Y files

This whole place was a vacant wasteland what 5 years ago? on...

Wed, 22 May 2013 11:20:46 -0400

This whole place was a vacant wasteland what 5 years ago? on Flickr.

Totally insane that donations to exclusive private schools are...

Tue, 21 May 2013 19:00:17 -0400

Totally insane that donations to exclusive private schools are tax deductible. on Flickr.

Tubthumping - They Might Be Giants & The AV Club Chorus (by...

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:48:28 -0400

Tubthumping - They Might Be Giants & The AV Club Chorus (by ParticleMen)

Blondie, Sunday Girl, French Version (by John Wilson) An...

Mon, 13 May 2013 21:17:37 -0400

Blondie, Sunday Girl, French Version (by John Wilson)

An important illustration of the principle that everything rhymes in French.

The Power of a Good Coincidence

Sun, 12 May 2013 15:34:39 -0400

I suppose I agree with Ezra’s point about The Great Gatsby, namely that if you look at the events of the story in detail it turns out that Gatsby’s downfall is primarily due to an unlikely car accident rather than the working out of metaphysical necessity.

But I guess I’m not sure what kind of criticism this is supposed to be. Restricting ourselves to the domain of Baz Lurman adaptations, Romeo & Juliet has this same quality. Yes, our star cross’d lovers are doomed by family rivalry but the ultimate tragic dénouement involves a remarkable amount of bad timing and miscommunication. Ned Stark’s downfall is a reflection of his tragic excessive reliance on personal honor, but in the details also comes down to a lot of bad timing and unfortunate coincidence. Or suppose Raskolnikov hadn’t mixed up the timing and ended up killing Lizaveta along with Alyona Ivanovna?

The fact that great authors across genres and times rely on coincidence to make their tragic schemes work is telling us that contingency plays a large role in human affairs not that the authors are cheating.

Songs About Oakland

Sat, 11 May 2013 00:01:41 -0400

“Condition Oakland”, Jawbreaker.

“Welcome to Paradise”, Green Day.

“Journey to the End of the East Bay”, Rancid.

I feel like Operation Ivy belongs here but….

The Hold Steady - The Bear and the Maiden Fair (lyrics) (by...

Wed, 08 May 2013 14:55:54 -0400

The Hold Steady - The Bear and the Maiden Fair (lyrics) (by tamuli0nis)

"In its favour, if Google Glass didn’t exist, all these Silicon Valley guys would be having affairs..."

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:39:48 -0400

“In its favour, if Google Glass didn’t exist, all these Silicon Valley guys would be having affairs or buying unsuitable motorbikes”

- (via whitemenwearinggoogleglass)

Video

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 14:48:29 -0400

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Sat, 20 Apr 2013 14:48:02 -0400

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Sat, 20 Apr 2013 14:47:42 -0400

We basically ended up as the majority. #ObamasAmerica

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 18:32:56 -0400

We basically ended up as the majority. #ObamasAmerica

So excited to be heading to a Green Day show on Thursday. First...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:12:29 -0400

So excited to be heading to a Green Day show on Thursday. First band I ever saw live!

Statue of Stephon Marbury in Beijing, China.

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 18:27:44 -0400

Statue of Stephon Marbury in Beijing, China.

Iraq in Retrospect

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 09:49:32 -0400

Clearly invading Iraq was a bad idea and college senior Matt Yglesias was not only mistaken about believing it to be a good idea but was operating under a number of misapprehensions about foreign policy and American politics.

The main not-totally-obvious thing I have to say about this is that the underrated villains in this drama are the leading Democratic Party politicians of the 2002-2003 era. “Because trusted leaders of my political party say so” is of course not a good reason to back any political position. But the evidence is overwhelming that elite signaling and top-down leadership matter for public opinion formation. I remember quite clearly that in arguments around the dining hall people who were (rightly) opposing the invasion would (wrongly) emphasize the Bush Bush Bush factor in their arguments and I would rebut by pointing to Hillary and Bill Clinton, Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle, John Kerry and John Edwards. Madeleine Albright. The whole crew.

Since that time I’ve gotten to know a lot of liberal or left-wing people who’ve never liked that whole crowd. Which is fine. Those politics aren’t my politics, but in this particular case that political orientation gave people a more clear-eyed view of what was happening. I saw a sharp partisan disagreement about Bush’s tax cuts, plus a reasonably broad consensus about his Iraq gambit.

So what you learn is that this is a pretty poor heuristic.

On the actual policy, what holds up reasonably well from the old pre-war case is that the Clinton era “containment” policy on Iraq was crumbling. The endless sanctioning of Iraq was not a viable long-term strategy for the region. That left you with two kinds of options. One—the wrong option—was to get more aggressive. The other—the correct option—was to realize that the goal of military domination of the Persian Gulf is just fundamentally misguided. The project is motivated by fuzzy thinking about oil, and it’s been extremely costly over the decades. Protecting Kuwait from a direct and flagrantly illegal cross-border military attack is a defensible (though arguably not necessary) use of military force, but the whole rest of the undertaking dating back to long before Bush was a mistake.

Who is more terrible: Bibi or the ultra-Orthodox?

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 22:45:37 -0400

Who is more terrible: Bibi or the ultra-Orthodox?

Andray Blatche would sign a smaller contract so the Wizards would have to pay him more | Ball Don't Lie - Yahoo! Sports

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 22:43:06 -0400

Andray Blatche would sign a smaller contract so the Wizards would have to pay him more | Ball Don't Lie - Yahoo! Sports:

Andray Blatche is an asshole. But perhaps I have to respect this?

Kathleen Hannah on Taylor Swift

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 22:13:36 -0400

Kathleen Hannah on Taylor Swift:

I’m totally into Taylor Swift. I think she has super-clever lyrics, and I love that she writes her own music. Some of the themes she writes about are stuff I wish was there for me when I was in high school, and I’m so happy she really cares about her female fans. She’s not catering to a male audience and is writing music for other girls. I don’t care if she calls herself a feminist or not. There is something that she’s doing that feels feminist to me in that she really seems to have a lot of control over what her career is doing. She’s 23. People say she’s dating all these guys. Well, yeah, she’s a young person and is dating all these people ’cause that’s what you do when you’re young. John Mayer can fuck 84 people in one day and nobody calls him a slut. I think that’s the subtext of some of the things she’s said recently.

Y files

This whole place was a vacant wasteland what 5 years ago? on...

Totally insane that donations to exclusive private schools are...

Tubthumping - They Might Be Giants & The AV Club Chorus (by...

Blondie, Sunday Girl, French Version (by John Wilson) An...

The Power of a Good Coincidence

Songs About Oakland

The Hold Steady - The Bear and the Maiden Fair (lyrics) (by...

"In its favour, if Google Glass didn’t exist, all these Silicon Valley guys would be having affairs..."

Video

Video

Video

We basically ended up as the majority. #ObamasAmerica

So excited to be heading to a Green Day show on Thursday. First...

Statue of Stephon Marbury in Beijing, China.

Iraq in Retrospect

Who is more terrible: Bibi or the ultra-Orthodox?

Andray Blatche would sign a smaller contract so the Wizards would have to pay him more | Ball Don't Lie - Yahoo! Sports

Kathleen Hannah on Taylor Swift

Why mock Taylor like this? She’s amazing.

Video