Yes, lets all go back to the days where most people ate a grain or tuber of some sort for the most part with some vegetables, heavily salted meat, cheese, and butter if they were really lucky.
During the much longed for earlier days of our republic, most people ate horribly. From Gotham by Burrows and Wallace, the diet of the NYC working class consisted of "bread and potatoes, corn and peas, beans and cabbage, and milk from cows fed on 'swill' -by-products of the city's distilleries." The horrible diet of the rural poor in the South and the diseases and malnutrition it caused is well known.
Long live properly regulated free trade and the FDA.
I'd also argue that the law favors families over hedonism considering how hard it is to get a liquor license, open a drinking establishment, or a club. If its hard to make cities more family friendly, its because nobody wants to pay the tax dollars necessary for family friendly cities. Besides adequate housing, you also need daycare facilities, schools, parks, museums, and other services and amenities for people with kids. These things cost money and business people seem uninterested in providing these services and amenities for the most part. You make a lot more money by providing "adult playground" amenities. The cities largely turned into adult playgrounds because policy favored the automobile suburb since 1945. With a different set of policies, our cities would still be places to raise your family rather than adult playgrounds.
I also still think that your freaking about one riot. Should riots happen? No, they shouldn't but one minor riot in one city in a huge nation isn't a sign that culture is on a decline.
The Childless City article is hogwash. I live in one of those famed hipster/adult playground neighborhoods in NYC and I see plenty of parents with kids and babies in strollers. These parents are looking for ways to educate their kids in the city rather than having to move to one of the suburbs. People of my generation and socio-economic group generally want to raise their kids in the city.
The adult play ground aspect of neighborhood is not that hedonistic either. Its people hanging out with friends in bars or restaurants or, weather permitting, in parks or on the street.
I'm fine with Obamacare but my fantasy solution, because it will never happen, is an American equivalent of NHS. I even have a name for it, the United States Public Health Service. I'd also like PBS to be funded through taxes like the BBC. Give them a decent budget to make their own comedies and drama rather than having to show British stuff for that.
I'm having a very difficult time remembering all the passwords and pin numbers that I need to. Especially if I don't use the passwords and PIN numbers often.
Glyph, I think there are some logistical problems to electric monitoring/house arrest. Mainly, if the prisoner rents and can't work while under house arrest; who pays the rent? How do you get food, toilet paper, and the like to the prisoner? Your presuming that each prisoner will have friends and loved ones that will help take care of these things. Prison allows us to take care of the daily needs of prisoners better than house arrest.
I think that the problem is that producers of tv news constantly underestimate the intelligence of their audience. Maybe there is a good reason for this, I don't work in the tv industry. However, if you aim for the lowest common denomintor than you get something shallow.
Greg gets one of my points. My other point is that I think that people have less of a concept of privacy than they do in the past, especially millennials. I'm going to really be surprised if people born after 2000 are going to have any concept of privacy since their parents are posting pictures of them to the entire world through social media. People are simply putting too much out in public on the internet for me to say that they have a sufficiently developed concept of privacy.
The idea of privacy implies that there are things that you want to keep secret from government, from your family, from your friends, from your neighbors, and from your employers. We have people openly posting things to the internet that would have destroyed their lives not so long ago if anybody found out. One thing that we didn't mention in our discussion of Babbit was that there used to be a facade of respectability that most people had to maintain. We don't have that anymore. We're more free but maybe privacy was a fatality of giving up the facade of respectability.
I'm going to add that a lot of people don't care about this because the Internet is pretty much destroying any idea of privacy. People willingly and knowingly share some very intimate details of their life online. We are having an entire generation of children whose parents are exposing their growing up to the entire world.
If we want government to respect our privacy, we need to have a concept of privacy. A lot of people don't anymore. They desire to stand naked through out the world on the Internet.
I think the enlightened conservative response would be not to like it personally but to shrug and have a what can you do about it type attitude and go along. That is not prohibit or punish for it but don't actively support it or cheerlead or it either.
Americans tend to have more space than Europeans on average. Having more space to fill in their homes or even apartments, Americans are more likely to go for the cheap things since most people don't like the minimalist look. It doesn't look homey. I suspect that Australians, Canadians, and New Zealanders are similar to Americans in purchsing choices.
The Hunger Games underwhelmed me. I was a thrity-two year old man when I saw it, so I'm not the target audience, but enough people who weren't the target audience liked it so I gave it a try. Its a basic dystopian future story with a dash of Greco-Roman civilization and mythology thrown in. How on earth is this revolutionary?
