely than not, a decision was made, as seems to be the modus operandi of the school these days, without consulting the student body in a meaningful way.

A call to the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students revealed no information on the size of the class of 2014; the office cited a constantly shifting number of newly matriculating students and no available estimates as to their total number. It can only be assumed that if the college has indeed increased class size, they have chosen to keep the final decision incredibly quiet and only the Review is left to cry foul at this unfortunate administrative contradiction.

McChrystal Heads to Yale

Yale University has recently announced that General Stanley McChrystal, who was recently dismissed by President Obama due to disparaging comments made in a Rolling Stone article, has joined the school's faculty as a the teacher of a graduate-level seminar on leadership.

McChystal, who tendered his resignation on June 23 and subsequently retired from the military, will teach at the newly-formed Jackson Institute of Global Affairs. According to the university, the four-star general's class will be available to both undergrads and graduate students.

More Than You Ever Wanted To Know...

About Green Eggs & Ham by an alum of our prestigious institution, the legendary Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel.

Stay classy, Keith Halloran

B@B Back Online

Goodbye work ethic, hello procrastination.

Oh noes!!

Bureaucrat-in-chief Carol Folt writes:

We are pleased to announce the selection of Microsoft Online Services as Dartmouth's primary service for email, calendar, and collaboration tools... The new Microsoft service will replace Dartmouth's "BlitzMail" email system. Although once highly innovative and beloved by many, it is more than 20 years old and no longer meets our needs. We know that Google and its various applications have many supporters. Yet, after careful evaluation, we have decided that Microsoft offers the most secure and best integrated service on the market today. We are confident that it is a robust solution that will allow us to provide modern and protected service to our community.

"Careful evaluation": a euphemism for three years of administrative indecision, overfunded "research committees", and a big, big check from Microsoft to edge out student-preferred Gmail. And so at long last dies one of the most annoying, antiquated, and irrationally beloved parts of Dartmouth. Tour guides will no longer have to utter the moronic phrase "Yeah, blitz is so cool, it's like a mix of email and IM! I never call my friends to plan lunch after 10As, I just blitz them!" with false (or even more disturbingly, not false) enthusiasm to incredulous campus visitors. Sororities, including my own, may collectively freak out as a result of Folt's cautioning us that "Microsoft and Google calendar applications do not integrate with each other."

I for one look forward to being able to view emails with HTML, however.

Two Dartmouth Grads on The Today Show

So it happened yesterday, but Dartmouth graduates Jeff Deck '02 and Benjamin Herson '02 were interviewed on The Today Show. For what, you may ask? These two gentlemen are typo crusaders, men who gallivant about the country searching for typos to correct. They also have a book coming out on August 3rd, The Great Typo Hunt. Its, uh, "theatrical trailer" is posted below.

Man of the Hour: Michael Bloomberg

If you've had a chance to crack open today's New York Times, you'll see the latest in the controversy regarding plans to build a 13-story mosque just two blocks north of the World Trade Center site.

While the plans have garnered opposition from parties as varied as Sarah Palin, New York GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio, and the Anti-Defamation League, the planned mosque and Islamic community center has recently gained final approval from the city.

With the myriad different views and stances regarding the mosque, it's good to see New York City Mayor (and new buddy of President Kim!) Michael Bloomberg taking a strong position that cuts right to the core of the issue; from the Times:

"'To cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists- and we should not stand for that,' the mayor said.

Grappling with one of the more delicate aspects of the debate, Mr. Bloomberg said that the families of Sept. 11 victims- some of whom have vocally opposed the project- should welcome it.

'The attack was an act of war- and our first responders defended not only our city but also our country and out Constitution,' he said, becoming slightly choked up at one point in his speech, which he delivered on Governors Island. 'We do not honor their lives by denying the very constitutional rights they died protecting. We honor their lives by defending those rights- and the freedoms the terrorists attacked.'"

Say what you will about Mayor Bloomberg, a man who has unquestionably attracted his fair share of controversy, but I applaud the Mayor for sticking to his guns in such a delicate debate, particularly when his stance is one that will undoubtedly detract his support from some of the most Bloomberg-friendly demographics- namely religious Jews and conservative Republicans, both of whom have largely been vocal in their opposition to the mosque.

Surprise

Tax reduction thus sets off a process that can bring gains for everyone, gains won by marshalling resources that would otherwise stand idle—workers without jobs and farm and factory capacity without markets. Yet many taxpayers seemed prepared to deny the nation the fruits of tax reduction because they question the financial soundness of reducing taxes when the federal budget is already in deficit. Let me make clear why, in today's economy, fiscal prudence and responsibility call for tax reduction even if it temporarily enlarged the federal deficit—why reducing taxes is the best way open to us to increase revenues.

