Underpaid Genius

"Again and again, I find myself trying to really look at what I’m seeing. It happened the other..."

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:42:02 -0400

“

Again and again, I find myself trying to really look at what I’m seeing. It happened the other afternoon, high on a nearby mountain. A dragonfly had settled on the denuded tip of a pine bough. It clung, still as only a dragonfly can be. Then it flicked upward and caught a midge and settled on the bough again, adjusting precisely into the wind. I see the dragonflies quivering through the insect clouds above my pasture, too. I always notice that there’s no such thing as really looking.

What I want to be seeing is invisible anyway: the prehistoric depth of time embodied in the form of those dragonflies, the pressure of life itself, the web of relations that bind us all together. I find myself trying to witness the moment when the accident of life becomes a continued purpose. But this is a small farm, and, being human, I keep coming up against the limits of what a human can see.

”

- Really Looking - Verlyn Klinkenborg

How to End the Great Recession -Robert Reich

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:35:00 -0400

How to End the Great Recession -Robert Reich:

In the late 1970s, the richest 1 percent of American families took in about 9 percent of the nation’s total income; by 2007, the top 1 percent took in 23.5 percent of total income. It’s no coincidence that the last time income was this concentrated was in 1928.

Reich is not saying that this relationship is causal, but that any recovery must be based on a more widely-shared prosperity.

The rich are better off with a smaller percentage of a fast-growing economy than a larger share of an economy that’s barely moving. That’s the Labor Day lesson we learned decades ago; until we remember it again, we’ll be stuck in the Great Recession.

The Real Story - Paul Krugman

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:08:00 -0400

The Real Story - Paul Krugman:

The actual lessons of 2009-2010, then, are that scare stories about stimulus are wrong, and that stimulus works when it is applied. But it wasn’t applied on a sufficient scale. And we need another round.

But it won’t happen. President Obama is incapable of a sustained fight against the GOP and his own conservatives, and it’s unclear where his heart is on this matter anyway.

Obama is facing exactly what any moderate faces today: the enmity of the hysterically Tea Partyish GOP and the anger of the disaffected liberals at the far left of the Democratic party.

Oh, I wish we could have a multiparty system, where at least there would be a hope of coalition politics instead of a two-party Mexican standoff.

Mideast Experts Fear Peace Talks Are Too Ambitious - Isabel Kershner

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:24:00 -0400

Mideast Experts Fear Peace Talks Are Too Ambitious - Isabel Kershner:

via Isabel Kershner

To make the idea of an interim deal more palatable to the Palestinians, its proponents emphasize that it must be part of continuing negotiations for a final status accord.

Ehud Yaari, a Lafer fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a commentator for Channel 2 news in Israel, argues that Israel should allow the Palestinians to establish a state as quickly as possible, without waiting for a full peace deal.

Mr. Yaari proposes a Palestinian state within provisional borders on about 80 to 90 percent of the West Bank, requiring the removal of at least 50,000 Israeli settlers. He also suggests interim arrangements for some of the other issues, like an administrative role for the Palestinians in East Jerusalem without necessarily resolving the issue of sovereignty, and an early compensation and resettlement package for refugees already living in the territories conquered by Israel in the 1967 war.

Any interim deal should be accompanied by a new document of principles that lays out the broad outlines of a final agreement, Mr. Yaari said, without resolving every issue in detail.

“You have to look at it as a choice between protracted negotiations that may produce a deadlock — and God forbid a bloody one,” Mr. Yaari said, “or an interim approach that would bring about a dramatic change in the lay of the land.”

Yaari seems like the advocate of a reasonable middle ground. But it is really unclear whether Israel’s current government will displace the settlers in exchange for peace. And the Palestinians seem fairly intransigent, too, expecting the whole loaf and not 80%.

It’s not clear to me that the current government wants peace, a peace that includes freedom and self-determination for the Palestinians. They seem content with a prison lockdown on Gaza and an uneasy stalemate in the West Bank.

World Briefing - Africa - Mozambique - At Least 4 Are Dead in Protests of High Food Prices - NYTimes.com

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:05:20 -0400

World Briefing - Africa - Mozambique - At Least 4 Are Dead in Protests of High Food Prices - NYTimes.com:

Mozambicans have seen the price of a loaf of bread rise by 25 percent in the past year. Fuel and water costs have also risen.

