I'd like to live near you, but first, I have some questions...

Really provocative Economist piece on the self-segregation of American communities. Includes all sorts of juicy implications in politics, economics, etc. Here's a loaded excerpt:

A good way to measure this is to look at the country's changing electoral geography. In 1976 Jimmy Carter won the presidency with 50.1% of the popular vote. Though the race was close, some 26.8% of Americans were in “landslide counties” that year, where Mr Carter either won or lost by 20 percentage points or more.

The proportion of Americans who live in such landslide counties has nearly doubled since then. In the dead-heat election of 2000, it was 45.3%. When George Bush narrowly won re-election in 2004, it was a whopping 48.3%. As the playwright Arthur Miller put it that year: “How can the polls be neck and neck when I don't know one Bush supporter?” Clustering is how.

**Credit goes to Andrea Cross for forwarding this, thanks!

CD sales down, LP sales up

The Onion's take, but an interesting factoid nonetheless.

Millennials

Interesting, amusing article on the culture gap between Generation X and Generation Y (aka Millennials or "my generation" though I seriously frown on some of my cohort's behavior - see article).

p.s. Despite being 24, this article made me feel a bit old!

America going the way of the Romans, Greeks, etc.?

David Brooks examines the debt culture in America and the deterioration of financial morals. When did we stop being able to control ourselves?

Some scary figures excerpted:

Between 1989 and 2001, credit-card debt nearly tripled, soaring from $238 billion to $692 billion. By last year, it was up to $937 billion...

The agents of destruction are many. State governments have played a role. They aggressively hawk their lottery products, which some people call a tax on stupidity. Twenty percent of Americans are frequent players, spending about $60 billion a year. The spending is starkly regressive. A household with income under $13,000 spends, on average, $645 a year on lottery tickets, about 9 percent of all income.

Fifty-six percent of students in their final year of college carry four or more credit cards.



If financial values had not shifted so much, I do not think it would have been possible for certain things to have happened - obviously, the housing crisis is the first example to come to mind, but I think it probably also contributed to the spreading income gap in America (be sure to read "The Rich and the Rest of Us" for more talk of that). I need to meditate on this topic more, but I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.

Hyphy

There are some Bay Area things I will most likely never understand.

Update: As a follow-up, when ghost riding goes wrong...

Willpower

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/opinion/02aamodt.html?em&ex=1207368000&en=389b01b889cd3fb2&ei=5087%0A

Just a lot of interesting observations about will power and what may be ahead in these hard economic times.

Oh, the things we take for granted...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/world/middleeast/12dubai.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

“Every man looks at a woman in a bathing suit when he sees her,” he said. “What can I do? I’m a normal man.”

Note: To the uptight women with the money to frolick around Dubai in a swimsuit - stop complaing. Seriously, what do you expect?

New blog to keep an eye on...

http://www.itmustbenortherncalifornia.blogspot.com/



Also, read this article on urbanization and check out this cartoon (somewhat controversial, but as for its truth... I haven't decided yet - thoughts?):

SO something I would do.

For Las Vegas concierges, no request too crazy

Concierges at luxury hotels may be used to receiving over-the-top requests, but in Las Vegas, the requests can be truly outlandish. One concierge describes a request from a guest to have a mariachi band follow him around the casino all night, and another says a guest wanted to have actors portraying Oompa Loompa characters brought to a party.