Tuesday, February 2, 2010

A little light reading material

Well, not exactly. But this story about Blackwater's lawlessness and the real tragedy it causes is a must-read. I must say, I find it amusing that in our society, the natural response to a shortage of soldiers or a shortage of prisons is never to think about why we're running out of this stuff and rethink what we're doing, but rather to pay other people to do our dirty work. If there's anything more scummy we pay for than paid mercenaries and private prisons, I don't know what it might be.
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The Man, The Myth, The Bio

East Bay, California, United States
Problem: I have lots of opinions on politics and culture that I need to vent. If I do not do this I will wind up muttering to myself, and that's only like one or two steps away from being a hobo. Solution: I write two blogs. A political blog that has some evident sympathies (pro-Obama, mostly liberal though I dissent on some issues, like guns and trade) and a culture blog that does, well, cultural essays in a more long-form manner. My particular thing is taking overrated things (movies, mostly, but other things too) down a peg and putting underrated things up a peg. I'm sort of the court of last resort, and I tend to focus on more obscure cultural phenomena.