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Showing posts from March, 2013

More Tracks

Dig the ghostly vocals on this lady:

Cool

WTF, March?

This is a picture from outside my train maybe an hour from DC.

Amtrakkin

On the train to Georgia for a wedding. It's my first trip on US rail and I'm reminded of hitchhiking across South Africa for some reason.

Programming Update

Apologies for the darkness here, I've been busy doing some real reporting on a piece for our next issue. Hopefully by the end of the week I should have some time for further updates. Until that time, here's a bit of music:

Common Currency Areas are a Disastrous Idea

In our March-April issue, Clyde Prestowitz has a deep look at the two potential trade deals currently on deck in Washington: the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement. It's mostly good reporting, the details of which I am not equipped to adjudicate, but there is one particular aside worth mentioning. Here he suggests something remarkable: None of this is to suggest that the United States couldn’t prosper from a deeper trading relationship with Asia if it were done on the right terms. Indeed, imagine if the U.S. went for the whole enchilada and proposed something like a trans-Pacific European Union? Take the advanced democratic economies of the Pacific—Canada, the U.S., Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and Korea—and make them one integrated economy with a common antitrust regime, a common set of employment and environmental standards, one banking system, and eventually one currency—call it the Yollar or the Yelarso or the Denso. Make the union

The New Deftones

I took to Metacritic yesterday in search of new music and found much to my surprise the late 90s-early Aughts band Deftones had a new album out. And it was number 8  on the best-reviewed albums of 2012 list. Now, as an angsty teenager 12 years ago or so Deftones was one of my favorite bands. One of those bands you're a little ashamed of really liking when you were young and foolish. But at the risk of soiling my sterling reputation as a music snob, I'll be dipped if it isn't pretty good! Dig these luxurious space riffs:

Towards a Big-Hearted Liberalism

My previous post got some pushback on Twitter: Before I get to the point, a bit of throat-clearing. I was profoundly irritated by this exchange. I was making what felt like (and still appears to me in retrospect) an honest, good faith effort to engage. That got me 1) instructions to read a book I have in fact read most of, and 2) an ad hominem implying I'm a service job tourist.* Maybe my point was wrong, maybe I was in fact perpetuating the oppression of the working class, but if so, I still don't know why, all that was accomplished was pissing me off. Eh, you might say, that stuff happens on Twitter all the time. But for some reason this one really got my goat. (To be clear, I'm not holding a grudge against Ms. Jaffe for this. People have bad moods, maybe my post really was that dumb, maybe I'm taking offense unreasonably, whatever. Thanks to my new Twitter chum Alexios13 for providing some perspective.) But after chewing it over for a bit, I think that thi