And actually read the article.

It's anti-elitist; it pops the bubbles of Leonard Slatkin's assumptions about crowd dynamics and Joshua Bell's own expectations about appreciative audiences.

If there's any elitism, it's about the quality of performance, not about genre. Someone who may not know the classical repertoire might still be expected to respond to the performer's obvious skill with his instrument. For instance, Weingarten writes:

"You don't need to know music at all to appreciate the simple fact that there's a guy there, playing a violin that's throwing out a whole bucket of sound; at times, Bell's bowing is so intricate that you seem to be hearing two instruments playing in harmony."

No shit. So why don't people appreciate it?

Weingarten is too good a journalist to provide a single answer. Maybe it's because Americans are too busy to have time for art. Or they're conditioned to respond to adulatory crowds, not artistry. Or because public art is increasingly hopeless, because everyone is listening to their private iPod.

David, maybe you'll eventually come up with a post as thoughtfully provocative and affecting as Weingarten's article. But if you don't quit the kneejerk ILX-style scoffing, you'll get nowhere.

The Sassoons mentioned in the document were an Jewish merchant dynasty (like the Tatas, of non-Indian origin -- patriarch David was born in Baghdad) who profited greatly from the British Indian trade, including opium.

Poet Siegfried Sassoon is probably the most notable scion. (Vidal Sassoon is not related.)

Obviously. It's been reported that Fox News is the only channel shown in the White House. I'm sure Brit Hume spun some right wing alternate reality in which Gonzo's testimony was a success.

Fox News isn't just Bush propaganda for the geriatric and poorly informed -- it's also how Bush's advisors and Rupert Murdoch keep Bush inside his bubble.

If you take a quick look at any technology bargain websites, you will find a 17" LCD for $100-$120 within seconds.

If you use your monitor for ~6 hours a day, an LCD will pay for itself over the course of 5 years.

The following analysis seems accurate except for its electricity cost per kwh -- electricity in the Bay Area is roughly twice as expensive, so the monitor pays for itself in 5 years rather than 10.

http://www.google.com/answers/threadview?id=1082

Some readers seem to have gotten the wrong idea from various journalistic exposes of shoddy electronics recycling practices, and have concluded that old CRTs should be kept in use, or at least in your garage.

That's a crock.

If your monitors are still working, then you can donate them to e.g. Goodwill for reuse in schools, where they'll do a lot more good than they will in your garage.

Also, many major computer companies will take back their products and process their e-waste responsibly:

http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/recycle/ecycling/donate.htm

And there are a number of recyclers in California and elsewhere who promise to keep all e-waste local.

"These materials do NOT end up in overseas landfills nor are they burned."

http://www.unwaste.com/company-services.php

but it's awfully arrogant to blame him for flying on a nearly expired passport.

I know a lot of intelligent people who, if they needed to go to the UK for some reason, would see their passport expiring as a good reason to take the trip now. Do you know how long it takes to renew them these days?

and far beneath TDB quality standards.

Offsets aren't consumption indulgences, they're leverage.

For the cost of junking my car and getting a shiny new hybrid, I could build a freaking windmill -- or, I could purchase offsets that make ten windmills possible by making them cost-competitive with cheaper and dirtier forms of power generation.

Not to mention the carbon cost of manufacturing the hybrid.

I'm not saying there aren't problems with carbon markets, but this kind of objection is sophistry.

I thought Ruben Bolling was supposed to be some kind of ex investment banker, so it's odd that he doesn't understand leverage. Maybe he worked in some kind of Gordon Gekko organization that taught him the world was zero sum. It's not.

Riggs bank and the Albrittons also made a presumably handsome profit laundering money for the CIA.

Even when Riggs was on the block at the height of the bank consolidation boom, it almost didn't get bought because there was so much clandestine and illegal stuff going on.

There are a couple of good pieces by Jack Shafer here:

http://www.slate.com/id/2112015/

http://www.slate.com/id/2112106/

It's the usual story -- right winger makes a fortune sponging off the government welfare teat, then plows some of it back into the media to keep the profiteering milk flowing.

And we're going to be dealing with this for the next 25 years from all the Iraq war profiteer creeps.