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Showing posts from 2015

Introducing "Polit-euro"

Henceforth the political power elite of the eurozone (mostly the top German politicos) are now called the " Polit-euro ". This phrase got cut from my last piece (justifiably so I suppose, for such a bad pun), but I still think it's pretty good. Billmon gave me the idea, but so far as I know nobody else has used it yet. Go forth and troll some German MPs.

George Orwell and the Essayist Style

I recently reread The Road to Wigan Pier , which I first read in the Peace Corps probably about five years ago. I remembered quite liking the first half of the book, particularly the vivid sections on what it's like to work as a coal miner, while disliking the second half, though I couldn't remember why. It was something about socialism and the middle class, and it seemed vaguely muddled. This impression was confirmed on second reading. The description of coal mining  indeed remains brilliant, especially in structure. Orwell maintains a great sense of pacing, carefully building up each new agony that the miners endure, so that by the end a real appreciation of the awesome difficulty of coal mining is developed, as opposed to simply reaching for analogies or hyperbole. The second half, however, is pretty bad. On occasion, as when Orwell is describing the peculiar anxieties of having grown up middle class, and why middle-class people like himself struggle with embracing socia

Max Max

Is great. See it. Once you're done, read Freddie , Marie , and Leah .

I Did Some Journalism

It's about jails, and why 3/5ths of people inside them have not been convicted of a crime. Here's the hook : Paxil, or paroxetine, is a powerful psychoactive drug with a short half-life in the body. Zurn had not had a dose since the day before her arrest. So when she got to the jail, she began experiencing serious withdrawal symptoms. Delirious, dizzy, paranoid, and sobbing uncontrollably, she says she was placed in solitary confinement, as is common for mentally ill people. Alone for 23 and a half hours a day, and still without toilet paper, Zurn refused to eat. After two days, she was released. It was her birthday. "It was the worst two days of my life," she told The Week. Check it out .