…isn’t that a black Harvard professor was arrested by police.

The real story–one that you won’t see on Anderson Cooper 360–is that Harvard is going broke. (Thanks Farai for dropping it on me.) Quick college finance 101–colleges and universities like Harvard are run off of the interest from their endowment. Harvard’s endowment was once the largest in the Academy–some $35+ BILLION. Equipment, offices, buildings, faculty salaries, all come from the interest.

Why is this important? 

Take this in tandem with the crisis that California, with the fact that state revenues from taxes are dropping like stones, and unemployment benefits are drying up

Folks are touting higher education as the way out. But what happens if institutions of higher education are themselves bankrupt? 

I swear, Anderson Cooper 360 should be Anderson Cooper 60. What would be fascinating would be taking this story about Gates, and attaching it to the story about the budget. These stories–how the Philly kids were treated, how Gates was treated, Sotomayor, are all politicized personal interest stories. I suggest that these stories ARE important, but only really important when attached to the types of stories that enable us to deal with the enormity of the economic crisis we currently face.

In as much as I wrote some 2000 words about the Gates issue without dealing with the economy, I’m to blame as well.