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Culture, Media

Nature Upside Down, Coyotes in Chicago and Disney Goes to the Arctic

Yesterday, NPR revealed that coyotes have been discovered hiding out in our cities, with one researcher estimating that more than 2,000 coyotes live undiscovered in the city of Chicago in particular. I’ve lived in Chicago myself, and the city looms in memory as a mass of brick, asphalt, and concrete, so it’s nigh unfathomable to consider that coyotes were my neighbors.

Culture, Philosophie

The California Legislature We Love to Hate

Can you imagine the founding fathers writing constitutional amendments to manage the United States budget? That’s the kind of thing that happens in California.

Culture, Media

How to Spot Public Indifference

Major League Baseball’s problem with steroids has become a summer tradition as reliable as the sport itself. Every year we’re treated to stories about some big-name figure being outed as a former user of the drug. Lots of hand-wringing, further allegations, and sometimes even congressional hearings follow, but none of this is ever good enough to dispel the specter of steroid-enhanced performance that returns every year to hang over the sport.

Culture, History, Philosophie

Economics: the Religion of the Weird

I always think of this angry crank who was notoriously near-sighted when it came to politics and economics whenever I find myself tempted to say anything substantive about economic theory. It’s too easy, in a way, to say things about a subject one has never studied.

Culture, History, Media, Writing/Publishing

Newspapers: the DeLorean of the New Era

Okay. We get it. Newspapers are defunct. They never even had a viable profit model because they succeeded only by selling classified ads to support their journalism and printing costs, sort of like DeLorean selling coke to keep making his cars.

Culture, History, Media

The Deregulatory Lie: When Businesses Get Freedom and the Rest of Us Get Screwed

Of course he was wrong. The idea that markets entirely through their own self-interest can regulate themselves is totally absurd. Their only interest is profit. Furthermore, being wrong here has had catastrophic results.

Comments

  • Jay: Disney has been down this road before. I use one of their ’50s nature documentaries, the Academy...
  • Erik: Upon the failure of every budget initiatives except for Prop. 1F, there’s some interesting analysis in...
  • Jay T: The initiative process is one the main culprits here. It is just way too easy for citizens (or, more...
  • Erik: I guess I have trouble with the idea that people can be expected to routinely pursue their own economic...
  • Jay T: The rationality assumption has been called into question many times over the years–that’s why you...