Brad DeLong on who subsidizes who

Brad does not even talk about defense spending.HALLOWEEN ON THE PRAIRIE: CONGRESSMAN TIM HUELSKAMP IS THE MOST FRIGHTENING THING I WILL SEE ALL DAYCongressman Tim Huelskamp:“I’m from a district that pretty much ignores Washington. If you say government is going to shut down, they say, ‘OK, which part can we shut down?’”--Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler, to Associated PressFarm subsidies!...

Living in the material world

Imagine George Harrison and Madonna singing their different versions on the same stage!Long ago a good friend of mine, Sandra Dodd, drew my attention to a book with the title “Material World”. It was a select survey, pictorially oriented, of living conditions in about two dozen countries around the world. One notable feature was that each family brought all their property out of...

Edmund Burke, conservative hero

Corey Robin has a noteworthy anecdote."That's the way you do it, money for nothing....

Worlds of Arthur, by Guy Halsall

I know Guy Halsall and correspond with him fairly frequently. I think he's a very good historian. So when he wrote a book with a riproaring commercial title like "Worlds of Arthur" it was only a matter of time before I got around to having a look.Frankly, I don't know how commercial...

Plunder in history: more from Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates:In Postwar, Tony Judt evokes the chaos of living under the thumb of Nazi Germany: It is misleading to think of the German occupation of continental Europe as a time of pacification and order under the eye of an omniscient and ubiquitous power. Even in Poland, the most comprehensively policed and repressed of all the occupied territories, society continued to function...

Culinary despair in the USA

Squarely Rooted disses Cincinnati Chili over at Brad DeLong's blog:For the mercifully unacquainted, "Cincinnati chili," the worst regional foodstuff in America or anywhere else, is a horrifying diarrhea sludge (most commonly encountered in the guise of the "Skyline" brand) that Ohioans slop across plain spaghetti noodles and hot dogs as a way to make the rest of us feel grateful...

Some of the best stuff on the internet

Ta-Nehisi Coates on  Tony Judt's Postwar: But it's fairly clear that hate that made the Shoah was neither an invention nor the magic of false-consciousness, but a reflection of the people themselves:In the same poll of November 1946, one German in three agreed with the proposition that ‘Jews should not have the same rights as those belonging to the Aryan race’. This is...

Goodbye to Ravenhill

Ravenhill (sometimes known as the Last Homely House South of the Mattawa (River)) was the name we gave to our 95 acre rural property in Bonfield Ontario. We sold the place about two weeks ago. It is the home that I have lived in longest.I am sad to be leaving. It really is very nice...

Tam Lin

A friend sent me a link to this marvelous rendition by Anais Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer of the British folk song Tam Lin.Hearing this version of the song was a shock. It forcefully read reminded me of this version of Tam Lin by the folk-rock group Fairport Convention,, which I first heard in the summer of 1972:That summer I was in Norwich, England taking part in an archaeological...

RIP Hopoquin Hay (Quinn)

and Patience, t...