Unemployment in India, academic controversy in California, and murder and the mob in the Bay State

A New York Times article today discusses India and employment from an unusual perspective: rather than reporting on the number of jobs outsourced by Americans to India, the article considers the number of Indians who migrate to other countries to find work. The fourth in a series of articles about global migration, it examines the paradoxical situation of the state of Kerala’s high literacy rates and simultaneously high unemployment. The article quotes foreign scholars who view Kerala as a success, due to its importation of foreign money, and families whose lives seem to be more difficult than they ought to be, choosing between living together as a family and benefiting from one family member’s wages earned abroad. The accompanying slide show offers a poignant look at the daily lives of Kerala’s people. I am not convinced, though, of the purported success of the “Kerala method.” The lede claims Kerala “is a famously good place to be poor,” and only much later in the article are we presented with the fact that its suicide rate is quadruple that of India’s national average. The article would have been more convincing, perhaps, had it focused more explicitly on reasons for unemployment in Kerala, where it seems opportunities ought to abound for educated people as teachers, at the very least.

In the U.S., a missed opportunity to employ a great educator resulted from the University of California at Irvine’s decision to rescind an offer to Erwin Chemerinsky to become dean of its new law school. Everything you need to know about this Washington Post article is in the lede: a liberal professor lost his job offer after criticizing the Bush administration, and academics of all political beliefs are infuriated. The following two paragraphs list Chemerinsky’s accomplishments, and by the time the article reaches its interview with UC-Irvine Chancellor Michael V. Drake, the pithy quote he provides does little to show his decision was a smart one. It might have been illuminating to include a more specific—or more articulate—statement from the Chancellor, but in light of the majority opinion in favor of Chemerinsky, the chosen quote reinforces the decision as one that UC-Irvine may come to regret.

On this coast, fugitives from the law receive more attention than those who practice it, and the Boston Globe proves it knows its audiences by making the possible sighting of Whitey Bulger in Italy its lead story today. The lede sounds almost too good to be true: “Fugitive gangster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger and his girlfriend, Catherine Greig, may have been spotted in Sicily in April by a vacationing federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent who shot a brief video of the couple before they slipped away, according to law enforcement officials.” The article considers the possibility that the man caught on film could be nothing more than a look-alike, although it notes he wears “Bulger’s trademark sunglasses and baseball cap.” (Why a fugitive from the law would continue to wear defining accessories is a conundrum best left to the reader’s musings.) The Globe discloses some of the steps taken by the FBI following the sighting and interviews law enforcement officials, but it does not make clear why the video has only just been released to the public now, five months after it was taken.

While Whitey Bulger holidays in Sicily (or wherever he may be), the world continues to be an unjust place, as those in his home state mourn the loss of a mother, sister, friend, and active community member. The Canton Citizen pays tribute this week to Beth Spence Cann, a native of Canton who was murdered in her Norton home two weeks ago by Robert McDermott before he took his own life. The Citizen reprinted Beverly Beckham’s September 9 column in the Boston Globe, along with individual comments from the family and friends Cann left behind. The article paints a saintly picture of a woman who contributed to the community as “the single mother reporters overlooked,” one whose loss is felt by many. Despite the inclusion of certain passages that verge on sounding maudlin—“Patty shows me her manicured hands and on one nail is a tiny Adirondack chair, an umbrella and a sun, painted by Beth the Thursday before she was murdered. These are all from before, when Beth was alive”—the article serves as a touching memorial to a woman whose family are still active participants in the Canton community.