If you want to join the ranks of the America’s wealthiest 1%, the New York Times’s Economix blog thinks you might want to change your major. The blog analyzed census data and found that the majors with the best chance of making it into the upper-crust of American society are:

• Pre-med: Of those who major in pre-med programs, 11.8% make it into the 1%. However, just 0.9% of all 1-percenters majored in pre-med.
• Economics: Of those who major in econ, 8.2% reach the 1%. And a relatively large share—5.4%—of 1-percenters are econ majors.
• Biochemistry: Biochemical science majors have a 7.2% chance of getting into the 1%. Just 0.7% of 1-percenters majored in biochem.
• Zoology: Of zoology majors, 6.9% are in the 1%. Of 1-percenters, 0.6% are zoology majors.
• Biology: Biology majors have a 6.7% chance of landing a spot in the 1%. But a whopping 6.6% of 1-percenters majored in bio, the largest share on the list.

So what do you think? Do any of these surprise you? Are you thinking about changing your major? Would you change your major just to change your projected socio-economic status?

Click here for the full list.

It’s hard to say how many people today are fans of Shakespeare.

Maybe because he didn’t write Hamlet in 140 characters. Regardless, there is a new movie out that contends the worlds greatest writer never wrote a single character.

Furthermore, that daring movie is excellently critiqued by James Shapiro over at the New York Times.

“Anonymous” makes a cinematic argument that those impenetrably dense plays you were forced to read in high school were actually the product of  the Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere.

The theory goes like this; Shakespeare was not noble and did not have a noble education, de Vere was and did.

De Vere’s life closely mirrors some of the plays in Shakespeare’s name. Finally, de Vere was the illegitimate child of the (not so) virgin Queen Elizabeth and could not put his name on his work for political reasons.

The problem? None of these theories are substantial. As Shapiro puts it:

Promoters of de Vere’s cause have a lot of evidence to explain away, including testimony of contemporary writers, court records and much else that confirms that Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him. Meanwhile, not a shred of documentary evidence has ever been found that connects de Vere to any of the plays or poems.

So, ok… a movie is just a movie right?

True… except Sony Pictures has been circulating lesson plans to teachers that are based on Anonymous. This speaks to our culture; we live in an age and a place where believability is based on digestibility, truth by 140 characters.

De Vere himself describes this phenomenon perfectly in the movie…

He is quoted in Anonymous saying “all art is political … otherwise it is just decoration.”

He believes in the power of propaganda, which is really what this movie is doing; rewriting history using style instead of facts as an authority.

Mr. Emmerich has made a film for our time, in which claims based on conviction are as valid as those based on hard evidence.

Thanks, Wikicommons

We here at USDemocrazy are taking time to reflect. We would much rather do that then listen to our editors!

This week features a look back at 2009, and today reflection will be political in nature.

Seeing that we are in the season of giving, how about the ten perfect gifts for the politicians in your life?

Fortunately, the Caucus blog has compiled that list, noting everything from a Salahi sari to a Hanukkah song from a U.S. Senator:

Hatch sings about Hanukkah

If you’d rather look at pictures, CBS has compiled a good list of the 20 top political stories in Photos.

For those interested in combining social media with politics, the Politico offers a look back at Twitter updates from those who made political news in 2009.

The year 2009 started off on an optimistic note in American politics, but closed with cynicism. Let us all hope that 2010 goes in the opposite direction!

Though most of us are kooky to begin with, we find humor helps us ward off the effects of over-infomania.

We also find a good story can alleviate the pain as well.

Case in point: David Rohde, a reporter for the New York Times, has published a five part article detailing his recent experience of being a prisoner of the notorious Taliban.

The series is titled “Held by The Taliban.” Mr. Rohde presents an inside look at the workings of Taliban militants. It is as powerful as it is riveting, reading more like a novel than an article.

It is a story worth a read.

Where did they go? you may ask. What did they do? Why should I care? Well let us here at USDemocrazy point you in the right direction.

ABA is back in the business of nominating judges!

What in the world do a bunch of lawyers have to do with nominating judges? That’s the government’s gig right? Well yes, it is the government’s gig. Before you can be a federal judge you have to be nominated by the President and given the OK by the Senate.

But in the past the ABA has been in the rather powerful position of rating prospective judicial candidates. Kind of like ratemyprofessors.com but really official and really important… a practice that has been going on since Eisenhower (i.e. since the last century).

The ABA were sent away for a little while however, as this BLT article talks about. The ABA was kind of given the boot eight years ago, when the Bush administration came to Washington. The Bush people cited this study, saying that the ABA was a little too cozy with liberal candidates.

In response, there is this study (we are giving you a lot of studies to study) which essentially uses a lot of data to say “nuh-uh, do not.” We here at USDemocrazy have no opinion on the subject, we’re just letting you know what went down.

Either way, the Obama administration has brought the ABA back. The NYT’s Adam Liptak writes about the subject here. Conservatives are none too pleased about it, as the ConservativeOutpost clearly demonstrates. But then again, we never really hear about conservatives or liberals jumping for joy at the decisions of their counterparts. Except maybe when listening to ABBA… After all, who doesn’t love “Mamma Mia!”? Don’t answer that.

