What would the U.S. look like if the Senate weren’t designed so that large rural places with low populations have more power than compressed urban centers where, you know, lots of Americans actually live? What if all the states were about the same size in terms of residents? James Fallows of the Atlantic Monthly has posted a cool “thought experiment” map (designed by Neil Freeman) on his blog, in which state borders have been redrawn the same way Congressional districts are–as population changes–without hugely altering the existing cultural / ethnic make-up (fragmented and complex as those are). I would live in Mojave and be a native of Allegheny (I think–the map is kinda small). You? I especially like the new provincial names.
Category Archives: The Moronic Inferno
Stop Watching “Jersey Shore”
In fact, stop watching all reality shows. While you’re at it, don’t buy any more tabloids either. I know: you do it ironically, you “get it,” you’re amused by the vulgar antics of the famous and the wannabe-famous on the TV. You’re doing this like an anthropologist, so you aren’t really helping to perpetuate this stuff. Right?
Let’s be clear: if you spend any measurable amount of brain-capital looking at the celeb street-candids on Jezebel or buy US Weekly or ever watch VH1, you are supporting a toxic, wasteful, crude, insipid, culturally disastrous economy that runs on 1.) the stupidity of most viewers and all the performers and 2.) the layer of fake detachment with which a purportedly sophisticated minority consumes the shows.
Most pop tele-media is so boring. It raises the total level of national shittiness. Why do so many reasonably sane, intelligent Americans give it their money and time and energy? Why nurse a hobby that makes you dumber? Doesn’t that stuff just make you feel . . . fecal? Just plain bad?
-whiny TGR, who watches a ton of football and baseball, and is the fully aware of the hypocrisy of this rant
The General Reader 