Hasn't theatre always been big on spectacle? When going to theatre was more common, people weren't going to artistically innovative plays. They were going to true and tried crowd pleasers like Sheakespeare, vaudville, melodramas that had as much spectacle as possible in theatre, and musicals. When something artistic became a big hit, it was because people thought it was a crowd pleaser like the Three Penny Opera. The same goes with movies, the big movies were always the crowd pleasers even if they were empty of spectacle. Still, spectacle in the movies is as old as the movies themselves.
Does everything need to be sugar-coated with a science fiction gloss these days? In the past we could have overtly political movies that were more realistic in terms of antagonists, protagnoists, plots, and situations. They did not need fancy, special effects.
I just find that there is something about reading on a screen that makes any sort of focused reading really hard. When you have a page of text, its easier to force yourself to pay close attention to the words and slow down in order to absorb everything.
I find that I read differently when I read on my kindle. E-readers encourage faster reading than printed books. With books, its a lot easier to focus and study.
Chris, people who deface beautiful books by writing on the margins or underlying passengers are committing a grevious sin, akin to desecrating a work of art. Even the most boring looking print book in the world is to be protected, respected, and revered. When I was in college and law school, I always shelled out money for new rather than used additions because I knew there would be no markings on them.
My political instincts are telling me we are experiencing why highly ideologically and partisan parties are not good under a system based on separation of powers.
James, the anti-luddites often point out that technology makes better paying jobs available in the future. They argue that the jobs that were displaced by the power loom were replaced by better paying working class jobs on railroads or in automobile factories. They keep forgetting that the Luddite weavers lost their jobs in the 1780s and the railroads didn't really take off until the 1830s and 1840s. What were the people displaced by the power loom supposed to do for a generation or two or three or four? Work grueling jobs as day laborers for a quarter or tenth of the pay?
People live in the present, not the future. They need jobs and wages to support themselves and their dependents now, not latter.
I'd hardly call one riot in a nation of more than 300 million a sign that our culture failed youth. I actually do believe that our culture failed its youth but this isn't a sign of it and not for the reasons you think.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Cultural Kelvin”
Why won't people act like automatons rather than you know, people?
"
Yes, lets all go back to the days where most people ate a grain or tuber of some sort for the most part with some vegetables, heavily salted meat, cheese, and butter if they were really lucky.
During the much longed for earlier days of our republic, most people ate horribly. From Gotham by Burrows and Wallace, the diet of the NYC working class consisted of "bread and potatoes, corn and peas, beans and cabbage, and milk from cows fed on 'swill' -by-products of the city's distilleries." The horrible diet of the rural poor in the South and the diseases and malnutrition it caused is well known.
Long live properly regulated free trade and the FDA.
"
I'd also argue that the law favors families over hedonism considering how hard it is to get a liquor license, open a drinking establishment, or a club. If its hard to make cities more family friendly, its because nobody wants to pay the tax dollars necessary for family friendly cities. Besides adequate housing, you also need daycare facilities, schools, parks, museums, and other services and amenities for people with kids. These things cost money and business people seem uninterested in providing these services and amenities for the most part. You make a lot more money by providing "adult playground" amenities. The cities largely turned into adult playgrounds because policy favored the automobile suburb since 1945. With a different set of policies, our cities would still be places to raise your family rather than adult playgrounds.
I also still think that your freaking about one riot. Should riots happen? No, they shouldn't but one minor riot in one city in a huge nation isn't a sign that culture is on a decline.
"
The Childless City article is hogwash. I live in one of those famed hipster/adult playground neighborhoods in NYC and I see plenty of parents with kids and babies in strollers. These parents are looking for ways to educate their kids in the city rather than having to move to one of the suburbs. People of my generation and socio-economic group generally want to raise their kids in the city.
The adult play ground aspect of neighborhood is not that hedonistic either. Its people hanging out with friends in bars or restaurants or, weather permitting, in parks or on the street.
On “Poverty: Giving a Damn”
I'm fine with Obamacare but my fantasy solution, because it will never happen, is an American equivalent of NHS. I even have a name for it, the United States Public Health Service. I'd also like PBS to be funded through taxes like the BBC. Give them a decent budget to make their own comedies and drama rather than having to show British stuff for that.
"
We're doomed. Libertarians rejoice, we might get your version of government through gridlock.
"
I'm having a very difficult time remembering all the passwords and pin numbers that I need to. Especially if I don't use the passwords and PIN numbers often.
On “Weekend!”
I'm going dancing on Saturday night. I'm doing laundry on Sunday.
On “Death Penalty in Decline”
Glyph, I think there are some logistical problems to electric monitoring/house arrest. Mainly, if the prisoner rents and can't work while under house arrest; who pays the rent? How do you get food, toilet paper, and the like to the prisoner? Your presuming that each prisoner will have friends and loved ones that will help take care of these things. Prison allows us to take care of the daily needs of prisoners better than house arrest.
