John MacFarlane on stuff, things
An incomplete index of what John is doing right now and a little bit before right now. And possibly a little bit before that.
"Last Friday, a huge crowd of fans marched in a ticker-tape parade in downtown Manhattan to celebrate the Yankees’ World Series championship. More than once, as the fans passed through the financial district, the crowd erupted in rhythmic, echoing chants of “Wall Street sucks! Wall Street sucks!"
Why do I read comments? In the interactive era everyone feels the need to get indignant.
Airbus expects their megajumbos will become the norm between Sydney and Melbourne; the lack of leadership on creating any kind of rail infrastructure backs up this vision.
"The defeat of Gov. Jon Corzine made it clear that the young and minority voters who turned out for Obama will not necessarily show up at the polls in order to re-elect an uncharismatic former Wall Street big shot who failed to deliver on his most important campaign promises while serving as the public face of a state party that specializes in getting indicted."
I love Gail Collins
"Wait: Virginia elected a conservative? And a moderate in New Jersey was able to unseat an unpopular incumbent? And a gay marriage thing that’s never happened before also didn’t happen last night? Well, it’s a good thing you have me—Mr. or Ms. Political Analyst!—around to detail all the many troubling implications these developments carry for the guy on the national stage who received 69 million votes last year! What’s fascinating, though, is that fourth graph: because there actually was an election last night where our national political opiates got mainline-slammed into the bloodstream of local politics, with all the can’t-help-yourself sloppiness and unintended consequences that metaphor implies. And by any stretch, it’s hard to see how that turned out well for the GOP."
"The more rightists who win G.O.P. primaries, the greater the Democrats’ prospects next year. But the electoral math is less interesting than the pathology of this movement. Its antecedent can be found in the early 1960s, when radical-right hysteria carried some of the same traits we’re seeing now: seething rage, fear of minorities, maniacal contempt for government, and a Freudian tendency to mimic the excesses of political foes."
All this bookmarking, wishlisting, and filing away: I’ve read about this before, but I’ve never been so aware of the outsourcing of memory.
Tuesday 10/20/2009
