China is canceling America’s credit card
According to Raw Story:
China, wary of the troubled US economy, has already "canceled America's credit card" by cutting down purchases of debt, a US congressman said Thursday.
The American war against telephone poles
In a short article entitled, “The War on Telephone Poles,” the February 2009 edition of Harper's Magazine includes a fascinating excerpt from an essay by Eula Biss, which was originally titled "Time and Distance Overcome” as it appeared in the Spring issue of Iowa Review. Biss's article is a terrific example of the human tendency to resist long-range change that would substantially improve the community as a whole. As she clearly documents in her essay, many people ferociously opposed the erection of telephone poles back in the 1880’s. Whatever their stated reasons (aesthetics and defense of private property were often argued), the real reasons for resisting telephone poles were timeless: fear of change combined with a warped sense of the importance the individual in relation to his or her community. The Biss essay reminds us that Americans have long been quite capable of harpooning critical community-building endeavors in the name of individual freedom. We don’t fight telephone poles anymore, but this destructive tendency is one we still see in modern day America. Only a small bit of Biss's essay is available online. The basic idea presented by her essay is that in the 1880s, numerous people (including elected officials and newspapers) ferociously opposed the erection of telephone poles. They argued that telephone poles were ugly. They characterized telephones to be considered playthings of the rich.
Hypocrisy, anyone? The MSM and politicians do more than their share this week.
Arianna Huffington recently wrote a post that summarizes enough hypocrisy to throw the happiest concerned citizen into a long-term funk. The deep theme that all of these recent events have in common is that prominent American sources of information are demonstrably untrustworthy. How else can you explain the Administration's military…
A widespread American epidemic: intellectual brain freeze
I don’t think anyone has yet invented a specific word for this phenomenon, but too many Americans are suffering from an intense craving for simple one-step answers to life’s most important questions. Though people have always taken explanatory leaps, the mainstream media seems to tolerate them like never before. In the political realm, for example, the media should be ridiculing simpleton answers, but often doesn’t As case in point is Bush’s preposterous claim that “It’s better to fight them there than here.” As though doing the former protects us from the latter. Perhaps encouraged by the simple-mindedness of President Bush, the news media has taken a hands-off approach incredible amounts of simplistic nonsense.
Many simplistic explanations, but not all, are religious claims. Before you crank out those e-mails arguing that I’m painting with too broad a brush, I will readily admit that many people who sincerely follow religions are incredibly deep and skeptical thinkers (though they have a hands-off approach to skeptically examining their own religious beliefs). Therefore, I am not arguing that all of those people who consider themselves religious are shallow-minded ignoramuses. Nor am I claiming that those who are nonbelievers are necessarily disciplined and knowledgeable skeptical thinkers. There are plenty of simplistic folks of all stripes running around.
In my own mind, I conceive of our over-willingness to accept simplistic views as a “treasure hunt” mentality. All too many people seek ready-made explanations, where finding an minimally acceptable “answer” gives them a license shut down their sense …
Obesity Cartoons – Fatties Beware
I don't know how I started receiving Cagle's emailing list, but it's a list I've truly enjoyed. Cagle's presents the work of a large number of cartoonists, topic by topic. Today's cartoon topic is obesity in America, and the cartoonists are merciless.