The Wednesday Curator – 3/26/14

March 25, 2014

Wednesday’s here! I like so much the fact that I get to curate the writing of others for Wednesdays, for it’s really a joy to read great writing. Here goes:

Up first is a piece by George Packer, dated March 25 and posted on the New Yorker website. It’s titled The Right’s New “Welfare Queens”:  The Middle Class. Mr. Packer reports on what Larry Lindsey—the guy who sold Congress on tax cuts as a panacea for whatever ails us in 2001 and 2003—told a Congressional committee about inequality. Mr. Packer is one of my favorite writers!

John Cassidy (great writer too) has written a long-form review of Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, also posted at the New Yorker website. On the strength of a few paragraphs I’m about to order the book from my 21st century capitalist book purveyor, Amazon.com, and am awaiting the New Yorker in a couple of days or so, so I can enjoy the “hard copy” of the review. (I know, I know, Amazon.com labor practices suck. I also tried not shopping at Whole Foods and Target, and neither plan worked. Maybe Mr. Piketty will provide some insights, although I fear and expect he’ll be saying we’re on a glide path to bad times, in a world with no better options.)

Smaller Airports are Being Left Behind was published in the New York Times on March 24. Joe Sharkey—business travel writer for the Times, and a friend—wrote the piece, and it includes lots of information about Tucson. For travelers, Joe’s pieces are great!

From the world of food—I am in a trial Tuesday/Wednesday, and don’t eat when I’m trying a case, so everything looks wonderful—I’ve been watching gimmicks lately, finding them annoying. That said, they’re popular, so maybe others will enjoy them more. Here’s the cro-nut and the milk and cookie shot, both from New York super-baker Dominique Ansel. Shooter’s sandwiches. Ramen burgers. “Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,” per King Mongkut of Siam.

And, finally, I realized recently that I’m in a reading rut, focusing on moderately dense non-fiction about mostly unsolvable problems and the people whose lives revolve around trying to solve those problems. I do take—that means subscribe, but it sounds cooler—Democracy Journal. My new issue should arrive any day, but I just saw a review by James Surowiecki—another great New Yorker writer—titled The Dismal Art. The book he reviews is titled Fortune Tellers:  The Story of America’s First Economic Forecasters, and it’s written by Walter Friedman. Clicking send on the Amazon.com orders now, before I find another book I want.

Enjoy the rest of the week!

P.S. For a guy who was counting on good writers to carry him through, I seemed to be “not shy” with my words!

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