When I was looking at colleges, I looked at US News & World Report's college ratings a grand total of one time. I didn't see the point of using rankings with a methodology that barely took into account what was important to me. At school, I've found that the two prevailing sentiments about the rankings are:

1) The rankings don't mean anything.
And 2) I can't believe they dropped us three places! (Wesleyan dropped from 9th to 12th last year)

However, some people I know, especially parents, swear by the US News rankings, and make it their goal to get into the highest school possible on the list. Now, Washington Monthly has come out with their own rankings, trying to break the hierarchy that the US News rankings reinforce every year, and provide, in their view, a more effective method of determining the return on the investment in a college education.

The Monthly rankings, instead of using (SAT scores, endowment, professor salaries, or rate of alumni giving), they rate on categories such as Social Mobility and Community service. In essence, they aim to measure the quality of students and what they do for the country produced rather than the quality of the institution. So, schools like MIT (#1), Stanford (#7), and Cornell (#8) share the top ten with the likes of state schools such as Penn State (#3), UC San Diego (#6) and South Carolina State (#9). While I applaud the Monthly for attempting to come up with a more fair and effective way of ranking colleges, I think there should be less emphasis on arbitrary rankings and more on just presenting prospective students with as many facts as possible to make an informed decision on where to go to college.

Two of CAP's amazing interns, Pete Backof and Mira Patel, were filming all day at this year's Campus Progress conference, and the result is a video that totally captures the atmosphere and energy of the conference. Check it out:

One of the right's favorite attacks on any progressive organization is to say that they're "Soros-funded socialist/communists/flag-burning, America-hating terrorists". Talk show host/blowhard Michael Savage has even gone as far to say that it's people like George Soros who"brought about the Holocaust."George Soros, of course, is the liberal financier billionaire who has given millions to various liberal groups. The truth is, though, while he is one of CAP's major donors, he is one of more than 1000 donors to the Center, and furthermore, we are nobody's "front group." This leads to the question though: What are they so threatened by? The fact that receiving funds from someone may be taken as, say, validation of their ideas?

Of course, the Right has similar benefactors, whom, it could be argued, are far more involved in their activities. I mean, at least it can't be said of Soros that he funds ill-conceived witch hunts to remove Presidents from office, like noted right-wind funder Richard Mellon Scaife. The reclusive Gulf Oil heir is the one of the lead sources of funding of such organizations as Heritage and MRC, as well as the person behind the Arkansas Project, which was started to dig up dirt on the Clintons, with the ultimate goal being President Clinton's resignation or impeachment. The left barely touches on that (although maybe it should), but who he gives his money to is his business. The only issue that should rise with anyone's foundation giving money to those who find it deserving is if the funds are ill-gotten.

I have no objection to the right receiving money from Scaife or the Coors family. Of course I don't support what that money is being used for, but all groups have the right to receive funding. So why is it that conservatives make such a big deal out of this? They're not scared. What they are doing, though, is demonizing progressives for something that has no bearing on their activities. Needless deionization is nothing new, but does it have to be about something that, in the grand scheme of things, is relatively trivial?

Just got back from the hip-hop panel. I enjoyed seeing, for once, a discussion of the politcal side of the music I love, as well as remarks from Fat Joe that were much more candid than I expected. Hip-hop's political nature has seemed to be all but forgotten in modern popular music, as what record companies keep feeding hte general public is a parade of clowns with grills. Popular hip-hop refult not only on the artists, but on the black community as a whole, and when our reflection is one of money-hungry, misogynistic violent fools, it's doing nothing positive for out popular or self image. Hopefully this is another positive step in mobilizing the black community for activism and more self-aware music.

Favorite exchange: During the Q & A of the panel, someone asked a question to the tune of how we could convince old white people not to be scared of hip-hop. Answered Amina Norman-Hawkins:

"Who says we want them not to be scared?"

From The Hill:

With their annual Hot Dog Lunch on the Hill looming, the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council is offering up an etiquette guide for munching the popular meats.

At the top of the list: an admonition that hot dogs should be topped with mustard. Nevertheless, a poll conducted for the council by Opinion Dynamics in June reveals that nearly two-thirds of hot-dog consumers under the age of 45 and half of the over-45 age group said they top their frankfurters with ketchup -- "a children's condiment."

According to a release, the council is considering a "wiener commission" to determine if a social warning -- or an etiquette modification -- is in order.

Other points of dog etiquette: Never serve hot dogs on good china or with linen napkins; never take more than five bites to eat one; and do lick the mustard off your thumbnails.

The annual Hot Dog Lunch will take place July 19 from 11:30 to 1:30 in the Rayburn courtyard. Baseball greats Graig Nettles of the New York Yankees, Mike Boddicker of the Baltimore Orioles and Hall of Famer Juan Marichal of the San Francisco Giants will be on hand to sign autographs.

Does Big Hot Dog really need to be weighing in on this? I feel this brings an unnecessary snobbery to the consumption of something as simple as a hot dog. We're Americans; we like to drown things in ketchup, the snobbery of some Chicago hot dog gourmands be damned. And besides, shouldn't the NHD&SC be more concerned about whether people are simply eating thier product, not how they eat it? As for me, I prefer Stadium Mustard.