Page 27 – Bearing in mind I know little about politics and less about the economy, I thought this article about tax cuts was fascinating. Apparently one of the backbones of the GOP is/was the idea that if we cut taxes, government shrinks (since there is less money for those supposedly bloated government programs to spend). But! William Niskanen, a nonpartisan economist, did a little study and found that tax cuts cause government spending to go up. Uh oh! For example, after Bush’s crazy rich-person-loving tax cuts a few years ago spending increased, and the same thing happened to Reagan in the 80s. As in all things macro-economic, I bet there is an equally well-considered opposite position I could be quickly convinced of. But this is so IRONIC! And a total catch-22 for Republicans. Therefore I believe it wholeheartedly.
Page 32 – Don’t worry, we’re not going to run out of oil. This remarkably short-sighted article seems unaware of the location of all the oil. I mean, the problem isn’t that one day we’ll use the last tank of gas and then no one can go anywhere or produce any goods. The problem today is that the scarcer the oil, the more power the people standing over the oil have.
Page 34 – America has permanent military bases in Iraq, obvious implications. This is not at all the point of the article, but the sentence, "Army engineers had to bring in 100,000 tons of gravel just to build the reinforced roads," BLEW MY MIND. There’s a person in the military who figured out how many roads, and how much gravel, and where to get it, and how, and how many trips, and how many people it would take. They probably had to figure out what vehicles would be on the roads, and how often, and how heavy. That’s hot.
Page 38 – Wal-Mart employs 1.7 million people, and provides health insurance for less than half of them. Wal-Mart Watch is a pretty new organization with an awesome strategy: force Wal-Mart to call for national health-care. That is so brilliant and clever and perfect.
Page 46 – The more daughters a senator has, the more likely he votes pro-choice. This makes me have all sorts of deep thoughts, but right this second I’m interested in the apparent corollary – sons don’t have the same effect. I suppose it’s natural, since the consequences of an unplanned pregnancy are more obvious for the daughter than the son, but someone’s still pregnant, if you see what I’m saying.
Page 80 – Management theory isn’t based on actual science. Doesn’t everyone already know that? I had no idea there had ever been any attempt to claim it was scientifically based. Weird.
Page 102 – Oh my God, Caitlin Flanagan, SHUT UP. Back again with another update on the problems of upper-middle class women, Flanagan finally addresses "How to Treat the Help." Thank God someone finally had the courage to tackle this vital issue. Also, Caitlin Flanagan, I hate you. Here are a few examples of why:
- "At that time, I received a generous allowance from my parents, which arrived in my campus mailbox each month in the form of a check, cut and signed by their accountant." I obviously don’t have a problem with Flanagan’s parents supporting her, but I am completely confused about the inclusion of this fact in this article. She’s talking about how she took a baby-sitting job even though she didn’t need the money. I don’t need to know why, and in fact would have reached the correct conclusion without this little Flanagan tidbit. Why so specific? Why the detail about the accountant?
- If you read between the lines, she implies that she was actually fired because she was young and attractive.
- Every part of this: "[A deep South mentor lady] taught me how to treat the weekly cleaning person…I was always to pay her, even if I was out of town and didn’t need her services ("Just because you don’t need her doesn’t mean she doesn’t need her check"); … I was to understand that it was the way of domestic servants to fall short of money, and the obligation of householders to get them out of scrapes." I have no words. This was published in an actual magazine. On paper.
Page 110 – Awesomely Bitchy Review #1 – Alan Furst. The reviewer actually calls Furst’s work "bad writing." Awesome. Also, he quotes Furst’s novels to devastating effect. On Furst’s unearned reputation as a good writer of sex scenes,
"Maybe the name she told him was a lie and maybe he did the same thing, but three in the morning found them…hugging like long lost lovers, riding each other’s bottoms through the night."
Bottoms! On Furst’s punctuation,
"She was, she said, Levantine, of Greek origin, and, hair, eyes, and spirit, dark in every way…’I did have a few, suitors, for a time…’"
Ten commas! Twenty-six words! And those are Furst’s ellipses, too. And finally, on Furst’s general stupidity, a quote from the internal monologue of one of Furst’s protagonists, a graduate of "the most exclusive college in the Sorbonne… France’s Harvard, Yale and Princeton all rolled into one,"
"Albertine, tonight. His big, ugly treasure of a farm girl. Something good to eat. Vegetables, cow food – but garlic, salt, a drop of oil, and the cunning way she chopped it all up. Jesus! Was it possible that he’d reached that ghastly moment in life when the belly was more important than the prick? No! Never that! Why, he’d take that Albertine and spread her…"
If I had a nickel for every Harvard guy I heard say "cow food" and/or "spread her." Through and through, the best review I’ve ever read. I was giggling the whole time, because it’s nice for someone to just finally say, You know, that famous author is just really terrible, here, let me explain his terribleness in great detail.
Page 114 – Awesomely Bitchy Review #2 – John Updike. Too many burns to count. Just one:
"Updike has given us a black high-school teacher who, in the early years of this very century, thinks that J. Lo is a guy. And who is embarrassed to ask more about the subject. And who therefore raises his voice, at commencement, and seeks enlightenment from a sixty-three year old Jewish washout. Could anything be more hip and up-to-the-minute?"
BURN!
The Atlantic, I love you.
Posted by rotablog 
Posted by rotablog 
Posted by rotablog 