Steinbeck said that no mob is more than three meals away from a revolution.

Chilled Corn Soup with Adobo Swirl

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:35:00 -0400

Photograph by Scott Peterson

Ingredients

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 cup chopped sweet onion (such as Vidalia or Maui)
3 cups fresh corn kernels (cut from about 3 ears of corn)
2 cups low-salt chicken broth
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice, divided
1 cup (or more) water

1 teaspoon adobo sauce from canned chipotle chiles
Fresh cilantro leaves

Preparation

Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion and sauté until soft, about 4 minutes. Add corn kernels, broth, and 1 tablespoon lime juice; bring mixture to boil. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until corn is just tender, about 3 minutes. Working in batches, puree soup in blender until almost smooth. Stir in remaining 1 tablespoon lime juice and 1 cup water (or more as needed to thin soup to desired consistency). Season corn soup to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer soup to large bowl; cover and refrigerate until chilled, about 2 hours or overnight.

Meanwhile, whisk remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil and adobo sauce in small bowl to blend. Divide chilled corn soup among 4 bowls. Drizzle soup with adobo oil, then garnish with cilantro and serve.

via bonappetit.com

"I feel sad for people and the queer part we play in our own disasters."

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:40:53 -0400

“I feel sad for people and the queer part we play in our own disasters.”

- Don DeLillo, White Noise

via I am at ease with myself

laughingsquid: Drinking at the Movies by Julia Wertz

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:08:12 -0400

laughingsquid:

Drinking at the Movies by Julia Wertz

jstn: Forecasted track for Earl.

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:04:05 -0400

jstn:

Forecasted track for Earl.

"The State Senate rejected a bill seeking to ban plastic shopping bags after a contentious debate..."

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:01:17 -0400

“The State Senate rejected a bill seeking to ban plastic shopping bags after a contentious debate over whether the state was going too far in trying to regulate personal choice. The bill, which failed late Tuesday, would have been the first statewide ban, although a few California cities already prohibit their use. Republicans and some Democrats opposed it, saying it would add an extra burden on consumers and businesses at a time when many are struggling financially. The bill’s main opponent, the American Chemistry Council, based in Virginia, spent millions in lobbying fees and on advertising attacking the measure.”

- National Briefings - West - California - Backers of Plastic Bags Prevail - NYTimes.com

Oh, great. Millions spent to allow politicos to convince people that times are too hard — cash is too tight — to ban plastic bags.

Early Morning TV?

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 08:54:15 -0400

Brian Stelter, Early Morning TV News Shows Are on the rise

In the past 15 years, the number of households that have a TV set on at 4:30 has doubled, to 16 percent this year from 8 percent in 1995. At 11:30 p.m., by comparison, when most local newscasts end, 44 percent of televisions are on, up 10 percent from the levels 15 years ago.

This ad for Snorg tees appears on the NY Times, but if you click...

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 08:42:00 -0400

This ad for Snorg tees appears on the NY Times, but if you click on the ad of this girl with the thunderous breasts, it takes you to the Snorg website, but shows some skinny hipster guy wearing the tee. It’s just a come-on in the ad.

Harold Budd, The White Arcades

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 08:35:44 -0400

Harold Budd, The White Arcades

"As we heard Mr. Obama speak from his desk with his usual calm clarity and eloquence, it made us wish..."

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 08:00:00 -0400

“As we heard Mr. Obama speak from his desk with his usual calm clarity and eloquence, it made us wish we heard more from him on many issues. We are puzzled about why he talks to Americans directly so rarely and with seeming reluctance. This was only his second Oval Office address in more than 19 months of crisis upon crisis. The country particularly needs to hear more from Mr. Obama about what he rightly called the most urgent task — “to restore our economy and put the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs back to work.””

- via Editorial - The War in Iraq - NYTimes.com

What I want is to see the President go apeshit, and start screaming bloody murder. He has no fire about things that are seriously fucked up, like the GOP’s views on the economy: he should make the case for their irrationality, when they want to reduce the deficit but at the same time make the tax cuts for the wealthiest permanent which will cost us trillions.