Take a guess at who uttered these words. Would John F. Kennedy even be among your first ten guesses? And yet in his 1963 Economic Report, JFK said the above.

The message: think past party lines and support practical solutions.

Budget Gap Closing

Say what you want about President Kim, but, unlike his predecessor, he certainly knows how to handle a budget.

Kim's "Habits of the Mind"

President Kim really gets it.

From my remote location in Washington, I had the chance to see Kim's Thursday lecture via streaming video, the second in his presidential lecture series. Our friend Joe Asch over at Dartblog contends that Kim's speech was only so much rehashed material -- the standard stump speech. That may be so. In the event, it's a damn good stump speech, and one which probably can't be repeated enough. Kim's unique ability to articulately outline the utility of the liberal education, of what education can and should be, is reason enough to applaud, even if the routine sometimes seems like it's getting old. Undoubtedly, Dickey's repetition of his signature line about making the world's troubles our own troubles occasioned grumbling in some quarters. But that repetition has made it a foundational feature of the Dartmouth identity.

I was particularly struck by this portion of the talk, which addressed the value of the humanities from a scientific perspective:

His background in medicine and his scientific approach is what makes Kim a particularly notable and effective champion for the humanities. It's very predictable for an English or History professor to stand up for his discipline's inherent value. It carries some added oomph when it comes from the other side of the aisle. Moreover, it is an important part of the progression toward a reconciliation of science and the humanities, and a mutual understanding of the necessity of each. If more talks on this theme can help contribute to the unity of the disciplines, then Kim's efforts really are worth something in an academy that is characterized by disciplinary fragmentation.

Now, the notion that a humane education would lead to creative thinking and enhanced capacities for empathy is common sense. But it's common sense that needs to be said again and again. And, frankly, Kim (and more largely, Dartmouth) is fighting a very lonely battle for the liberal arts in the United States and throughout the world. At the end of the clip above, Kim talks about the almost strictly vocational nature of Korean education, even at elite levels. The same could be said about much of the United States, where the most popular undergraduate major nationwide is business administration. It would be a difficult task indeed to measure the empathy-generating effects of coursework on the foundations of marketing.

Of course Dartmouth, happily, is one of the proud few who abstain from dealing in such training at the undergraduate level. But that merely points to what an elite phenomenon the purely liberal arts education still is -- which is truly a shame. The liberal arts belong to all, and would be the rightful focus of all undergraduate college education outside of the natural sciences.

I just returned from a week-long Intercollegiate Studies Institute conference in Annapolis precisely on this topic, and it is remarkable how many of the themes that I heard coming from conservative intellectuals at that conference are echoed in Jim Kim's remarks. Notwithstanding items like the very misguided shut-down of Connecticut River swimming, et cetera, Kim's seemingly deep-felt conviction and thoughtful commentary on the liberal arts should give conservatives a few reasons to cheer.

Filligar's New Album: The Nerve

Have you heard it?

Begin the Revolution

Well, that sure didn't take long. Looks like concern that the Administration would delay their decision over what to do about the River turned out to be unfounded. Instead, they rendered it less than 48 hours later.

From Blitz:

Dear Dartmouth Students:

We are writing to update you on this summer's swimming options. As you may already be aware, students and the Administration have been working together to develop and review proposals for the safe use of the waterfront. The Administration has reviewed the recommendations received to date and has concluded that we do not have viable alternatives that can be implemented this summer.

As such, the College will continue to provide free shuttles to Storrs Pond on weekends. We are also working with the student leaders at Ledyard Canoe Club to continue to offer free use of canoes and kayaks through the end of the summer term.

None of us are happy with the current situation. We are committed to working together to find a safe and fun alternative for the summer. We will be working with Student Assembly to form a Task Force to explore longer term options for use of the College controlled areas of the waterfront. It will be very important that the Task Force members represent the breadth of the student community. In addition, College staff and faculty with particular areas of expertise will be asked to assist. While Student Assembly is developing its appointment process, please blitz Campus Life if you are interested in participating, or have ideas that should be considered.

Sincerely,

Sylvia C. Spears, Ph.D.
Acting Dean of the College

April Thompson
Associate Dean of the College for Campus Life

Aaron R. Limonthas '12 Summer Term Student Assembly President
John R. Rutan '12 Class Council President
Satoshi W. Harris-Koizumi '12 Class Council Vice-President

I hope Mr. Blalock is ready to rush his troops to action.

Regarding the River

So you may remember that the Connecticut River is closed. The Class Council has a solution.

"You're joking."


No, not really.


