…magazine covers of the last 40 years as determined by the American Society of Magazine Editiors.
Yes, number 1 is the nude John Lennon and number 2 is the nude and pregnant Demi Moore.
Time, Life and Esquire lead the parade with 4 covers each.
Via Kevin Drum.
A few days ago I was one of the smug ones mentioned below but from what I’ve seen, heard and learned since Katrina wreaked its destruction this is about right:
Look at the reporters who are “incensed” by the rampant looting. Look at the smugness from those distant from the situation who chastise the dumb southerners for not evacuating when they had the chance. It blows their minds how many idiots stayed to wait it out. It makes them shake their heads and make “tsk-tsk” noises into their shiny microphones.
Well, fuck the lot of them.
New Orleans and Biloxi are not rich cities. They are poor southern cities disproportionately filled with poor southern people — people who may not have reliable transportation, people who live hand-to-mouth, people who have nowhere else to go, even if they had the means to get there.
Read the rest.
Via Making Light.
The Arizona Daily Star is doing a tiny bit of housecleaning:
Finally, we’ve decided that syndicated columnist Ann Coulter has worn out her welcome. Many readers find her shrill, bombastic and mean-spirited. And those are the words used by readers who identified themselves as conservatives.
They aren’t going to over do it though. There is a replacement:
Taking her place on Saturdays will be Tony Snow, host of “The Tony Snow Show,” syndicated nationally on Fox News Radio, and “Weekend Live with Tony Snow” on Fox News Channel. He has worked at a number of daily newspapers and is a former speechwriter for former President George H.W. Bush.
I’ve listened to him briefly a few times and he seems to be a Hannity lite. Some folks are excited to see Coulter get the deserved boot but Snow will get more respect and tend to solidify the rank and file. Coulter could nauseate folks enough that a few of them might have been driven to see the bushies as no friends of freedom and liberty.
Tyler Cowen notes this Denver Post article which states that:
In 2004, … Translated into consumer spending, readers spent $3.7 billion on religious books, a category that includes Christian books. That is an increase of nearly 285 percent from 1983.
This is impressive but perhaps not quite as impressive as it looks.
There is no indication in the article that the author made any adjustment for inflation so let’s do it for her. First, by her numbers sales of religious books in 1983 would be $1.29 billion ($3.7 B/2.85). The CPI inflation index for the period 1983 to 2004 is 1.897, i.e., 1 1983 dollar equals 1.897 2004 dollars. Therefore 1983 sales of religious books in terms of 2004 dollars would be $2.447 billion and the increase in sales from 1983 to 2004 is about 51% not the 285% stated in the article.
Impressive? Yes! But not near as impressive as the article would have us believe.
Bryan, Why Now, reports on the perspective of a republican NPR radio jock:
Tonight he was responding to someone complaining about NPR reporting being biased. Greg stated his party affiliation and pointed out that the Republican Party has the White House and the US Congress, the Florida governor and legislature are also Republican, so get a grip, if the news is negative, it is going be negative about Republicans. If people want to elect some more Democrats, and give them control of something, then the news can be negative about them.
There’s a lot of truth in this though at the national level it sure seems that the bush administration got a pass from the media and the democratic congress critters throughout his first term…