On Reality TV and Being Broke

I don’t make the money I used to. Yea I uh, I’ll just leave it at that. But what it’s meant for my media consumption is more reality TV and less fiction (or more TLC and less AMC). Especially fiction centering on people roughly my “peers”; the 30-something, big city, single-ish. Seeing them at bars, concerts, […]

“Beyond Clueless”

That’s the title of a new-ish documentary, narrated by Fairuza Balk of Return to Oz and The Craft fame, about the high school experience as depicted in film. Funny thing is, there are no movies from the last ten years featured. In watching it yesterday, the most recent film I saw discussed was 2004’s Mean […]

Moan-biot

Via economist Chris Dillow I discover this Guardian piece by George Monbiot claiming that, There is an inverse relationship between utility and reward. The most lucrative, prestigious jobs tend to cause the greatest harm. The most useful workers tend to be paid least and treated worst. He then gives the example of a home care […]

The Paranoid Style in Oakland Politics

What, You’ve Never Heard of Sophisti-Pop Either?

The 80s hit “Breakout” by Swing Out Sister is an example of the genre. Enjoy: https://dailymotion.com/video/xlplh

In an Alternate Universe Progressives are…

…singing the praises of a diverse Silicon Valley. After all, Asian-Americans are greatly overrepresented there, which is a huge win for diversity when you consider that Asians – stretching from India to Korea – represent roughly half the world’s population. But as occurred to me while watching a Bloomberg TV segment in which Asian-Americans in […]

Chris Rock on Israel

This tweet from Chris Rock shows that the “dual loyalty” crowd doesn’t just encompass gold bugs and fans of Alex Jones. It’ll be interesting to see if and when the somewhat esoteric issue of US support for Israel becomes a big deal for the typical American (or what Mencken derisively referred to as the “booboisie”), for […]

Flip This House! Or, the Housing Situation Has Flipped.

Taking a gander at a new report from demographers at the University of Virginia, we see that city centers are becoming younger, wealthier, and more educated. And it’s not just happening in “cool” cities like San Francisco. The same effect is at work in Charlotte, North Carolina. And while general population growth is still mostly […]

Don’t Make Him Hungry. You Wouldn’t Like Him When He’s Hungry.

Is this guy not the most unexpected trasher of a McDonald’s you’ve ever seen? Check out his calmly erudite account of what happened, complete with gestures so delicate you’re reminded of calligraphy. It’s like The Crying Game meets Falling Down. Things are different in Australia.

On 1994’s PCU, Now vs. Then

How well has 90s campus culture flick PCU held up since 1994? Pretty well, all-in-all. Though I’m not on campus currently, the media zeitgeist driven mostly by journalism/English majors tells me that what was of concern then is of concern now. Mostly race and sex issues. OTOH environmentalists featured prominently in this film, and they seemed […]