------------------------------------
Every Saturday and Sunday, noon-5pm,
Meet in the back of Collis to be shuttled to Storrs Pond ---for the remained of the term (last day: Sunday, August 22).
------------------------------------


Shout out to freshman year roomies, this song is dedicated to you toria.


Rebecca--can we please work on CS hw together? asdfhakdjhf


Sam Marshmallow. Give me your landrover.

They may not be joking about Storrs, but that doesn't prevent Storrs from being a joke in and of itself.

Unfortunately, it looks like the protest over the river has been postponed. Over at Dartblog, Joe Asch has the Blitz from Travis Blalock '12 posted. It appears the College has formed a committee on the matter and Blalock has decided to hold off--for now, at least. The instant the College "does not satisfy our demands we will resume our campaign of protest."

One hopes Mr. Blalock is correct in his assessment. If the College decides that a judgment on the matter is to be rendered in, say, December, Mr. Blalock can go right back to protesting. The College hasn't been all that stiff when people start showing up in Parkhurst.

Scientists More or Less Solve Timeless Conundrum

Researchers in London have recently published findings that claim an answer to the age-old question, "what came first, the chicken or the egg?"

Long story short, it's the chicken.

In a paper entitled "Structural Control of Crystal Nuclei by an Eggshell Protein," the scientists discussed the discovery of ovocledidin-17, a protein found only in chicken ovaries and eggs. This protein, they contend, must be present in the ovaries of the chicken in order for the egg to form.

As reported by the Daily Mail, Sheffield University's Dr. Colin Freeman stated that, "It had long been suspected that the egg came first but now we have the scientific proof that shows that in fact the chicken came first."

However, in an interview with CNN, the same Dr. Freeman said that the conclusions weren't as clear-cut as one might think. "I would argue that the concept of an eggshell came about way before the chicken, it's dinosaur or even pre-dinosaur thing. That's something to talk to an evolutionary biologist about probably," he said.

Apparently the research was meant to gain insight as to the formation of shells in order to apply the findings to other fields, namely medicine. As it turns out, the results re-sparked interest in the chicken-egg riddle, but failed to come to a satisfying conclusion. It seems that the debate rages on.

Protest Forthcoming at Bloomberg Lecture

No, it won't be a protest against Bloomberg. Our spies have informed us that there will be a student led protest against the river closure before Mayor Bloomberg's lecture, because that's "where the cameras are."

You heard it here first.

Ivy Grad Publishes 2nd Book

Travis Rowley's first book, Out of Ivy, revealed how a liberal Ivy, Brown University, turned him into a committed conservative. Providence Journal editor Robert Whitcomb wrote, "Mr. Rowley's description of incidents on Brown's politically correct campus are by turns hilarious, infuriating, and intriguing as he provides one of the sharpest and most detailed inside looks at elite higher education seen in a long time, Tom Wolfe's 'I am Charlotte Simmons' included."

Mr. Rowley's new book released last week does not attack Brown University, but the last 70 years of Rhode Island's left-wing activists, unions, and Democrats who have propelled RI into bankruptcy and achieved the 10th highest total state and local tax burden in the country. When asked what he hopes to accomplish, Mr. Rowley says, "Nothing short of a wholesale power shift will satisfy me... My political experience, coming out of Brown University, has been with the far left. And I think that has put me in a unique position to be able to point out the radical elements that have infiltrated Rhode Island government." Mr. Rowley is currently the chairman of the "oldest political youth organization in the United States" RI Young Republicans.

Bloomberg Takes to Hanover; Boloco for All!

In the continued spirit of President John Sloan Dickey's "Great Issues" concept, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will take a break from the sweltering heat of the Big Apple on July 16 to speak in Moore Theater at the Hop. Bloomberg, who successfully amended New York City's term limit laws in order to run and serve for a third term in 2008, will discuss his experiences as a politician, businessman, and philanthropist.

In a blitz to both undergrads and graduate students, President Kim explained that the lecture is intended to "provide the entire sophomore class with a shared experience that sparks campus-wide conversation and debate about important issues of the day." The President elaborated that the talk is the first in a Dartmouth Presidential Lecture Series.

Although space is limited, and it is assumed that a seat at the talk is a hot commodity, President Kim is nonetheless sweetening the deal with free Boloco burrito vouchers for those in attendance. Additionally, students at the lecture will be asked for feedback "as part of our strategic planning process...as we examine ways to incorporate a shared intellectual experience into the Dartmouth summer schedule in future years."

What better to spur Dartmouth students into a continuation of intellectual discourse than free Boloco?

