Headlines: Incan rope bridges, sharks and type face

[jmc_bks]

Hegemonic Helvetica, a bland and uniform font, turns 50. Who knew? Occasionally I see blurbs in the back of books about the type face, but it hadn't occured to me that an anniversary would be celebrated.

There are sharks in paradise. In Maui, I mean.  We like the tropical weather and beautiful ocean around Hawaii, why wouldn't they?

Incans built amazing suspension bridges in pre-Colombian times that weren't reproduced by Europeans for a long, long time. There's only one left, according to this piece on ancient technology.

The "global war on terror" is now second only to WW2 in terms of cost, and will ultimately cost more than $1 trillion dollars. Look at that number: $1,000,000,000,000.  Let me put this in perspective for you.  In 2004 (the most recent year I could find numbers for), the average tuition for in-state students at public four year universities was $5,132.  Imagine if instead of destroying the infrastructure of Iraq and enriching the shareholders of Halliburton and the owners of Blackwater, that money had been spent on education.  It would've paid for 48,713,951 students to receive complete, four year college educations. But you'd never know that to listen to or observe the average American consumer (including me) or our electorate.   And all the Democratic candidates except Kucinich and Richardson want to increase the Pentagon budget and grow the armed forces. Because throwing money at the problem always fixes it.

ETA:  I'm always a day behind on TCR/TDS, but I have to say that I loved the hand off from Monday.  The idea of the DC Madam tying up Stephen Colbert in the flag and then spanking him with an original of the Declaration of Independence?   ::snickers:: 

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

can I add my $78K in student loans to the cost of war pile? Because if it weren't for the attacks on free speech in the past 5 years, I probably wouldn't have gone to law school.

And I can barely keep myself together when I think of the difference we could have made by pouring some of that money both into the standard of living for people in Iraq and Afghanistan AND US urban and rural communities. Well-fed, well-educated, and culturally stable people are far less inclined toward war. Just think about how tolerant Americans are when the economy's good. Polls show lots of support for immigration, for example, when there are plenty of jobs and the economy is growing, but when the jobs dry up and we have economic downturn, people's attitudes change drastically.

Robin

[jmc-bks.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that that "cost" of the war includes (so far) only the direct costs. And the trillion dollar estimate includes health care based on the current status of VA expenses, without acknowledging the inappropriate way that "personality disorders" are being used to discharge soldiers with head injuries and other combat-related problems. If the hidden economic costs (lost wages for reservists, lost jobs for reservists, costs to families and businesses) were included, I'm sure the tally would be considerably higher.

[redrobinreader.livejournal.com]

Oh, the scandal regarding the incredible decrease in veterans benefits is terrible.

The next book on my TBR list is Rajiv Chandrasekaran's Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone.

[jmc-bks.livejournal.com]

That's on my list of books to read, too. I borrowed it from the library but had to return it unread because I didn't get to it in time. One of my colleagues is recently back from a stint in the Green Zone. She thought it was quite surreal, especially in comparison to what was going on outside the "safe zone."