I’m in that delightful phase of the writing process, where the first draft is done and is awaiting a red pen from the editor. The heavy lifting is finished, and I can still pretend that every word is brilliant and every point clear. In this window of optimism and light, let me throw out some links to things I find interesting.
What was Bill thinking going into an interview completely unprepared for the MeToo question?
David Leonardt writes that colleges give discounts to the middle class, so you shouldn’t be afraid of the sticker price. Yeah. Lots of people have written that before. Steve and I got stuck on this chart where Leonardt defines who is low, middle, and affluent class. 
Those columns don’t work for this area of the country. Let’s take a hypothetical family of two school teachers and two kids. By most standards in this country, a two school teacher family is a middle class family. Here, the mean salary for teachers is about $95,000. With a extra money coming in from tutoring rich kids at $100 per hour, that family easily makes $200K. But they spend all that money on their homes (average home costs is about $600K) and local taxes, so they don’t have any cash or savings.
That two school teacher family cannot afford any of the college on Leonardt’s list.
Apt. 11d 