The New Yorker is thrilled: This is the best piece of economic news that President Obama has received in many a moon. On CNBC’s Squawk Box, a former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers said, “The trend I am seeing … is that things have turned around.” And he went on: “PeopleContinue reading “Unemployment falls, surprising/pleasing pundits”
Category Archives: subjects for further research
How freelance writers survive: by shovel and hoe, w/chickens
Anyway they can: My turn with spade and hoe started a few years ago when I found myself divorced and flat broke. My livelihood as a freelance writer went out the window when the economy tanked. I literally could afford beans, the dried kind, which I’d thought were for school art projects or teaching elementaryContinue reading “How freelance writers survive: by shovel and hoe, w/chickens”
The problem with America: Too much cake
Vanity Fair puts the entire California chapter of Michael Lewis's new book, Boomerang, on the Web, and boy is it good. Lewis really is all that. Long but highly recommended. Here's the thinky part: The road out of Vallejo passes directly through the office of Dr. Peter Whybrow, a British neuroscientist at U.C.L.A. with aContinue reading “The problem with America: Too much cake”
The usefulness of forgetting: Tennessee Williams
"A bad memory is a great convenience." Tennessee Williams, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, 1950 The quote is from the nouvella. Here's the poster from the first movie made of this story. [My god, what a cast! Lotte Lenya?!? Who was nominated for Best Supporting for the role? I haveContinue reading “The usefulness of forgetting: Tennessee Williams”
The Holy Family: Tennessee Williams on Van Gogh
As mentioned in an earlier post, while at the University of Iowa's dramatic writing program, Tennessee Williams, then a complete unknown, set out to write a play about Vincent Van Gogh. He didn't get past a few scenes, but the idea still fascinates. In a letter to a friend William Holland, dated 11/18/1937, he wrote:Continue reading “The Holy Family: Tennessee Williams on Van Gogh”
Texas drought: “Years before the cows come home”
Today reporter Molly Hennessy-Fiske took a potentially mundane story about how the drought in Texas is changing the traditional cattle business and wrote her way on to the front page of the Sunday Los Angeles Times with her boldness: The cowboys rose well before dawn, stars still high in the West Texas sky. They strapped onContinue reading “Texas drought: “Years before the cows come home””
The Tennessee Williams play about Van Gogh
True story: Early in his career, after a first try at The Fugitive Kind, Tennessee Williams set out to write a play about Vincent Van Gogh. He didn't get far: He had a writing assignment at a theater lab, and his assignments kept him so busy, he said, he hardly had time for "independent work." Continue reading “The Tennessee Williams play about Van Gogh”
12 million imperiled by crop failure in Africa: Why?
A month ago, in England, one could not pick up a newspaper without reading about the 12 million people who are imperiled by drought and starvation in the Horn of Africa. So this morning it's good to see a major American newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, put the story of the worst famine in theContinue reading “12 million imperiled by crop failure in Africa: Why?”
Why deniers cling to the “global cooling” myth: a theory
At Boing Boing, Maggie Koerth-Baker does an excellent job of retelling the myth that global climate change deniers adore. That's the myth that scientists widely feared global cooling in the l970's. According to the standard version of this story, everybody in the 1970s thought that the Earth was actually getting colder, and that we were inContinue reading “Why deniers cling to the “global cooling” myth: a theory”
The older you get, the more unemployed you are likely to be
Or, as Matty Iglesias puts it, perhaps (we can hope) overstating it: "There will be no recovery." The Pew Center, graphing census data for the visually oriented, appears to have the stats to back him up, at least for the long-term unemployed: In short — the older you get, the more unemployed you are likelyContinue reading “The older you get, the more unemployed you are likely to be”
Kit Stolz 