FRESH AIR “Pet fashion shows, Chihuahua social networking, veterinary antidepressants [and] ambulance-chasing animal lawyers” are just the tip of what Philadelphia-based journalist Michael Schaffer says is a kind of pet-obsession iceberg in the lives of the American middle class. In his new book One Nation Under Dog, Schaffer takes a close look at the $43 billion industry that’s grown to help enable that obsession, explaining how that booming market reflects our evolving ideas of consumerism, family, politics and domesticity. But One Nation Under Dog is no dry industry analysis: It’s a book, as Schaffer explains on his Web site, that’s […]
HAVE A CIGAR: Congress To Lift Cuban Travel Ban
LOS ANGELES TIMES: A bipartisan group of senators predicted Tuesday that Congress was ready to pass legislation to allow all Americans to travel to Cuba. Removing the travel ban would produce a burst of tourism, create thousands of jobs and generate as much as $1.6 billion in business a year, an independent research group said. A Senate news conference Tuesday and one in the House set for Thursday reflect new attempts to lift the travel ban, a key part of the U.S. trade embargo imposed after Fidel Castro took power in Havana in 1959. The broader trade embargo would remain […]
GAS, GRASS OR ASS: Nobody Rides For Free
[CLICK TO ENLARGE] DETROIT FREE PRESS: President Barack Obama took charge of Detroit’s auto industry Monday, vowing to transform it into a world leader in fuel-efficient vehicles — but demanding a plan of action within two months. Obama compared the decline of Detroit to a natural disaster, saying it deserved the same kind of emergency attention. But he warned that, within 60 days, General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC would either be on a path to independence or on their way out. MORE NEW YORK TIMES: President Obama struck an acceptable compromise on Monday between two unappealing options: letting General Motors […]
WORTH REPEATING: Return Of The Robber Barons
ATLANTIC: In its depth and suddenness, the U.S. economic and financial crisis is shockingly reminiscent of moments we have recently seen in emerging markets (and only in emerging markets): South Korea (1997), Malaysia (1998), Russia and Argentina (time and again). In each of those cases, global investors, afraid that the country or its financial sector wouldn’t be able to pay off mountainous debt, suddenly stopped lending. And in each case, that fear became self-fulfilling, as banks that couldn’t roll over their debt did, in fact, become unable to pay. This is precisely what drove Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy on September […]
O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU: Obama Lets Us Down On Privacy, Pot And The Fourth Amendment
CBS NEWS: As CBS News’ Chief Political Correspondent Marc Ambinder points out, the top-rated questions in the “budget” and “fiscal stability” sections of the submissions page concerned the legalization of marijuana. (Here’s one: “With over 1 out of 30 Americans controlled by the penal system, why not legalize, control, and tax marijuana to change the failed war on drugs into a money making, money saving boost to the economy? Do we really need that many victimless criminals?”) Hotsheet did not expect President Obama to address the pot questions during the town hall, particularly after the event opened with a […]
DAMN: The Double Atomic Wedgie Of A So-Called Life
TELEGRAPH: Tsutomu Yamaguchi had already been a certified hibakusha, or radiation survivor, of the Aug 9, 1945, atomic bombing in Nagasaki. But officials have now confirmed that he also survived the attack on Hiroshima three days earlier. Mr Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip on Aug 6, 1945, when a US B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on the city. He then returned to his home in Nagasaki just in time for the second attack, officials said. “As far as we know, he is the first one to be officially recognised as a survivor of atomic bombings in both […]
President Tells Worried Nation To Chill The F*ck Out
NEW YORK TIMES: For just under an hour on Tuesday night, Americans saw not the fiery and inspirational speaker who riveted the nation in his address to Congress last month, or the conversational president who warmly engaged Americans in talks across the country, or even the jaunty and jokey president who turned up on Jay Leno. Instead, in his second prime-time news conference from the White House, it was Barack Obama the lecturer, a familiar character from early in the campaign. Placid and unsmiling, he was the professor in chief, offering familiar arguments in long paragraphs — often introduced with […]
Congress Considers ‘Newspaper Revitalization Act’
REUTERS: With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, a Democratic senator on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks. “This may not be the optimal choice for some major newspapers or corporate media chains but it should be an option for many newspapers that are struggling to stay afloat,” said Senator Benjamin Cardin. A Cardin spokesman said the bill had yet to attract any co-sponsors, but had sparked plenty of interest within the media, which has seen plunging revenues and many journalist layoffs. Cardin’s Newspaper Revitalization […]
CHANGE: Obama Halts Mountain Top Removal Mining
WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT: Yes, elections do matter. Putting a quick halt to an Orwellian Bush administration rule allowing mining companies to kill mountain streams, the Environmental Protection Agency this afternoon announced that it will delay hundreds of mining permits while it takes a closer look at how the operations will affect local waterways. “EPA will use the best science and follow the letter of the law in ensuring we are protecting our environment,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement. Of all the methods used to extract coal, none is so destructive to ecosystems as mountaintop mining — a process […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Alejandro Junco de la Vega runs daily newspapers in three of Mexico’s largest cities: Reforma in Mexico City, Mural in Guadalajara and El Norte in Monterrey. Junco was born in Monterrey and earned his journalism degree from the University of Texas. He returned to Mexico to become the publisher of El Norte in 1973. Even at the beginning of his newspaper empire-building, Junco fought for freedom of the press — he hired a UT journalism professor to teach journalistic ethics and techniques to the reporters of El Norte. After El Norte became successful, Junco founded Reforma and Mural. […]
MUST READ: Welcome To The Occupation
ROLLING STONE: It’s over — we’re officially, royally fucked. No empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in […]
BE VERY AFRAID: Wall Street Likes Geithner Plan
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: More than six months after the financial crisis began, the US government has a detailed plan that strikes at the heart of the overarching problem with the economy: “toxic assets” sitting on banks’ books. The government’s latest effort to try to help the troubled financial system involves setting up a mechanism by which the taxpayers and private investors buy those bad assets. The effort, announced on Monday by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, transfers part of the risk to America’s taxpayers and the federal bank insurance system. It’s not clear how much money the government will ultimately need […]
SICKO: Insurers Too Big To Fail Or Too Cruel To Heal?
BRIAN HICKEY: Ever since a hit-and-run driver mowed me down in Collingswood on Nov. 28, I’ve been considered a “patient.” The conversational-English translation of that term is “dramatically injured person at the total mercy of insurance-company whims.” After I was released from inpatient care at Philadelphia’s Magee Rehabilitation in January, I was forced to wait more than six weeks for outpatient physical, occupational, and cognitive therapy. For context, more than two weeks of waiting risks regression on all three fronts. My mistake? Figuring my local insurance company would grasp why I wanted to stick with the therapist who inexplicably got […]