“The facts of the crisis over the debt ceiling aren’t complicated. Republicans have, in effect, taken America hostage, threatening to undermine the economy and disrupt the essential business of government unless they get policy concessions they would never have been able to enact through legislation. And Democrats — who would have been justified in rejecting this extortion altogether — have, in fact, gone a long way toward meeting those Republican demands.”

With a chart that shows what actually happened. “In future decades, when rising health costs with an aging population hit the budget in full force, deficits are projected to be far deeper than they are now. Effective health care reform, and a willingness to pay more taxes, will be the biggest factors in controlling those deficits.”

“And if you want to talk about pop music between 1980 and now, that issue—the question of who’s singing and who’s being sung to—is an important one. The study assumes that hit singles in the eighties and hit singles in the new millennium play the same role in our culture. But over the past 30 years, the weekly charts have seen changes a lot more significant than any surge of ego. It’s not just that pop’s audience has changed; it’s that its whole purpose has.”

“Eventually, the country will have to confront the deficit we have, rather than the deficit we imagine. The one we imagine is a deficit caused by waste, fraud, abuse, foreign aid, oil industry subsidies and vague out-of-control spending. The one we have is caused by the world’s highest health costs (by far), the world’s largest military (by far), a Social Security program built when most people died by 70 — and to pay for it all, the lowest tax rates in decades. “To put it in budgetary terms, the deficit we imagine comes largely from discretionary spending. The one we have comes partly from discretionary spending but mostly from everything else: tax rates, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.”

“Let’s Transform Governments With Tech and Innovation (and Save Millions of Dollars, Too)” “Government entities at all levels face substantial and similar IT challenges, but today, each must take them on independently. Why can’t they share their technology, eliminating redundancy, fostering innovation, and cutting costs? We think they can.”

“Students are hitting the books less and partying more. Easier courses and easier majors have become more and more popular. Perhaps more now than ever, the point of the college experience is to have a good time and walk away with a valuable credential after putting in the least effort possible.” “Many of these young men and women are unable to communicate effectively, solve simple intellectual tasks (such as distinguishing fact from opinion), or engage in effective problem-solving.”

“Technology is not an abstract entity. Technology, like art or literature or music or mathematics, is a human endeavor. It is made by people and, as such, is imbued with their values, hopes, foibles, and passions.”

“A writer’s search for journalism in the age of branding.” In which Maureen Tkacik engages in a number of jobs she wouldn’t otherwise take to explore them journalistically and try to get at the heart of the ‘nothing economy’. This is a great piece, and I think the reactions (in the comments and in my knee, occasionally) questioning her ‘legitimacy’ and hypocrisy illuminate the very problem she’s talking about. I think the idea of injecting a journalist experience into a piece are wonderful, because so-called straight journalism is often a myth and because it can make the writing and reading better.

Nitsuh explores the Black Eyed Peas iPad app, and why so much party pop music — which is so often aspirational — has been sounding “rote and blanched of purpose”.

An empathetic profile.

It’s not terribly shocking that a reality show about an ignorant millionaire trying to fix a school’s lunch program with his own special menu was a costly, exploitative, and ruinous failure, but the disastrous state of school lunch programs nationwide *is* shocking.

“Apparently people in their 20s are a bunch of entitled whiners. I also hear we’re afraid of hard work. I’m rather sick of hearing it. Of course we have a sense of entitlement—we had an understanding with the older generation. We followed through with our half of the deal. What happened? Let’s talk a bit about generational justice.” As a commenter puts it: “I’m a tired of hearing a generation that got everything handed to them (I’m looking at you baby-boomers) bungle everything up so badly and then badmouth the generation that has to clean up their mess (e.g. the national debt, the planet, the educational system, and so on).” See also my notes on that NYTimes article: http://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:a83c50952510

Is Forever 21’s Chang family capitalist geniuses or just exploitative and plagiaristic?

Why tipping needs to die.

“It is facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madman’s act directly to Republicans or Tea Party members. But it is legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible for the gale of anger that has produced the vast majority of these threats, setting the nation on edge. Many on the right have exploited the arguments of division, reaping political power by demonizing immigrants, or welfare recipients, or bureaucrats. They seem to have persuaded many Americans that the government is not just misguided, but the enemy of the people.”

‘Get ready for these great upcoming new shows on your favorite cable TV channels in 2011!’ ‘Face Punch Beach House’

I asked a question, and it got answered.

