SmartRemarks

New Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele looks like he’s going to be a fertile source of embarrassing quotes; the “don’t trust us” thing the other day was not just an anomaly. Today’s latest:  according to The Washington Times, Steele wants the GOP to be the hip-hop party.

No, seriously. To wit: Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Michael Steele, Republicans

Can this be real?

Out of all the floods of commentary generated by the economic collapse of the last few months, variously thoughtful and outraged, panicked and funny, this is the first site where I’m left admitting I have absolutely no idea what to make of it. It’s about… well, it’s about young New York women who (used to) date Wall Street bankers, complaining to allegedly comic effect that their gravy train lifestyles have been disrupted by their boyfriends’ dissolving professional lives. From the site’s mission statement:

Dating A Banker Anonymous (DABA) is a safe place where women can come together – free from the scrutiny of feminists – and share their tearful tales of how the mortgage meltdown has affected their relationships. DABA Girls was started by two best friends whose relationships tanked with the economy. Not knowing what else to do, we did what frustrated but articulate girls have done since the beginning of time — we started a blog. So if your monthly Bergdorf’s allowance has been halved and bottle service has all but disappeared from your life, lighten your heart with laughter…

Is it meant to be satire? Can it possibly be intended to be taken straight? Should readers be in on the joke, or cringe at the shamelessness of it all?  Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: blogging, economy, humor, relationships

Collapsing industries are hardly an unusual thing this year. Real estate, banking, airlines, automobiles, music and more are all in dire straits. One of the most consequential ones, however, with ripple effects that will last far beyond the pain of this current economic downturn, is the death spiral of the newspaper business.

For some years now, even when economic times were better,a common question in public discourse was “will print journalism be able to survive the challenge of the internet?” 2008 was the year the answer became a painfully clear “no,” and the question shifted to “how long before print journalism gives up the ghost?” Indeed, one of the biggest news stories of the year was, ironically, the death spiral of the industry responsible for coving big news stories.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: blogging, economy, Humanities Festival, internet, journalism, media, newspapers

Once in a while it’s nice to get away from the computer for a couple of days. That’s what my lady love and I did this past weekend, predominantly so as to enjoy the final weekend of the Chicago Humanities Festival.

One of the things I enjoy most about big city life is the cultural amenities, and the CHF is a distinctive one. For two weeks every autumn, the CHF (a nonprofit organization) invites scores of prominent writers, scholars, thinkers and doers to town to offer public lectures and discussions. The highlight last week was David McCullough, as I wrote at the time.

This Saturday, among other things, we heard a group of urban planning experts discuss the prospects for high-speed rail in the U.S. (considerably better than they were a few years ago, given the now-obviously-dire future of fossil fuels), and enjoyed listening to Judge Frank Easterbrook, Harvard Law Prof. Laurence Tribe (a former instructor of Barack Obama), and U of Chicago Law Prof. Geoffrey Stone (a former colleague of Obama) discuss the current state of Constitutional Interpretation.

On Sunday, we heard physicist Ronald Mallett discuss the possibility of time travel; saw a panel of scientists including (via hologram!) Ray Kurzweil discuss the past, present, and future of human evolution, including the accelerating sophistication and likely effects of information technology; and saw Naomi Klein discuss her recent book, Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, in the context of the current economic crisis and the potential for change under Obama.

History, law, science, politics, economics, and more… all wrapped up in a friendly format with Q&As and book signings, all at $5 a head per session. The large and diverse audiences that the event draws every year are heartening evidence that our society has not yet totally surrendered to anti-intellectualism. Taken all together, it’s a tonic, a reminder of the vast world of ideas out there in which we all swim, a reprieve from the day-to-day world and its mundane concerns. And it’s a good reminder that there’s more to life than just what you can find on the internet. What I saw this weekend will certainly influence my future reading and thinking, as it always does… and this time it’ll influence what I write on this blog, as well.

Tags: Constitution, Humanities Festival, Kurzweil