Not to be outshone, President Kim will deliver his own lecture on July 29th in which he will discuss "the importance of developing 'habits of the mind' that are key to success in life. "

Bloomberg's lecture will take place at 11:15 a.m. on July 16th, with Kim's at 4 p.m. on the 29th.

Can't Stand the Heat?

Head to Novack. From Blitz:

Due to the prolonged heat and humidity, the college has identified the air conditioned Novak Cafe as a student "heat relief" and "cooling station."

The cafe has been equipped with 50 cots for sleeping (20 have been set up in Novak room 60). Additional cots can be set up in the main area of Novak as needed. Novak is open and available to students 24 hours a day and will be staffed from 11PM to 8AM each night this weekend by Safety and Security personnel. Students who are in need of a cool place to sleep or who are looking for a comfortable space to study or just cool off should use this space during this heat wave.

"The Talk"

Occasionally, an organization on campus will descend into self-parody. For the Sexperts, a group that has near Adam West era levels of camp in more or less all that they do, this is difficult to pull off, but they've finally done it.

Want to Scare '14s?

If the answer to that question is yes, you can sign up for "The First Time."

B@B Offline

It appears that Bored at Baker has been taken down, at least for the time being.

If you're unfamiliar with the site, it allows users to post anonymously about more or less any subject they choose without any moderation of their comments. At Dartmouth discussion has ranged from discussion of which a cappella groups are "A-side" to much less savory material. It might help if you think of the site as a sort of virtual bathroom wall.

Jonathan Pappas, the owner of the Boredat sites (as I understand it, there's one for every Ivy, named for the respective library on campus) has shut them down while he figures out a way to correct the situation, issuing an open call for coders. Why, exactly? Well, to quote the page that B@B's address redirects to:

i have temporarilty suspended boredatbutler and other similar boredat sites. recently it has come to my attention that a small group of people have begun using the sites to target and attack specific individuals. the attacks are not on the community as a whole, rather, they are targeted at specific individuals in a repeated, persistent manner. the attackers post personal information (phone numbers, email addresses, etc) and defamatory statements. i do not condone this kind of activity and never have. since i dont have a solution for this problem right now, like i've done in the past, i've decided to take down the sites for the time being.

on another note, it seems that the community has shifted over time to be about homosexuals looking for anonymous hookups. don't get me wrong: i dont have anything against homosexuality. however, its not what i intended the site to be all about.

i will not allow boredat to exist if these conditions are present:

1. specific individuals can be targeted or defamed repeatly without a proactive way to deal with such incidents.
2. a majority of the "center stage dialog" centers around anonymous homosexual activity.

Hard to see if there's anything surprising about this. It's more or less a proven law at this point that internet+anonymity=jerks and that sites like this tend to quickly deteriorate to the lowest common denominator.

Still, I doubt this is the end for B@B. It's been taken offline before and it seems unlikely that it will be gone for long. Until then, the less savory amongst us will just have to content themselves with scratching obscenities into tables in the stacks.

Dartmouth a Good Investment, Says WSJ

The Wall Street Journal's Real Time Economics blog has ranked the top institutions in terms of return on one's investment. We landed in the number five slot, two slots behind Harvard but ahead of the rest of the Ivies. All in all, not a bad showing.

It's interesting that the research was conducted by Payscale, a company that placed us #1 on starting and mid-career median salary not too far back. It should be noted that both rankings are based on self-reporters (albeit it quite a few of them) rather than scientific samples.

Happy 4th of July!

Well, hopefully everyone has had a full plate of barbecue and spent time with friends and family by now. Allow the Review to lighten the mood and entertain you for a few minutes with this patriotic little ditty from the musical 1776.







Remember to be careful with any fireworks you may set off tonight, and God bless America.

Hood Director Brian Kennedy steps down

So Provost Carol Folt announced in an email this morning. Mr. Kennedy will begin as the director at the Toledo Museum of Art this fall; read more about it here.

During his tenure at Dartmouth, Mr. Kennedy's artistic choices tended to disappoint. Surely the most infamous (and likely most expensive) example would be united nations: the green house, Gu Wenda's strings of hair strewn throughout Baker-Berry Library. While Gu Wenda produced some fine art in the earlier part of his career (that is, before he became famous, and even these better works sometimes seemed derivative of the more talented Xu Bing), his latest work tends toward a seamless dovetail of aesthetic ugliness and intellectual shallowness. In short, Gu creates maximal hype with minimal artistic merit: this is, of course, exactly what he brought to Dartmouth. (A New York Times article about the installation can be found here.) The combination of the elegant Baker Library, already painfully dated Berry Library, and garishly colored strings of human hair hanging throughout could not have been less appealing. Needless to say, I studied in Sanborn.