On “TV Makes Us Look Stupid”
I think that the problem is that producers of tv news constantly underestimate the intelligence of their audience. Maybe there is a good reason for this, I don't work in the tv industry. However, if you aim for the lowest common denomintor than you get something shallow.
On “Don Draper’s Purgatorio”
They had a lot of cool books from back then. Does mom still have the Strange Death of Liberal England?
On “Life Is Short. Hug Your Loved Ones.”
I wish your father the best Will.
On “The End of Benign Ignorance”
Greg gets one of my points. My other point is that I think that people have less of a concept of privacy than they do in the past, especially millennials. I'm going to really be surprised if people born after 2000 are going to have any concept of privacy since their parents are posting pictures of them to the entire world through social media. People are simply putting too much out in public on the internet for me to say that they have a sufficiently developed concept of privacy.
The idea of privacy implies that there are things that you want to keep secret from government, from your family, from your friends, from your neighbors, and from your employers. We have people openly posting things to the internet that would have destroyed their lives not so long ago if anybody found out. One thing that we didn't mention in our discussion of Babbit was that there used to be a facade of respectability that most people had to maintain. We don't have that anymore. We're more free but maybe privacy was a fatality of giving up the facade of respectability.
"
I'm going to add that a lot of people don't care about this because the Internet is pretty much destroying any idea of privacy. People willingly and knowingly share some very intimate details of their life online. We are having an entire generation of children whose parents are exposing their growing up to the entire world.
If we want government to respect our privacy, we need to have a concept of privacy. A lot of people don't anymore. They desire to stand naked through out the world on the Internet.
On “De-gendering the School”
I think the enlightened conservative response would be not to like it personally but to shrug and have a what can you do about it type attitude and go along. That is not prohibit or punish for it but don't actively support it or cheerlead or it either.
On “What Online Education Shares with IKEA”
Americans tend to have more space than Europeans on average. Having more space to fill in their homes or even apartments, Americans are more likely to go for the cheap things since most people don't like the minimalist look. It doesn't look homey. I suspect that Australians, Canadians, and New Zealanders are similar to Americans in purchsing choices.
On “What Kind of Film is Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium”
The Hunger Games underwhelmed me. I was a thrity-two year old man when I saw it, so I'm not the target audience, but enough people who weren't the target audience liked it so I gave it a try. Its a basic dystopian future story with a dash of Greco-Roman civilization and mythology thrown in. How on earth is this revolutionary?
"
Hasn't theatre always been big on spectacle? When going to theatre was more common, people weren't going to artistically innovative plays. They were going to true and tried crowd pleasers like Sheakespeare, vaudville, melodramas that had as much spectacle as possible in theatre, and musicals. When something artistic became a big hit, it was because people thought it was a crowd pleaser like the Three Penny Opera. The same goes with movies, the big movies were always the crowd pleasers even if they were empty of spectacle. Still, spectacle in the movies is as old as the movies themselves.
"
Does everything need to be sugar-coated with a science fiction gloss these days? In the past we could have overtly political movies that were more realistic in terms of antagonists, protagnoists, plots, and situations. They did not need fancy, special effects.
On “A Couple Items On eBooks”
I just find that there is something about reading on a screen that makes any sort of focused reading really hard. When you have a page of text, its easier to force yourself to pay close attention to the words and slow down in order to absorb everything.
"
I find that I read differently when I read on my kindle. E-readers encourage faster reading than printed books. With books, its a lot easier to focus and study.
"
Chris, people who deface beautiful books by writing on the margins or underlying passengers are committing a grevious sin, akin to desecrating a work of art. Even the most boring looking print book in the world is to be protected, respected, and revered. When I was in college and law school, I always shelled out money for new rather than used additions because I knew there would be no markings on them.
On “Chase the Economy but Don’t Lose Sight of Immigration”
My political instincts are telling me we are experiencing why highly ideologically and partisan parties are not good under a system based on separation of powers.
On “Silicon Stupid”
James, the anti-luddites often point out that technology makes better paying jobs available in the future. They argue that the jobs that were displaced by the power loom were replaced by better paying working class jobs on railroads or in automobile factories. They keep forgetting that the Luddite weavers lost their jobs in the 1780s and the railroads didn't really take off until the 1830s and 1840s. What were the people displaced by the power loom supposed to do for a generation or two or three or four? Work grueling jobs as day laborers for a quarter or tenth of the pay?
People live in the present, not the future. They need jobs and wages to support themselves and their dependents now, not latter.
On “A leisurely Sunday afternoon riot”
I'd hardly call one riot in a nation of more than 300 million a sign that our culture failed youth. I actually do believe that our culture failed its youth but this isn't a sign of it and not for the reasons you think.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.