He also failed to mention that we went into the war in Iraq — invaded — because of outright propaganda created and spread by Bush and his goons.

Let Me See Your Papers, Please

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 06:25:00 -0400

The NY Times rightly suggests that the Border Patrol is getting a bit aggressive in their work away from the border:

Editorial - On the Lake Shore Limited - NYTimes.com

We are well aware of the federal crackdown on illegal immigration, sparked by the clamor for fencing and troops at the border. But we do not recall any discussion of imposing internal immigration checks on public transportation, with agents with dogs and guns randomly hauling people off trains.

The Border Patrol’s mission includes interrogating people as they enter and leave the country, and it is authorized to operate within 100 miles of the border. But as its budget and manpower have soared since 9/11, it is looking like an agency distorted by mission creep, especially on the relatively quiet northern border. In the Rochester area, in western New York, border agents removed 2,788 passengers from trains from October 2005 to September 2009.

[…]

There is probably a reason the Border Patrol is waging its little-noted campaign on Amtrak and buses way out in rural and western New York and not, say, on the D subway to Coney Island, which happens to be near Kennedy International Airport. Border checks on New York City trains would prompt a much louder clamor about misplaced priorities and racial profiling, and harsher questions about whether the crackdown has anything to do with making the country safer.

Administration officials, including the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, have recently said their top priority is catching convicted criminals, gang members and other dangerous immigrants. We welcome the call for restraint and discretion in using limited resources. Someone should tell the Border Patrol.

But we are headed for an increasingly policed state, where we will be forced to prove our identity, the purpose of our travel, and to be subjected to search whenever the ‘authorities’ — any clown with a badge — brace us; especially at 2am on a darkened train in the middle of nowhere.

It will take only one ‘terrorist’ incident on a train or a bus, and we’ll be passing through metal detectors before getting into the subway. You wait and see.

"For its part, Israel should make no mistake: settlements and peace are incompatible, as they deepen..."

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 05:46:00 -0400

“

For its part, Israel should make no mistake: settlements and peace are incompatible, as they deepen the occupation that Palestinians seek to end. A complete halt to Israel’s settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is critical if the negotiations are to succeed, starting with an extension of Israel’s moratorium on settlement-building, which expires this month.

For both sides trust can be built only on tangible security. Security, however, cannot be a justification for Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian land, as it undermines the cardinal principle of land for peace. I recognize that Israel has legitimate security needs, needs that can be reconciled with the Palestinians’ just demand for a complete withdrawal from occupied territory. Egypt believes that the presence of an international force in the West Bank, to be stationed for a period to be agreed upon by the parties, could give both sides the confidence and security they seek.

”

- Hosni Mubarek

via NYTimes.com

Untitled (Last Letter),” 1991Felix Gonzalez-Torres C-print...

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 05:26:26 -0400

Untitled (Last Letter),” 1991
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
C-print jigsaw puzzle in plastic bag, 7.5” x 9.5”
Courtesy of the estate of Felix Gonzalez-Torres

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 04:56:07 -0400

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

- Martin Luther King, Jr

"The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally on the welfare of all of us."

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 04:53:34 -0400

“The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally on the welfare of all of us.”

- Theodore Roosevelt

Amazon Grabs the TV Remote - WSJ.com

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:32:01 -0400

Amazon Grabs the TV Remote - WSJ.com:

Amazon.com Inc. is working on a new subscription service that would deliver TV shows and movies over the Internet, ramping up the battle among Web companies to control entertainment in the living room.

The Internet retailer has in recent weeks pitched a Web-based subscription service to several major media companies, including General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal, Time Warner Inc., News Corp. and Viacom Inc., among others, according to people with knowledge of the proposal.

Amazon’s subscription push is a challenge to rivals such as Netflix Inc. and Google Inc. as they race to dominate digital delivery of TV shows and films, encroaching on turf traditionally controlled by cable- and satellite-television providers.

Apple Inc. is also pushing more deeply into TV, and plans to announce 99-cent rentals of television shows through its iTunes store from News Corp.’s Fox and Walt Disney Co.’s ABC as early as Wednesday, according to people familiar with the matter.

The battle for the living room is heating up!