The statistics are worthy of Detroit or Newark: almost half the children in the local schools are from families poor enough to be eligible for free or cut-price lunches; a tenth of households qualify for food stamps; one in eight residents gets free meals from soup kitchens or food banks; perhaps one in 12 has suffered a recent spell of homelessness. Yet the spot in question is not a benighted rust-belt city, but Sarasota, Florida—a balmy, palm-studded resort town on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.
Recession and homelessness: Et in Arcadia ego | The Economist
SRQ! Yeaaaaahhhh!
But seriously, this article kind of lumps in Sarasota with Manatee and Desoto, but whatever. There’s a distinction, The Economist!
(via kgtl)
“The Sarasota-Bradenton metropolitan area, a two-county sprawl of condominiums, marinas and retirement homes, saw the proportion of people living below the poverty line rise by more between 2007 and 2009 than any other big city in America, from 9.2% to 13.7%, according to the Census Bureau.”
The years I was working in the Sarasota County Jail! Yeah, that makes sense.
(via kgtl)
Critical Shopper on Lilly Pulitzer
Wes Anderson movies and J. D. Salinger novels both portray hyper-colorized worlds of civilized affluence. The characters are all a little too wonderful, attractive and brilliant to be believed — and they’re all a bit unstrung by their passions for sport or religion or art or each other.
Let us take this feverish color palette and apply it to casual resort-wear. [via NYT]
Glenn Beck's Golden Conflict Of Interest
I have never heard of a conflict of interest like this—huge ever for Fox News.
Glenn Beck’s fervent advocacy of gold — coupled with his role as a paid spokesman for a gold sales company — has prompted some to wonder why he doesn’t disclose his apparent conflict of interest.
Over the weekend, Politico’s Kenneth P. Vogel examined the relationship between conservative radio personalities and gold:
The dire tone sounded in the ads often echo the occasionally apocalyptic economic forecasts of the shows’ hosts, many of whom have endorsement contracts with the gold retailers, appear in their ads, or have had their executives as guests to trash the economic course set by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, and to preach the attractions of gold.
Vogel quotes a promo in which Beck says, “”If you’ve been watching for any length of time, and you still haven’t looked into buying gold, what’s wrong with you?…When the system eventually collapses, and the government comes with guns and confiscates, you know, everything in your home and all your possessions, and then you fight off the raving mad cannibalistic crowds that Ted Turner talked about, don’t come crying to me. I told you: get gold.”
Categories of sentences that you hear at that exact moment that your nation-state may be too decadent to survive.
(via The Daily Show)
People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are “The Advertisers” and they are laughing at you
You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.
Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.
Immortal Technique on Obama, 9/11 truth & Corporate America
(via db)
Malcolm Gladwell enlightens us about Christmas
“So what does this blsht metric tell you about your appeal, compared with the appeal of the baby Jesus?
It tells you this: he was special.
And—here’s another thing—you are not.”
(via bloodythumbs)
Satire. I could never be without it.
“Let me tell you, that idiot ex-cocaine-addict was never a cowboy. He can wear all the cowboy hats he wants. He’s a spoiled brat to the manor born. And he makes me puke.”
—Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge
