"Decoder Magazine is foremost an attempt to interpret a world of culture and media in which the preeminent players have been the newly liberated human and the ambitious constellation of niche communities that new resources have given us digital beings unparalleled access to"
—
Decoder Magazine, Issue #1 Kickstarter
That sounds great and all, but wait … say what?
Residents of Worcester’s Grafton Hill neighborhood acknowledged Monday they would not necessarily mind a Panera Bread franchise coming in and wiping out Callahan’s, a charming, family-run bakery that has been a fixture of their community since 1964.
According to locals, the national restaurant chain would be just the thing to run the mom-and-pop establishment out of business, replacing Callahan’s genuinely warm, welcoming atmosphere with the kind of impersonal, hassle-free cafe experience they have long desired.
“Callahan’s really is lovely and all, but every time I’m in there I get roped into a 10-minute conversation about what’s going on in the neighborhood, or the history of some recipe that’s been in their family for generations,” said patron Catherine New, 33, who told reporters the friendly older couple who owns the shop is always there, apparently working from open to close every single day. “It would be such a relief to walk in somewhere and have some disinterested college-age kid take my order without even making eye contact.”
“They’re nice at Callahan’s, but they don’t seem to get that this is only a business transaction,” New continued. “I just want a cup of coffee. We’re not friends.”
Neighborhood Kind Of Hoping Panera Bread Shows Up And Plows Over Charming Local Bakery — The Onion
"This has been a key theme of 2011: For reasons that defy any of the signals we’re seeing in the actual economy, Congress — and, for much of the year, the president — has been obsessed with finding a deal on deficit reduction and relatively resigned on policies to create jobs. In part, that’s simply because the Republicans in Congress were (and are) staunchly opposed to further stimulus but seemed willing to work with Democrats on the deficit, and the political system prefers to focus on things it can do rather than things it can’t. In part, it’s because, for most of the year, Democrats were willing to go along with Republicans who wanted to talk about the deficit rather than job creation measures — note that they didn’t, for example, demand, as part of the debt-ceiling deal, that the supercommittee also come up with jobs proposals. But the end result has been very weird, like watching the doctors of a patient with acute pneumonia spend a year discussing the best way for the patient to lose weight."
— Ezra Klein
"Boys are given goats to herd and messages to deliver. They hunt and fish. Girls weave, haul water, grind corn, chop firewood, serve as part-time mothers to their younger siblings; a serious share of baby care in the world is performed by girls not yet in their teens."
—
NYT — Now We Are Six: The Hormone Surge of Middle Childhood
Where does “riding a bike” and “watching ‘Howie’s World’” fit into all this?
"In courtship, the best gifts are “the most useless to women and the most expensive to men.” Flowers. Pricey dinners. Jewelery. The less useful, the better. Waste is the most efficient way to a woman’s heart."
— The Behavioral Economist’s Guide to Buying Presents - Jordan Weissmann - Business - The Atlantic (via felixsalmon)
(via felixsalmon)
"Romney and Gingrich share something important: they’re wonks. Gingrich is flakier than Romney, and Romney is less creative than Gingrich, but the policies that are getting them in trouble are policies that most Republican wonks once backed. Gingrich and Romney’s support for these ideas wasn’t unusual. It was, at the time, typical for Republicans engaged in national policy debates. Health-care plans including an individual mandate have been proposed or co-sponsored by Bob Dole, the Heritage Foundation, Phil Gramm, Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch, Richard Lugar, Judd Gregg, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Jesse Helms, Lamar Alexander, Bob Corker, Mike Crapo, and Strom Thurmond — and that’s only a partial list. In 2008, Jim DeMint endorsed Mitt Romney for president, and specifically mentioned his health-care plan as one of Romney’s qualifications. The Republican Party has since turned on the individual mandate. But if past support for the policy is a conservative litmus test, then Phil Gramm, Jesse Helms and the Heritage Foundation are no longer conservatives in good standing. And that’s absurd."
— Wonkbook: Gingrich and Romney have the same problem
"My son ain’t going to be miserable because he’s going to be the child of a rock star, the end."
—
Noel Gallagher Is on His Own
Almost forgot that one.
"This is rock ’n’ roll. Would Johnny Rotten have gotten a house on the eve of an American tour? Keith Richards? John Lennon? You either want it or you don’t, and I wholeheartedly blame him for us never becoming as big in America as we were in England. Admittedly he did buy a nice house."
— Noel Gallagher Is on His Own
