Month: May 2012

How inflation thwarted the big-time bank robber:

In 1889, when Butch Cassidy robbed the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride, Colo. for $21,000, that cash could have weighed just a couple pounds … , and would have nearly 20 times that value today, as far as spending power is concerned. In today’s dollars, Cassidy’s take was worth about half a million dollars—nearly a quarter million per pound of cash. Nowadays, a pound of twenties has about $9,000 in spending power. You’d need 55 pounds of cash to meet Cassidy’s 1889 take.

Aghast at college students who phone their parents a half-dozen times a day, Terry Castle makes the case for disengaging:

Parents, in my opinion, have to be finessed, thought around, even as we love them: They are so colossally wrong about so many important things. And even when they are not, paradoxically, even when they are 100 percent right, the imperative remains the same: To live an "adult" life, a meaningful life, it is necessary, I would argue, to engage in a kind of symbolic self-orphaning. 

Conversely, Nona Willis Aronowitz isn't worried about adults living with their parents. Previous coverage of different parenting styles here.

Christopher R. Graham documents the persistent rise of "artisanal" crafts:

According to the Wall Street Journal, in 2011, the worldwide market for handmade sewing, woodwork, jewelry, and the like was roughly $30 billion. The largest growth is happening online: Sales of $1.4 billion in 2011 are expected to reach $2.2 billion in 2016. The website Etsy.com is the biggest online player, accounting for nearly half of 2011’s revenue. … There’s something incongruous and strange about large-scale interest in stuff that’s ostensibly small-ish and personal, literally handmade.

Regretsy, which mocks exceptionally bad Etsy goods, bills itself as the place "where DIY meets WTF". On the item seen above:

When you’re making a necklace out of rope and house paint, it’s time to stop crafting.

Lindy West provides an overview of Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History by Florence Williams:

She learns that it’s the breast’s permeability that make it such an evolutionary powerhouse (lots and lots of estrogen receptors help human puberty occur at the optimal time; nutrient-rich breast milk makes for giant brains)—but that same permeability is also, partially, what causes one in eight women to develop breast cancer. Our breasts make us great but they also make us vulnerable, and you can’t help but come away from Williams’ book feeling a bit helpless.

Bryan Appleyard examines extremophiles – hyper-resilient organisms that may hold the key to new antibiotics, among other things:

Some estimates suggest that the biomass beneath the seabed is greater than that above. They have also encouraged a new confidence in the idea that we are not alone in the universe. The bandwidth of possible survivable environments—and, therefore, forms of life—has broadened enormously. … Extremophiles have changed our view of ourselves. We are, ultimately, their offspring.

In 2010, there were about 360,000 Americans with masters degrees or higher on public assistance. Stacey Patton reports on them:

Some are struggling to pay back student loans and cover basic living expenses as they submit scores of applications for a limited pool of full-time academic positions. Others are trying to raise families or pay for their children's college expenses on the low and fluctuating pay they receive as professors off the tenure track, a group that now makes up 70 percent of faculties. Many bounce on and off unemployment or welfare during semester breaks. And some adjuncts have found themselves trying to make ends meet by waiting tables or bagging groceries alongside their students.

Rod Dreher wonders what we're doing wrong.

Fawaz Gerges senses a shift among Islamist parties away from theological ranting and towards the bottom line:

Islamist parties are increasingly becoming "service" parties: an acknowledgment that political legitimacy and the likelihood of re-election rests on the ability to deliver jobs, economic growth, and to demonstrate transparency. This factor introduces a huge degree of pragmatism in their policies. The example of Turkey, especially its economic success, has had a major impact on Arab Islamists, many of whom would like to emulate the Turkish model. The Arab Islamists have, in other words, understood the truth of the slogan, "It is the economy, stupid!" The Turkish model, with the religiously observant provincial bourgeoisie as its kingpin, also acts as a reminder that Islam and capitalism are mutually reinforcing and compatible.

(Photo: Cars drive under a billboard in Cairo advertising Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate Mohammed Mursi on May 8, 2012. The upcoming presidential election is scheduled for May 23 and 24 and a run off for June 16 and 17 if there is no outright winner in the first round. AFP PHOTO/GIANLUIGI GUERCIA By Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/GettyImages.)

Cassandra Willyard doubts she will ever want kids. Christie Aschwanden reassures her that's ok:

The question of baby or no baby touches on one of the most fundamental decisions we face as adults—how will we focus our attention? … I love my husband, and I don’t long for interlopers in our marriage. I like that lingering in bed together in the early sunshine and sharing leisurely breakfasts while discussing the morning newspaper are not special occasions for us, but regular pleasures that don’t require any pre-planning. 

Cameron Walker speaks from the flipside.

"The More Loving One" by W. H. Auden:

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Continued here.

(Image: "Orbiting our galaxy in the lonely depths of intergalactic space, 160+ globular clusters are among the oldest structures we know. They’re composed of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands, of stars, all held together by their mutual gravity," by the European Southern Observatory via Phil Plait)