Other pieces for which we have Mr. Kennedy to thank include Peter Iniq's Inukshuk, a pile of rocks sitting outside McNutt Hall—a fine way to gloss over Dartmouth's troubled historic relationship with Native Americans and make anyone who loves great art, or anyone who can see through higher education's mania for multiculturalism, roll their eyes.

I do, however, appreciate Mr. Kennedy's acquisition of the Hood's sole Jackson Pollock painting. In addition, Mr. Kennedy's exhibitions at the Hood were as a rule coherent and well-done. 2008's "Ruscha and Pop: Icons of the 1960s" was the finest exploration of Pop Art (not that there's that much to explore in that movement, but still) that I have yet seen.

I wish Mr. Kennedy all the best in Toledo. I have an unpleasant feeling that his replacement, which Carol Folt said would be announced "shortly", will be a distinct downgrade. But here's to hoping Ms. Folt will prove me wrong.

Pirates!

Dartmouth Government professor Bridget Coggins has an excellent piece in the latest issue of Foreign Policy magazine about the perils of modern piracy, replete with some excellent graphs that breakdown pirate methods and objectives. Her conclusion? The world hasn't yet devoted the necessary resources to stopping sea banditry: "With just a handful of vessels matched against a pirate playground larger than the Mediterranean, the plunder goes on."

Students Rally to Save Fun

On June 23, Associate Dean of the College for Campus Life April Thompson announced the closing of the Connecticut River swim docks, garnering a new coalition of students fighting the seemingly perpetual onslaught against the Dartmouth experience. A Facebook group fittingly named "Save The River Dock" founded by Travis Blalock '12 has already grown to nearly 200 members.

Furthermore, Blalock drafted a letter to Dean Thompson on June 28 requesting that the safety review which led to the closing of the docks be made public. Blalock encourages all concerned parties to take action against the closing of the swim docks.

NYT Highlights Pilobolus at the Hop

The New York Times gave Dartmouth's own Hopkins Center some much-deserved attention on the front page of Monday's online edition. Alastair Macaulay's write-up of the Pilobolus weekend dance show is a paean not only to Pilobolus (founded by Dartmouth alums), but also to the College itself and to the Hop, "one of the leaders in commissioning modern-dance works." A priceless piece of promotion for the Hop and the College's public affairs office.

Also priceless? Joe Mehling's photo credit in the Times. His ubiquity knows no bounds.

For those who don't closely track the world of modern dance, Pilobolus is perhaps the best-known group in the country. They performed at the 2007 Academy Awards, and the group got its own feature story on 60 Minutes in 2004. Pilobolus has its origins in a 1971 dance class at the College taught by instructor Alison Chase. Here they are on Conan last summer:

USMNT Falls to Ghana 2-1

Hard fought game by the US, but in extra time we saw more Ghanaians flop on the ground than Dartmouth students will into the Connecticut River this summer. Since I'm not really a huge soccer fan, someone enlighten me: is this the point at which we riot and cause an international incident?

On the Role of Trustees

Over at the John William Pope Center, William Leonard has a piece on Trustees and financial management that our Board would be wise to read.

McNutt Murders Bear

I ran into this in McNutt, just outside the Registrar's office on the first floor. This is one of the College's animated polar bears. These things are spread throughout campus, primarily in dorms in the McLaughlin cluster and New Hampshire. Depending on the energy use in the building, the animation will change from the bear sitting serenely on a glacier to him fleeing, Wile E. Coyote style, from a crack in the ice. The worst possible result is displayed below, where the College's energy use is somehow enough to melt what I'm assuming to be the north pole. As you can see from the picture (I apologize for the low quality; I took it with my phone), that makes the bear sad, presumably because he can't shoot Coca-Cola commercials anymore. Awwww.

The humor, however, comes from the note on top of the display which reads, "Please don't worry about the Polar Bear! He and a bunch of new staff members have just moved in. We're getting used to life in McNutt together." I find it funny that the College assumes we care less about the energy use than about that bear. What's next, screens above paper recycling pins showing a squirrel escaping loggers?

Dartblog back?

Dartblog has begun posting again, featuring the musings of old standby Joe Asch.

Here's hoping he sticks around this time.

The Dartmouth Atlas Shrugged?

Over at National Review Online, Avik Roy has an excellent piece on the Dartmouth Atlas of Healthcare, which came under fire recently for its methodology (incorrectly in that case, Avik believes, although he does see some issues with other parts of the Atlas's methodology). The College, for its part, was quick to defend the Atlas.

It makes for an interesting article, especially since the Atlas has been used by the Obama administration to argue that much of health care cost is waste.