I've been dealing all week with an insufferable cough and an overall feeling that can be easily understood when I describe that feeling as "crap." I feel like crap, which explains my lack of updates here all week. Below is an aggregate of things that I came across in the past week that I found interesting. 1. The "rentier" city, a playground for the rich: Is New York City increasingly becoming a rentier city?
2. A recent study (oh what I would do to be an assistant on this study) suggests that ovulating strippers earned more tips. "Dancers made about $70 an hour during their peak period of fertility, versus about $35 while menstruating and $50 in between."
3. Blackwater this, Blackwater that. What is Blackwater? The Nation explains in this snappy, maybe a bit too snappy, YouTube documentary. Nonetheless, if you don't know anything about this mercenary company, then you really need to inform yourself and watch this video. (Is it me or does the Blackwater logo look like something that belongs to a paintball team?)
5. Jon Stewart's thoughts on Clarence Thomas's recent book. CT, not only did you drink the kool aid, but you've gone right ahead and drowned yourself in it.
6. A bellwether moment for Asian males in their ongoing struggle against American society's attempt at emasculating their kind. (Raise the karate fist, ya'll!)
7. Will someone please buy Sallie Mae! Whoever does purchase Sallie Mae, I plead to you as part of the purchase, please get ridda my school loan!
8. The US 23rd Headquarters Special Troops during WWII played a special role as agents of subterfuge.
9. This is really turning into quite a trend, innit? Oral Robers, the Right-Wing Christian televangelist and founder of Oral Roberts University is embroiled in a scandal involving the improper use of funds and political activity.
10. How to buy a car at a fair and favorable cost in 13 steps.
11. This story has a special place in my heart as it took place near my alma mater: 8 self-proclaimed artists were arrested after being discovered living roughly for the past four years in a make-shift studio in the parking garage of the Providence Place Mall. The "apartment" featured a sofa, table and chairs, lamps, rugs as well as the crucial amenity of a Playstation 2. Here's the kicker: at some point during their residence, it was robbed and the video game system was taken.
12. A compilation of eight exhaustive Wikipedia entries that are unnecessarily detailed.
13. Cuteness overload warning: Pandas wrestling.
14. Pinkt vi menschen.