Sunday, March 29, 2009

Krugman Crashes the Party

A background piece on Paul Krugman, NYT columnist and stalwart voice of loyal dissent on matters economic and otherwise.  And here I thought he'd been taking some of those days off from the column in order to work things with the Obama administration. 
 
Krugman was one of the lifelines of mainstream media truth during the Bush years.  His writing can be terse--he has no flair for the rounded metaphor or the saucy wit of David Brooks, his conservative competition at NYT.  But he does have guts. 

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Help, Terrorists, oops, I mean-- gasp!-- Europe!

Oh the great conservative fear of Europe.  It's like their gay or have cooties, and the conservative cool dudes actually lend serious credence to the idea that we'll catch it from them via Obama and the great liberal revival.
 
You have to love the moralistic rhetoric though.  And this does dovetail with the critiques of Great Britain's socialism and its effects on the working class by another anti-bleeding heart screedist, Theodore Dalrymple.  What I find funny however, is that if a government program threatens to weaken one of the 'institutions' of society--family, community, faith, vocation--this then is an unintended consequence and cause for alarm.  Yet these same institutions are daily massacred (and sometimes reconstituted) by the onslaught of technology.  No one dares question that. 
 
Like most high minded moralizing, it seems the essence of the message is resentment at redistribution:  we don't like that the poor people are getting some of our money.  It's dressed up here to make it seem like the government is somehow stealing the lower classes right to self-esteem.  "Jones, if you could only buck up and learn to love that mop and bucket and pay to put your kid through kindergarten, well then you might find a purpose in life and not hit your wife so hard."
 
Why doesn't government count as a potential form of community?  Yes, none of us loves the government.  But if it truly can be of, by, and for the people--well, aren't we the people? 
 
And so the old chestnut of American exceptionalism is dusted off.  Don't try to change our uniquesness.  What is that uniqueness:  to happily suffer a neo-gilded age slaughter, all the while patting ourselves on the back because this is a fervent expression of our singular national identity.  No, it's just the same old greed, new face, new nation. 
 
Perhaps though, to be helpful when sorting out such potential redistributionist schemes that the mauve Obama-ites will pander to the hearty red-blooded electorate, we should propose a new axiom:  not just might makes right, but only might gives rights? 
 
 
 

Global Essay Mills (and then some)

An in depth expose on essay mills.  My two cents:  bring back oral exams.  Make it understood that students will be thoroughly quizzed on all portions of their paper.
 
Two:  this is more evidence that in our meritocratic educational imperative, we are engaging in mass self-deception akin to when Mao's agricultural 'reforms' caused mass famine in China.  Everyone is saying, yes, I'm educated, yes I have a degree (yes, s/he's educated, yes, s/he has a degree).  But it's all only so much fakery.  The degree is merely a receipt.  Give out less degrees, make them mean more.  Quit the systematic disruption of the economy (which parades under the name of progress) which exports lower skilled jobs and forces everyone to become part of the global farce.  In a word, shove a stick into the treadmill of education and unstrap the progress harness. 

Monday, March 16, 2009

Millenial Clits Unite!

Two articles with their fingers to the vulva, I mean, pulse of contemporary female sexual explorations... From swingin London and trippy Frisco.  
 



Friday, March 13, 2009

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Early Morning Hangover Moment of Clarity

It's great to see Friedman finally waking up.  If only he would've had the balls and foresight to put this message in his fist-pumping globalization bestsellers, maybe we all would've been a bit closer to reality.  But he's like the friend who buys you shots when you're way past the limit, then commiserates vociferously the next morning when your headache is ringing.
 
 

Monday, March 09, 2009

Isn't It Rich?

It's great to see a conservative start to moralize and worry about Americans' diets-- and the economic machinations behind them and ramifications of them.  Sort of contradicts that naive libertarian, "Jeez, that's an issue of personal choice, isn't it?  I'm free to fatten myself and die however I see fit?"  Or unfit.  Let's just say, in not merely a caloric sense--the irony is rich. 
 
That said:  here, here, I concur:  the heartland corn hegemony has got to stop.

Possibilities... Left

It's refreshing to hear such broad candor on the current crisis. 

Monday, March 02, 2009