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

[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."