sunday times
Jan. 25th, 2004 05:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jfbIt's been a long time, hasn't it?
Three op-ed pieces on marriage and the government: Dorothy A. Brown says the government should stop penalizing people for being married. Shari Motro says it should stop penalizing people for being single. And Laura Kipnis pretty much just thinks marriage is a bad idea.
A fund company chairman "has submitted a proposal to limit the chief's pay at seven companies," including Sun and Viacom, "to a figure that is 100 times that of the average worker, unless shareholders approve more. If a company asks them for higher pay, it would have to list at least one performance goal that was reached mostly because of the chief executive."
Is salary inequality really growing in the United States? Gregg Easterbrook's new book says it isn't, if you factor out immigrants (who came from countries where they were making even less). Except now he admits he was wrong. The book sounds interesting anyway, arguing "that Americans do not realize quite how good they have it. Diseases that once ended thousands of lives are now just a nuisance, and life expectancy has soared. Home heating and air-conditioning are almost ubiquitous. The prices of air travel and telephone calls have plummeted, allowing average people to move easily around the country and to talk to the other side of the world." And so on.
A review of nuclear arms proliferation reminds us that "President Bush moved first, and most decisively, against a country that posed a smaller proliferation risk than North Korea, Libya and Iran or even one of America's allies, Pakistan." David Kay, America's head arms inspector in Iraq, has been unable to find any weapons of mass destruction, has resigned, and has now stated that he doesn't think there were any.
More and more tourists are making filming locations their destinations--notably New Zealand, which apparently is one giant Lord of the Rings set. Notable facts from the article: First, the Japanese hotel where much of Lost in Translation took place now offers a five-night package based on the alienation and disorientation depicted in the film. And second, if you tell the New York Times your name is spelled "all lower case, like e.e. cummings," they will refer to you as "Mr. finder."
A piece on Philip Pullman's anti-religious fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials, ostensibly focused on a six-hour theatrical production in London, actually gives a nice overview of the books and their success. Notable to me for the facts that New Line has hired Tom Stoppard to write the screenplay, and the BBC is working on five new Narnia movies. A brief review of the play says that it's impressive and ambitious but too long and plot-driven to evoke much emotion.
Neil Strauss's Playlist mentions the Long Winters and Strong Bad.
Three op-ed pieces on marriage and the government: Dorothy A. Brown says the government should stop penalizing people for being married. Shari Motro says it should stop penalizing people for being single. And Laura Kipnis pretty much just thinks marriage is a bad idea.
A fund company chairman "has submitted a proposal to limit the chief's pay at seven companies," including Sun and Viacom, "to a figure that is 100 times that of the average worker, unless shareholders approve more. If a company asks them for higher pay, it would have to list at least one performance goal that was reached mostly because of the chief executive."
Is salary inequality really growing in the United States? Gregg Easterbrook's new book says it isn't, if you factor out immigrants (who came from countries where they were making even less). Except now he admits he was wrong. The book sounds interesting anyway, arguing "that Americans do not realize quite how good they have it. Diseases that once ended thousands of lives are now just a nuisance, and life expectancy has soared. Home heating and air-conditioning are almost ubiquitous. The prices of air travel and telephone calls have plummeted, allowing average people to move easily around the country and to talk to the other side of the world." And so on.
A review of nuclear arms proliferation reminds us that "President Bush moved first, and most decisively, against a country that posed a smaller proliferation risk than North Korea, Libya and Iran or even one of America's allies, Pakistan." David Kay, America's head arms inspector in Iraq, has been unable to find any weapons of mass destruction, has resigned, and has now stated that he doesn't think there were any.
More and more tourists are making filming locations their destinations--notably New Zealand, which apparently is one giant Lord of the Rings set. Notable facts from the article: First, the Japanese hotel where much of Lost in Translation took place now offers a five-night package based on the alienation and disorientation depicted in the film. And second, if you tell the New York Times your name is spelled "all lower case, like e.e. cummings," they will refer to you as "Mr. finder."
A piece on Philip Pullman's anti-religious fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials, ostensibly focused on a six-hour theatrical production in London, actually gives a nice overview of the books and their success. Notable to me for the facts that New Line has hired Tom Stoppard to write the screenplay, and the BBC is working on five new Narnia movies. A brief review of the play says that it's impressive and ambitious but too long and plot-driven to evoke much emotion.
Neil Strauss's Playlist mentions the Long Winters and Strong Bad.
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 03:16 am (UTC)Oh God I hope they don't include a hooker.
as an addendum, because i see alot of people talking about this
Date: 2004-01-26 04:46 am (UTC)But on Sunday, Kay reiterated his conclusion that Saddam had "a large number of WMD program-related activities." And, he said, Iraq's leaders had intended to continue those activities.
"There were scientists and engineers working on developing weapons or weapons concepts that they had not moved into actual production," Kay said. "But in some areas, for example producing mustard gas, they knew all the answers, they had done it in the past, and it was a relatively simple thing to go from where they were to starting to produce it."
The Iraqis had not decided to begin producing such weapons at the time of the invasion, he concluded.
Kay also said chaos in postwar Iraq made it impossible to know with certainty whether Iraq had had banned weapons.
And, he said, there is ample evidence that Iraq was moving a steady stream of goods shipments to Syria, but it is difficult to determine whether the cargoes included weapons, in part because Syria has refused to cooperate in this part of the weapons investigation.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 08:48 am (UTC)After i read the Strong Bad review, I posted it elsewhere on a friend's board. A few hours later, a friend who hadn't seen me for a while, gave me that very same CD as a belated Christmas present, having never seen my post.
easterbrook
Date: 2004-01-26 08:10 pm (UTC)Re: easterbrook
Date: 2004-01-26 08:22 pm (UTC)Re: easterbrook
Date: 2004-01-26 08:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 10:16 pm (UTC)As for the movie - if anyone can do the story justice, Tom Stoppard can.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 10:28 pm (UTC)