(via spiegelman)
Definitely the best ever.
The Hermitage, Nashville, TN. 08.01.06
"Were lives lost? Of course. Were cities razed, flesh burned with poison gas, families slaughtered and children raped? Naturally. But one can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, burning the crockery, setting the kitchen on fire, firebombing the restaurant and summarily executing the survivors."
Fafblog, on the End of the Iraq War.
Fafblog, on the End of the Iraq War.
California Paying I.O.U.s Because of Budget Shortfall. 
AIG got $122 billion. Bank of America got $45 billion. Citi got $25, and GM/Chrysler about $17 billion. And we can’t get $27 billion to a fucking state?
Isn’t California “too big to fail?”
Should Warren Buffet buy it?
“The more antagonistic a person is toward the traditional order, the more inexorably he will subject his private life to the norms that he wishes to elevate as legislators of a future society. It is as if these laws, nowhere yet realized, placed him under obligation to enact them in advance, at least in the confines of his own existence. In contrast, the man who knows himself to be in accord with the most ancient heritage of his class or nation will sometimes bring his private life into ostentatious contrast to the maxims that he unrelentingly asserts in public life, secretly approving his own behavior, without the slightest qualms, as the most conclusive proof of the unshakeable authority of the principles he puts on display. Thus are distinguished the types of the anarcho-socialist and the conservative politician.”
-Walter Benjamin, from “One Way Street,” 1928.
Muncho Lake, British Columbia. 7.28.05
If the Tumblr brass could waive the one-a-day Audio upload limit for this sad day in history, the gesture would be greatly appreciated.
Entrance to La Chacarita Cemetery, Buenos Aires. 1.20.07
When I’m there, Buenos Aires never conjures up the feeling I’m in Argentina. The best cities inspire the same lacking: New York doesn’t feel American, nor does San Francisco; Paris doesn’t feel French, Amsterdam very Dutch. There is something quaint about nationality, but there is nothing quaint about incredible cities. A great city predicts how its country will feel 25 years from now, too visceral to stand still and wait for the periphery to adopt its vision. Buenos Aires is a city of the world, and it has the planet’s most beautiful cemeteries.
Ira Rennert: The Bernie Madoff of the Environment.
The gentleman’s rap sheet includes marketing the Hummer as a civilian vehicle and purchasing a string of major polluters with money from companies he bankrupted with junk bonds. He lives in a $100-million, 40-bedroom house in the Hamptons that is the unofficial monument to the delusional American real estate boom. Love him or hate him, he is a fitting example of how an American businessman can and will behave when the American public is not directly affected by his actions. He is politely taken to task in today’s New York Times.
Rennert’s face-saving philanthropy here in New York masks a force of environmental destruction that continues to bring in record profits. Nothing new. But Lord help us if my generation produces an individual with even half this much ill will toward the rest of the planet.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Connie Francis, “Siboney,” from 2046: Motion Picture Soundtrack.
Animal Man, 1991.
