1. “I am not Jesus, but I have the same initials.” Thus sang Jarvis Cocker on the classic Pulp track “Dishes” (at bottom), and it now looks like he has a new contender to the throne, Tim Riggins himself, Mr. John Carter of Mars. That’s right: Finding Nemo director Andrew Stanton’s first live-action feature is out this weekend, and the consensus thus far is that there’s no consensus. Some claim that it’s an overblown mess, others that it’s the sort of exceedingly fun pulp adventure that doesn’t get made anymore. But Stanton is a filmmaker that I trust over any…
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Another Week Ends: John Carter, Obesity FAILs, Mary Karr on Suffering, Winning!, Friends with Kids, Springsteen’s Wrecking Ball and Community Returns
Obesity and the Bound Will
NEWS FLASH: there’s a really interesting Mockingbird thread going on right now, started by Jeff Dean and Dave Browder, on a proposed tax on sugar sweetened drinks like Coke. It’s already quite long — take a look!
The thoughtful comments started by Herr Browder made me think of an extraordinary cover article in THE ATLANTIC a couple months ago called Beating Obesity. It touches on a huge number of things, including all the different public health strategies being considered — one of which is the soda tax. But even more important it is written almost in the form of a personal…
Financial Villains, Regulation, and St. Paul’s understanding of the Law
In the review of the book “The Match King,” WSJ journalist, Chancellor, discusses how Bernie Madoff was not the first to commit fraud on Wall St (and will certainly not be the last!). The conclusion of his review echoes St. Paul’s view of the law and its inability to engender what it commands.
“Regulation can do little to prevent this state of affairs (financial villainy, etc.) from repeating itself. Regulatory agencies were created to protect the world against future Ivar Kreugers (the Match King/1932 Financial Villain). Yet the same agencies failed to heed warnings about…
Obesity Now A Lifestyle Choice
[Mbird friend John Stamper recently forwarded me a fascinating article about the book, The Fattening Of America. Among other things, the book relates the findings of a study which claims that, "many individuals are making a conscious decision to engage in a lifestyle that is obesity-promoting." What follows is Stamper's commentary on the issues raised by the article.]
When the article was posted on the [Angilcan news-] website TitusOneNine, it lead to a thread of responses, which largely fell into two categories. One group claimed that obesity was fine or it didn’t have anything to do with overeating; and the…
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