Dustin Glick with a visual explanation: a hipster is just someone who dresses more obnoxiously than you.

I may never get around to listening to this, but the idea is fantastic. "An article in the May 2010 issue of the magazine The Atlantic critiqued the current generation of young music fans for rampant copyright violation. In a small irony, the illustration used to decorate the article interpolated a detail of a preexisting work that appears to not yet be in the public domain. This notice isn’t intended as a criticism of the illustrator — quite the contrary; the illustration is excellent — but instead of the theoretical foundation of the article, which suggests a clear line between right and wrong where there is, in fact, significant ambiguity. I forwarded Traum’s image, and article it accompanied, to various musicians and asked them if they would record a piece of music that took Traum’s picture literally: use it as a score.”

"It is they, fronted by President Obama, who are behind the charter school movement. Their goal is to make franchises of our schools, docile, low-cost industrial robots of our teachers, and McStudents of our children. This, despite the fact that the best academic studies of charter schools have shown that they perform no better than public schools and in many cases perform worse. Sometimes much worse."

A good interview, and explains Obama's long-game strategy explicitly. His indignation at progressives and Democrats complaining about the state of things when much has actually been accomplished is reasonable, but his final statement bothers me. "We have to get folks off the sidelines. People need to shake off this lethargy, people need to buck up. Bringing about change is hard — that's what I said during the campaign. It has been hard, and we've got some lumps to show for it. But if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place." OK, but what does that mean? What's going to make a difference with ten-to-one odds and enormous corporations and special-interest groups lined up on the other side? Your base gave you a lot of money to help you get elected, but is that what you're asking them to do again, deep in a recession? They need direction, advice, some instruction or insight. What exactly do you want us to 'try harder' at?

A strong perspective on music culture, the music business, and the state of things today. "Had Sonic Youth not done what they did I don't know what would have happened—the alternative history game is kind of silly. But I think it cheapened music quite a bit. It made music culture kind of empty and ugly and was generally a kind of bad influence."

Finally got around to reading this. I still can't reconcile the problem, but this is a very thorough analysis. My hunch is that it isn't exactly an undiscovered life stage or nothing but spoiled kids, but rather a confluence of factors stemming from stuff like 'extended adolescence' (and the provision thereof by parents, college atmospheres, and the entertainment industry), the recession, the internet, and an increasingly ineffectual educational system.

"As the TSA feels you up and dresses you down, terrorists are tearing a hole in a new target: The U.S. economy."

"But there's a deeper question to ask: how far are we willing to go to prevent weapons or bombs from getting on airplanes? In the past decade, terrorists on airplanes have killed just about 3,000 people — all on one day. Even if the Christmas Day bomber had succeeded, the number would be under 3,500. Those are horrible deaths. But in that same period, more than 150,000 people have been murdered in the United States. We haven't put the entire U.S. on lockdown — or even murder capitals like Detroit, New Orleans and Baltimore."

"Overall, there seems to be a critical disconnect between the way the predominantly white, male critical establishment writes about violence and misogyny—especially as it’s primarily exhibited in hip-hop, i.e., music made predominantly by black artists. Critics such as these seem uncommonly drawn to violent, misogynistic music simply because it is shocking. This thrill of novelty seems to be nothing more than a fetishization of an alien culture."

"So why not look for constructive things to use the military for? Why not get some use out of our military resources—particularly if that use makes it less likely that we’ll need to use the military for more violent purposes?"

On how *all* grains contain bio-chemical defense systems that cause an inflammatory reaction in your gut and lead to a host of health problems, and how the paleolithic diet is a cure for it. The comments section is very long and bewildering in its inevitable conflict. (I should be following this diet already, but I cheat too often. At the very least, I should do what the post suggests and try to go 100% for a month.)

"If somebody you care about is bleeding profusely, it’s not loving to insist that she’s flawless and has nothing to worry about. The loving thing is to stop the bleeding then get her to a doctor. If a guy is clearly suffering from blood poisoning, ignoring the problem isn’t loving. Instead, say, 'Dude. You need to get that looked at immediately.' Or, better yet, go with him. Do what you can to make things better."

"Have you ever started rapping along with some song on the radio and then realized that you don't know the lyrics? Now you don't have to worry about that embarrassing moment when it happens in front of your friends. OHHLA.com is your one stop shop for rap and hip-hop lyrics."