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Megan McArdle

Megan McArdle - Megan McArdle is a senior editor for The Atlantic who writes about business and economics. She has worked at three start-ups, a consulting firm, an investment bank, a disaster recovery firm at Ground Zero, and The Economist. She is currently on leave.
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Megan was born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and yes, she does enjoy her lattes, as well as the occasional extra-dry skim-milk cappuccino. Her checkered work history includes three start-ups, four years as a technology project manager for a boutique consulting firm, a summer as an associate at an investment bank, and a year spent as sort of an executive copy girl for one of the disaster-recovery firms at Ground Zero � all before the age of 30.

While working at Ground Zero, Megan started Live From the WTC, a blog focused on economics, business, and cooking. She may or may not have been the first major economics blogger, depending on whether we are allowed to throw outlying variables such as Brad Delong out of the set. From there it was but a few steps down the slippery slope to freelance journalism. She has worked in various capacities for The Economist, where she wrote about economics and oversaw the founding of Free Exchange, the magazine's economics blog. She has also maintained her own blog, Asymmetrical Information, which moved to The Atlantic, along with its owner, in August 2007.

Megan holds a bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. After a lifetime as a New Yorker, she now resides in northwest Washington, D.C., where she is still trying to figure out what one does with an apartment larger than 400 square feet.

Dumb Press Releases: Own Goal Edition

By Megan McArdle
Mar 17 2010, 1:26 PM ET Comment

I am in receipt of a press release from Progress Ohio alleging horrifying behavior on the part of Tea Party protesters:

Ohio Tea Partiers Mock, Throw Things at Apparent Parkinson's Victim

On closer examination, however, it emerges that the "things" they are throwing are . . . money



To be sure, the people mocking the counter-protester come across as louts.  But their behavior doesn't exactly seem to be out of bounds by the standards of protest and counterprotesters; I've certainly heard progressives say worse to pro-lifers at abortion clinics (and vice versa).  Which is one of the reasons I think protesting is usually counterproductive.

But I digress.  No matter how frail his condition, could the fellow on the ground possibly have been seriously endangered by having two bills hurled his way? 

I'd certainly be willing to take such harsh treatment from the nice folks at Progress Ohio.


UpdateI should have made clear, and did not, that the reason I found the disconnect between description and actuality was that this press release was headlined "A Bull Connor Moment in Ohio Healthcare Debate" which suggested that the "throwing things" was somehow, oh, I don't know, like what Bull Connor did. Which is to say, physical assault.

The tendency of both sides in this debate to ratchet up the rhetoric until everyone who disagrees with you is a sociopath, and every protest is 1960's Birmingham, is getting ridiculous--and it demeans both actual people who suffered physical violence, and the intelligence of those around you. If you are that confident about your beliefs on this very complicated topic, then you cannot possibly be making a rational and informed decision.

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