Month: August 2009

Move over, Kristols, Kagans and Podhoretzes, a new dynasty is emerging. To check it all out, read Jonah link to Lucianne to support Josh, who's now employed by Lucianne. They all agree that more Americans ought to stand on their own two feet.

A greater proportion of Americans now support torture than Chinese. Some of it has to do with America having far more evangelical Christians.

A call to chill from David Paul Kuhn.

A blog by a used book store employee that chronicles "the personal, funny, heartbreaking and weird things" found in old books.

(Hat tip: Althouse)

There was a time when the East German police state actually feared Michael Jackson.

Scott Adams suggests a new one:

Well, I'd be in favor of half-of-that. In related news, a man who helped raise the drinking age to 21 now regrets the decision.

Japan's economic recession – the worst since WWII – is shifting social norms among women:

The women who pour drinks in Japan’s sleek gentlemen’s clubs were once shunned because their duties were considered immodest: lavishing adoring (albeit nonsexual) attention on men for a hefty fee. But with that line of work, called hostessing, among the most lucrative jobs available to women and with the country neck-deep in a recession, hostess positions are increasingly coveted, and hostesses themselves are gaining respectability and even acclaim.

And men:

"Herbivorous boys" […] are rejecting traditional masculinity when it comes to romance, jobs and consumption in an apparent reaction to the tougher economy. Forget being a workaholic, corporate salary-man. [They are] defined literally as grass-eating but in this context as not being interested in flesh or passive about pursuing women.

Paul Graham makes some very good points:

There are two types of schedule, which I'll call the manager's schedule and the maker's schedule. The manager's schedule is for bosses. It's embodied in the traditional appointment book, with each day cut into one hour intervals. You can block off several hours for a single task if you need to, but by default you change what you're doing every hour. When you use time that way, it's merely a practical problem to meet with someone. Find an open slot in your schedule, book them, and you're done. Most powerful people are on the manager's schedule. It's the schedule of command. But there's another way of using time that's common among people who make things, like programmers and writers. They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can't write or program well in units of an hour. That's barely enough time to get started.

(Hat tip: Freakonomics)

Or how opposites attract: