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MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
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Reading this, seemed to me like a lot of these people just think it wise to donate big bucks to a winner's inaugural committee. Like even if they donated to opponents' campaigns. They seem to think that will help them somehow. Or they just want to go to the party to network. Maybe something should be done about that?
By Lachlan Markey @ TheDailyBeast.com, Jan. 13
Some of the donors are known for filling bipartisan coffers. Others are lifelong Republicans who suddenly chose to put their money elsewhere.
Very curious rule reversal for Giuliani's clients, the wacko anti-Iranian-regime MEK.
Who are the 1% in the U.S.? Writer Jonathan Rothwell makes a very strong argument that they are mostly doctors, lawyers, finance professionals and similar independent professionals And that big corporations are not the problem, either.
By Richard Florida @ City Lab, Dec. 19
In this interview with Jonathan Rothwell about his new book, A Republic of Equals, he explains how U.S. racism helped create elite, highly paid professions.
Inequality and low productivity growth are two of the biggest problems that vex the U.S. economy. For Jonathan Rothwell, they are of a piece, driven by the power of large and influential groups of professionals in fields like finance, medicine, and law to wall themselves off from competition.
Rothwell, formerly of Brookings Institution and now Gallup’s senior economist, shows that the United States is unique among the advanced nations in the power afforded to these groups. The huge differences in incomes we see in this country are not the result of education or skills, but of political power. Inequality in the United States is also bound up with race and racism, from slavery, to the exclusion of minorities from early professional organizations, to exclusionary zoning that denies minority and low-income people access to suburban schools. [....]
Surprisingly, only a small percentage of top earners work in the tech sector or in fields like computer programming. There is some evidence that the adoption of information-technology has disproportionately benefitted workers with higher levels of education. But that does not explain why there are so many doctors and lawyers in the top 1 percent [....]
She sounds real refreshing.
By Nicole Sperling @ NYTimes.com/Awards Season section, Jan. 13
The filmmaker talks about that all-male category, the rise of female directors and the popular belief that men aren’t seeing “Little Women.”
Scientists see myriad potential benefits for humanity, but also acknowledge ethical issues
By Ian Sample @ TheGuardian.com, Jan. 13
Be warned. If the rise of the robots comes to pass, the apocalypse may be a more squelchy affair than science fiction writers have prepared us for.
Researchers in the US have created the first living machines by assembling cells from African clawed frogs into tiny robots that move around under their own steam.
One of the most successful creations has two stumpy legs that propel it along on its “chest”. Another has a hole in the middle that researchers turned into a pouch so it could shimmy around with miniature payloads.
“These are entirely new lifeforms. They have never before existed on Earth,” said Michael Levin, the director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. “They are living, programmable organisms.” [....]
Guest op-ed by Ai Weiwei @ NYTimes.com, Jan. 13
Ai Weiwei is an internationally renowned artist who has been imprisoned in China; his views are always very "outside the box".
[....] China and Russia have shown how legacies of Communist authoritarianism can combine with predatory capitalism to build new political structures of daunting power. The world’s democracies have not figured out what to do about this even as they sense themselves falling behind or, worse, beginning to fit in. Traditional democratic values have begun to slip away. Economic and political trends reach beyond national borders, seem large and unstoppable, and are destroying values and ideals that human societies have evolved over centuries [.....]
By Wilfrid U. Codrington III @ BrennanCenter.org, Jan. 8
A pair of cases could set the stage for the first major Supreme Court decision on presidential elections in nearly two decades.
I'm quoting Ryan Lizza's tweet on the story, but first I'd like to counter that it's just Populism 101. Which means he's trying to do what Trump did that caused him to win, risking turning off upper middle class swings, going for those other swings. Of course, that also fits his principles.
By Drew Anderson @ CBC News, Jan. 9
Company that delivers dolls to clients for 2 hours or the night expands to Vancouver.
Just wants to see Trump gone. (And to teach Russian trolls a lesson in how you alter votes?)
By Josh Lederman & Stephanie Ruhle @ NBCNews.com, Jan. 10
Exclusive: The former New York City mayor plans to continue paying hundreds of staffers and funding his digital operation to defeat Trump even if he's not the nominee.
