Our second accents are not betrayals. They are not performances. They aren’t passports of convenience, they aren’t tricks, and they certainly aren’t punchlines.
Does digital reproduction drive down the cost of all cultural content to zero? Are artists doomed to penury in the 21st century? Steven Johnson in the New York Times Magazine suggests not:
Writers, performers, directors and even musicians report their economic fortunes to be similar to those of their counterparts 15 years ago, and in many cases they have improved. Against all odds, the voices of the artists seem to be louder than ever.
More here.
Is specific discrimination against the Irish a false memory? University professor says yes, teenage historian says no.
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How to ensure enough men become soldiers? Daniel Defoe, 1704:
’tis as plain our people have no particular aversion to the war, but they are not poor enough to go abroad; ’tis poverty makes men soldiers, and drives crowds into the armies, and the difficulties to get English-men to list is, because they live in plenty and ease, and he that can earn 20s. per week at an easie, steady employment, must be drunk or mad when he lists for a soldier, to be knock’d o’th’head for 3s. 6d. per week; but if there was no work to be had, if the poor wanted employment, if they had not bread to eat, nor knew not how to earn it, thousands of young lusty fellows would fly to the pike and musket, and choose to dye like men in the face of the enemy, rather than lye at home, starve, perish in poverty and distress.
More thoughts on the nature of poverty in ‘Giving Alms no Charity, and Employing the Poor A Grievance to the Nation’.
It’s the classic unravelling of a poorly constructed cover story – it solves an immediate problem but, given the slightest inspection, there is no back-up support. There never was a plan, initially, to take the body to sea, and no burial of bin Laden at sea took place.
A list of every question in every Q&A session ever at The Toast:
This is more of an observation than a question – in fact it’s not a question at all – in fact it’s less an observation than an open-ended series of unconnected thoughts wrapped in a thin veneer of criticism – I’ve never asked a question in my life.
More here.
Are creatives replacing artists? Does it matter? Bill Deresiewicz says:
When works of art become commodities and nothing else, when every endeavor becomes “creative” and everybody “a creative,” then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal pickles, artisanal poems: what’s the difference, after all? So “art” itself may disappear: art as Art, that old high thing.
More at The Atlantic.
Style wisdom from Fran Lebowitz:
I wish that real estate were cheaper and clothes were more expensive.
More here.
Glenn Fleishman argues that bad data leads to a basic misunderstanding about the risks to children from strangers:
As with most crime and violence, children are exposed to the greatest risk either because of family members or their own choices.
More here.