We here at USDemocrazy want to know what you think! Yeah, there’s politics as usual going on, but whaddya think about any kind of outside organization having such a formal role in a “government” process?

Adam Liptak’s article above also talks about this guy. This is Robert Bork. Besides looking a little scary, he has a lot to say about the subject. He got “Borked” by the ABA.

A few weeks ago, we posted a blog that basically said: if you talk about too much about recession, you could end up with a depression . Well, apparently no one has learned their lesson! 

This article in the New York Times tells us how upset we should be about the loss of our jobs. And this article from the Wall Street Journal is especially nice and perky. It gives us the odds of the United States stumbling into a deep dark depression! 

We at USDemocrazy kinda prefer stories like NPR’s story on “Laid Off Camp”.  This is about unemployed or furloughed people who seek out others in the same bind. One guy said he just wants to meet someone who can go to museums in the middle of the day with him. The Laid Off Camp counselors say that you should embrace unemployment, not stress about it! If you’re going to be out of work… be happy out of work.

In these tough times stories of optimism are great (and hard) to find.  As all of us who have been jobless know… being happy and unemployed is easier said than done!

Most likely, you’ve heard about Twitter, but if you’re anything like us at USDemocrazy circa two weeks ago, you probably still have no idea how it works.

Or maybe you’re one of those annoyingly savvy people who is just lightyears ahead of us mere mortals and can thus pontificate on the greatness of Twitter for hours. (Yawn!)

Either way, you’re likely to find this piece from NPR’s Weekend Edition pretty entertaining.  It features Andy Carvin and Scott Simon trying to explain to 80+  year old colleague Dan Schorr the glories of Twitter.  They are aided in this challenge by Dwight from “The Office,” also known as actor Rainn Wilson. 

Anyone who is anyone is Tweeting these days.

If you aren’t Tweeting, don’t worry — these “Tweets” aren’t what you think. They are just a nickname for your personal mini status updates.  These updates are put up on the Web for your “followers” to read. So… Tweeting does not involve chirping, whortles, whistles, wings, feathers. No birds are harmed in the creation of any and all Tweets (so far as we know).

If reading the newspaper in the morning for your daily dose of news isn’t enough for you (and these days, there is ALOT of news!), then go to Twitter.  There you can follow constant updates on whatever is going on out in the big, bad world. All this talk of “following” and “followers” may connote some kind of cult, but really, it’s safe to drink the Twitter Kool-Aid. It’s all just a part of the Twit-cabulary. 

Once you dive into the Twitter world an unrelenting stream of Tweets may start to show up on your homepage telling you what your favorite celebrities are doing, what the New York Times is currently reporting, or (gasp!) what people you actually know are up to.  All this can actually be rewarding.  Twitter brings to you the wealth of the internet (should you choose to accept it) without making you go search it on your own. Good Luck!

Come on, if we at USDemocrazy can Tweet with the best of ‘em, it really can’t be that hard.

They say never to talk about politics or religion, that you’ll just lose friends… but we here at USDemocrazy are going after both! In a recent Supreme Court ruling, Pleasant Grove City v. Summum (07-665), Justice Alito writes about the TEN COMMANDMENTS!  (Commandment number 11: Thou shalt be very careful when dealing with the Ten Commandments.)

He handed down an opinion that discusses free speech, a monument in Pleasant Grove City, Utah and those commanding Commandments. Head over to the NY Times to get the general gist of the case.

“Hold on!” you might say. Doesn’t that conflict with some kind of church and state and free speech and Charleton Heston kind of thing? Well SCOTUS blog breaks down the thought process pretty nicely:

“Government policy on placement of permanent markets [they're refering to a monument here] in a public park is, constitutionally speaking, a form of government speech [The monument isn't actually speaking... he's talking about what is being written on the monument] so there is no Free Speech Clause issue when a Ten Commandments monument [oh, THAT'S what is written on the monument] is accepted but a monument to a different religion is excluded. ” (Okay that is alot to chew on there… still pretty important stuff.)

Check out all of SCOTUS blog’s discussion on the case and the tight rope act of walking the Free Speech Clause and the Establishment Clause here! But more importantly, Justice Alito references John Lennon in the court opinion! The BLT has the scoop on that here!

Let’s talk for a minute about the recession… NO, LET’S NOT! That’s because all this talk of the economics could be damaging to your health!!! (Financial health, that is…)

The crack team at USDemocrazy has noticed that any time an Obama adminstration official starts to talk economics… the stock market screams, runs and hides!

Now the brainiacs at the New York Times have started to wonder if all this talk of America launching into a depression is going to, well, launch America into a depression. Same with the folks at New York Magazine who have dubbed the US economy’s weakened state “The Greatest Depression.” Newsweek is fielding questions on whether or not we are in a depression, and Google yields 68.5 million hits when you type in “Are we in a depression?”

There’s an old saying that goes, the economy is in recession when your neighbor loses his job, but there’s a depression on when you lose your job. Well, maybe if we all hush up about this lousy depression, maybe the economy will just stay in a lousy recession instead.

Okay… maybe this isn’t a good strategy. We at USDemocrazy think it is important to discuss issues like recessions and depressions… (But please don’t blame us if the market starts to fall!)

Photo courtesy New York Magazine