Brad Delong probes Paul Krugman’s piece on the technocratic myth comes up with his own list of what’s driving economic inequality:
The rise of a very powerful, successful, exploitative upper class.
Further increases in inequality as the tax and transfer system becomes less progressive.
Increases in risk that threaten to move middle-class families sharply downward in […]
A couple of larger media stories:
Sure, the Herald’s newscaster photo stunt is a little gimmicky, but it’s also a clever way at illustrating a serious issue that in another presentation (say, chock full of Nielsen research numbers) would make readers’ eyes gloss over. Of course, there are three reasons young people don’t watch the network, […]
It’s been a while since I’ve featured some new (to me) blogs. So I thought I’d make up for the quiet spell by pointing out some of the other gay bloggers around town. Does it matter if a writer is gay? Not to be essentialist about these things, but I do tend to think it […]
(Headline stolen from Greater Boston’s John Carroll.)
It sounds like the Boston Redevelopment Authority is going ahead with its Walk of Fame idea. Can we possibly convince the Powers that Be that this is simply a ridiculous idea, a pathetic copycat move that will bring next to no net tourists into this town? I see Councilor […]
Bay Windows asks "Can the Mass. GOP without the gays?".
Interesting analysis. I know it’s self-serving for Bay Windows (and me) to think the gay vote’s important, but they’re probably right. Not because the Log Cabin vote is so huge, but because it represents larger choices of coalitions of voter blocs.
What he said.
In our bookclub discussion of photography last night, the question came up of why for a reproducible art form, photographs still command high prices for canonical or critical-favorite works. Why do we pay $408,000 for an "original" Arbus? One explanation was that it was a conspiracy among galleries to trick people into paying a lot […]
This evening is Susan Sontag book club meeting, 6PM at Toscanini’s Central Square Cambridge.
Everyone’s wanting to make the Larry Summers resignation to be simply another battle in the culture wars, and Alan Derschowitz is fanning the flames of that interpretation. HubBlog agrees that "the core opposition was comprised of 100 percent pure-octane lefties living in their own self-dramatized world."
I guess it’s one big Rorschach test, because humanities scholars […]
sco at .08 Acres gives another thorough and thoughtful analysis of Massachusetts voters, partly in response to my questions/critiques from before. I’m starting to feel we’re reenacting some distant version of the Thomas Frank-Larry Bartels debate, a humanities-social science split in perspective and assumptions. As the humanist trying to make sense of the polity, and […]
A lot of folks have careful, reasoned attacks on David Horowitz’s list of "most dangerous professors", not least dangerous profs Todd Gitlin and Michael Berube. I’ll add that if a conservative interested in the way mass media shapes debate can’t read a smart book like Gitlin’s Whole World is Watching or Habermas’s Structural Transformation of […]
According to the TV ratings, I must be one of the few people actually watching the Olympics. But watching them I have been - a good deal of the network coverage, in fact. A couple of disjointed thoughts:
Credit goes to NBC for apparently listening to critics from Olympics past and focusing more on the […]
The developments in local politics are coming too fast and furious for me to keep up with, especially given my overloaded schedule this week. Snackgate was the most fun and most surreal, of course. But the news of substance has been word that a draft-Chris Gabrielli movement may be underway to try to siphon off […]
February always seems so short, and no shorter than with our bookclub schedule. Next Wednesday evening (6PM, Central Sq. Toscanini’s), we’ll be discussing Susan Sontag’s On Photography. I’m halfway through right now and can report that it’s a quick, enjoyable read. I will say it is odd to read a book on photography that’s completely […]
My sister passes along the sad news that Edna Lewis, refiner and promoter of Souther cuisine, has passed away. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution obit (reg. req.):
The granddaughter of a Virginia slave, Edna Lewis created a gastronomic temple out of a tiny New York cafe and served such 20th-century luminaries as Truman Capote, Greta Garbo and […]