The Best Thing to Wear for the Day

http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/#/?part=to-the-peak

Twice we have been wrapped up in some kind of national drama and a catastrophe has come in from out of our collective blind spot, swept away the import of the previous discourse, and laid bare a "true" problem.  In the case of the 2012 election, Superstorm Sandy displaced the petty bickering between the two candidates, illustrating that the ongoing cataclysmic global warming is more important than any domestic squabbles.  Secondly, all the b.s. around the "fiscal cliff" (December 2012) was pushed into the background by the Newtown elementary school shooting, demonstrating the need for adequate gun control laws in the U.S.

12-12-12

#1 Meme of the Aughts?

https://www.google.com/search?q=can+you+hear+me+now+meme&oq=can+you+hear+me+now+meme&aqs=chrome.0.57l2j61j5j60l2.5614&sugexp=chrome,mod=14&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Approximately 48% of all babies in North Carolina are born under Medicaid insurance coverage.

The Poverty Surge

What does it say about Obama that he is a Jay-Z guy instead of a Nas guy?

Following up on this post, I wonder if Biggie's use of "It ain't hard to tell..." in his rhymes on "Party and Bullshit" (1993) was influenced by Nas who released a demo of that tune (then called "Nas Will Prevail") in 1991.

Meme

I think the two most blogged women have to be Brigitte Bardot and Liv Tyler.

Shirkers, Disorganized, Unfocused, Undertrained

Alcohol and Drug Addiction Stats

From a recent report by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University:

· 15.9% (40.3 million) have the disease of addiction - more than  have heart conditions (27.0 million), diabetes (25.8 million) or cancer (19.4 million).

· 31.7% (80.4 million), while not addicted, engage in use of addictive  substances in ways that threaten health and safety (risky users).

· More than 20% of deaths are attributable to tobacco, alcohol and other drug use.

· Addiction and risky use are causal and contributing factors in more than 70 other conditions requiring medical care and drive a wide range of costly social consequences.

-via MS

http://www.wildfermentation.com/making-sauerkraut-2/

"A people is only as good as the water they drink."

I was in New York recently and had the profound sensation that what we had previously referred to as the Real has been replaced by the Internet (now a formalized State), and what we are left with in our material reality is an "insectosphere": walking down the street I saw many stylishly adorned appendages connected to exoskeletons muppetlike: the soul sack has been emptied in favor of immanence with the digital plane.