September 2010
3 posts
30 tags
America in Denial
Since the recent and appalling escalation in the scale of violence associated with drug-running criminal syndicates in Northern Mexico, culminating in the discovery by Mexican authorities of the bodies of 72 Central and South American migrants in a ranch house in the state of Tamaulipas last month, officials on both sides of the border have been desperate to create the illusion of effectuality in...
17 tags
Classic Albums: More Songs About Buildings and...
1978 was a wild time in music history. CBGB’s was hopping with rollicking tunes from the Ramones, Television, and Blondie. Punk rock was coming together as a cultural movement. In through this scene sauntered David Byrne and his Talking Heads, introducing dance and funk rhythms into the scratchy punk consensus.
On their 1977 debut, the Heads established themselves as a group of...
30 tags
Pakistan: World's Largest Focus Group?
Reading the press coverage of the flood in Pakistan these last few weeks, one might think our nation’s top journalists and government officials were discussing a fickle consumer demographic, rather than a country of some 170 million people facing an imminent crisis of famine and disease.
Among the most ubiquitously cited statistics, along with the fact that around 20 million people have been...
