A breakdown of the 2008 economy

Harold Meyerson outlines two take-away lessons from this year:

Lesson One: If it’s big and you don’t regulate it, you end up nationalizing it.

[...] The lesson for 2009 couldn’t be clearer: To avoid nationalization, you need regulation. Or, the lesson’s ideological corollary: To avoid socialism (to whatever extent throwing public money at banks is socialism), you need liberalism (that is, the willingness to restrain capitalism from its periodic self-destruction).

Lesson Two: In matters economic, the Civil War isn’t really over.

[...] Over the past century, of course, the conflict between North and South has been between union and non-union labor. The states of the industrial Midwest and the South had common demographics (Appalachian whites and African Americans, though the Northern states also were home to Catholics of Eastern European origin) but developed two distinct economies.

Residents of the unionized north enjoyed higher living standards, both from their paychecks and the higher public outlays on health and education, than did their counterparts in the union-resistant South.

Something to chew on

Jeremy Stangroom on the ethics of nude photography… it’s not quite what you’d think:

Suppose an 18 year old fella takes some photographs of his 17 year old girlfriend in various states of undress. Not pornographic, but not artistic (so we’re talking mild readers’ wives type stuff). She is not coerced in any way, has no objections to him possessing the photographs, and he will never show them to anybody else.

They split up a few years later. She’s happy for him to keep the photographs. Fast forward 25 years. He still possesses the photographs. He’s now in his mid-40s, and he hasn’t been in touch with his old girlfriend for some 20 years, so he has no idea whether she’d mind that he still has the photos (of course, he recognises that she might mind).

So various questions arise…

Andrew Sullivan’s “Faces of 2008″

Powerful, as usual.

Top ten Bush moments

Repost from The Hathos, but this is too good to pass up.

Tennessee ash sludge flood, continued

Oh Boy. “Unlined coal ash waste ponds pose a cancer risk 900 times above what the government considers ‘acceptable.’” Tracking back through the developments here.

Protesting poetry, continued

George Packer apologizes for the caustic nature of his critique of Elizabeth Alexander, but defends his point that contemporary poetry just doesn’t seem to capsulate the country as a whole. I’m still inclined to agree with him; although if Alexander proves that she’s up to the (seemingly monumental) task, then more power to her. If that turns out to be the case I’ll happily shut up.

There is good poetry being written in America, and bad poetry being written. But little contemporary poetry aspires to speak to, of, and even, in some way, for the country as a whole. In America today, popular music is a likelier vehicle for such things. My post was unnecessarily caustic, but in the argument that poetry has become too marginalized in America to find language for such a historic public occasion, at least one half of my point seems obvious enough, and an obvious shame. We would all be better off if it were otherwise.

More on Gaza

I was going to comment on Greenwald’s ideas a bit, but I haven’t been able to find the time. Nonetheless, it’s a great read. Thought-provoking, even if you don’t agree with him (although, by the polls he cites, there’s a 70% chance that you do agree with him). Read it here.

Blago appoints former AG to Senate seat

In the middle of being charged for corruption, Rod Blagojevich decides he’s still the right guy to decide who fills the Illinois U.S. Senate seat. He appoints Roland Burris, a former Illinois attorney general.

Selling that old time religion

Branding meets religion.

Most people think that marketing is simply advertising and promotion. Those things are just the tip of the iceberg. When marketers think of their jobs they think in terms of product, price, place, and promotion.

Therefore, marketing is about how you package your product, how you price it, where you distribute it, and then how you tell people about it. Fundamental to your product identity is branding, a means by which you make your product different through a combination of name, logo, and mythology.

In religion that used to be denominations, now it’s Joel Osteen and Willowcreek.

Everyone’s posted it… and now so have I

The year in review:

Steve Gimbel on Gaza

Great philosophical take on the events of this week.

Another reason ethanol is not the solution

Millions of dollars per year are lost because crops aren’t diversified in corn-country.

“Corn is a less favorable habitat for many ladybird beetles (ladybugs) and other beneficial insects that feed on pests such as the soybean aphid,” said Doug Landis, MSU professor of entomology. “As we plant more corn, we reduce the ability of that landscape to supply beneficial predators to control pests in soybeans and other crops. This results in increased pesticide use and yield losses. This research estimates the value of this biological pest control service in soybeans (in the four states) to be about $240 million each year.”

Third-hand smoking?

Apparently.

Prost!

Moderate drinking linked to reduction of cognitive decline. Too bad “moderate alcohol consumption generally is defined as 1 drink or less per day for women and 1-2 drinks or less per day for men.” I could use a lifestyle rationalization for 4-5 drinks. Whoops.

And here I was thinking the world was supposed to end in 2012

There’s a prediction that the U.S. will disintegrate in 2010.

“There’s a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur,” [Russian academic Igor Panarin] says. “One could rejoice in that process,” he adds, poker-faced. “But if we’re talking reasonably, it’s not the best scenario — for Russia.” Though Russia would become more powerful on the global stage, he says, its economy would suffer because it currently depends heavily on the dollar and on trade with the U.S.

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces — with Alaska reverting to Russian control.