Michal Migurski's Reblog: Published items (items 1 to 25)

"As a new generation of 'The Big Lebowski' fans emerges, Dude Studies may linger for a while. ... When putting the book together, Mr. Comentale said, he and his co-editor 'immediately cut out all the papers celebrating the Dude as a hippie hero in a postmodern landscape.' That's a sober choice. ... Umberto Eco: 'What are the requirements for transforming a book or movie into a cult object? The work must be loved, obviously, but this is not enough. It must provide a completely furnished world so that its fans can quote characters and episodes as if they were aspects of the fan's private sectarian world, a world about which one can make up quizzes and play trivia games so that the adepts of the sect recognize through each other a shared expertise.'"

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed by By DWIGHT GARNER reBlogged to biglebowski nytimes dissertation cult film eco umbertoeco academia thedude thatsjustlikeyouropinionman on Dec 29, 2009, 5:27PM

New York Times argues that we're seeing a swing in innovation from small inventors to big systems, which isn't too different from something I've been sensing as well. New New Deal is at heart a massive, all-fronts realignment - where's the role for the small and the nimble in this universe?

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed by By STEVE LOHR reBlogged to novelty smallness bigness movement shift pendulum innovation on May 23, 2009, 9:01PM

"A lot has changed in Oakland in the last decade, except maybe the city's reputation. Recent headlines have emphasized high crime rates - including the March shootings of four police officers in East Oakland - but for visitors willing to give the city a chance, the rewards are plenty. With an influx of residents that began during the height of the '90s dot-com boom came restaurants, shops and galleries to complement what was already there: Art Deco architecture, stunning views and a beautiful mix of cultures. There's a lot going on in Oakland; the only reason you may not be hearing about it is that Oaklanders tend to keep a low profile. There's a reason, after all, that a popular monthly open studio event is called Art Murmur."

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed by By EMILY BRADY reBlogged to nytimes oakland local woot on Apr 30, 2009, 5:41PM

Surprisingly enjoyable article about Houston Rockets player Shane Battier, a sort of counterfactual probability-driven basketball nerd: "The virus that infected professional baseball in the 1990s, the use of statistics to find new and better ways to value players and strategies, has found its way into every major sport. ... There is a tension, peculiar to basketball, between the interests of the team and the interests of the individual. The game continually tempts the people who play it to do things that are not in the interest of the group. ... Having watched Battier play for the past two and a half years, Morey has come to think of him as an exception: the most abnormally unselfish basketball player he has ever seen. Or rather, the player who seems one step ahead of the analysts, helping the team in all sorts of subtle, hard-to-measure ways that appear to violate his own personal interests."

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed by By MICHAEL LEWIS reBlogged to sports basketball statistics altruism on Feb 14, 2009, 8:36AM

"The billions of dollars that Congress plans to spend on mass transit as part of the stimulus bill will also do little to help these systems with their current problems. That is because the new federal money - $12 billion was included in the version passed last week by the House, while the Senate originally proposed less - is devoted to big capital projects, like buying train cars and buses and building or repairing tracks and stations. Money that some lawmakers had proposed to help transit systems pay operating costs, and avoid layoffs and service cuts, was not included in the latest version."

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed by By MICHAEL COOPER reBlogged to transit budget cuts paradox weak on Feb 3, 2009, 11:18PM

David Brooks: "A mobility project would dovetail with the energy initiatives both presidential candidates have offered. And it could, in the long term, rebalance this economy." Mostly agree with the bits that go rail, rail, rail, rail, rail.

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed by By DAVID BROOKS reBlogged on Oct 30, 2008, 11:21PM

"The go-go atmosphere in Poland has abruptly stilled to a cautious wait-and-see. Developers across the country have halted building projects for thousands of apartments as banks have grown stingy with lending. The boomtown energy here has been replaced by nervous eyeing of the once powerful zloty, as it retreats in value against the dollar and the euro."

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed by By NICHOLAS KULISH reBlogged on Oct 27, 2008, 5:07AM

"Enthusiasts began following Dr. Levine's example, constructing treadmill desks that range from sleekly robotic set-ups to rickety mash-ups that could be Wall-E's long-lost kin. But the recent introduction of an all-in-one treadmill desk from Details may inch work-walking into the mainstream, as dozens of businesses invest in the hardware to let their employees walk (and, ideally, lose a little weight) at work."

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed by By MANDY KATZ reBlogged on Sep 17, 2008, 9:17PM

"I am a registered Democrat. That first night's convention speech by Senator Kennedy about his life's work reminded me what being a Democrat means. I have spent the last eight years so disgusted with the incompetent yahoos of the executive branch that I had forgotten that I believe in one of the core principles of the Democratic Party - that government can be a useful, meaningful and worthwhile force for good in this republic instead of just an embarrassing, torturing, Book of Revelation starter kit."

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed by By SARAH VOWELL reBlogged on Aug 30, 2008, 8:47PM

More people taking Amtrak, even though it's reaching capacity and can't meet demand. Amtrak only has *632 usable rail cars*?

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed by By MATTHEW L. WALD reBlogged on Jun 21, 2008, 8:21AM

Thinking about it.

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed by By MARK BITTMAN reBlogged on Jun 10, 2008, 9:05PM

"Mass transit systems around the country are seeing standing-room-only crowds on bus lines where seats were once easy to come by. Parking lots at many bus and light rail stations are suddenly overflowing..."

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed by By CLIFFORD KRAUSS reBlogged on May 10, 2008, 5:59AM

Former neocon theorist argues that the ideology that won the cold war has come to threaten peace. "The problem with neoconservatism's agenda lies not in its ends, which are as American as apple pie, but rather in the overmilitarized means by which it has sought to accomplish them. What American foreign policy needs is not a return to a narrow and cynical realism, but rather the formulation of a realistic Wilsonianism that better matches means to ends."

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed by FRANCIS FUKUYAMA reBlogged

Scare-piece about unsecured wi-fi, including obligatory mention of child pornography. Meanwhile, SSID 159.teczno.com is wide open, come over and borrow it.

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed by MICHEL MARRIOTT reBlogged

"Many electric utility companies across the nation are collecting billions of dollars from their customers for corporate income taxes, then keeping the money rather than sending it to the government. The practice is legal in most states. The companies say it is smart business."

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed by DAVID CAY JOHNSTON reBlogged

Kevin Phillips identifies three most worrying obsessions of the current United States: Oil, Christ, and Debt.

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed by Review by ALAN BRINKLEY reBlogged

"That expense in time and money is as much a part of the tax burden on Americans as the check that goes to the federal government. And unlike the tax payment, this part of the tax burden doesn't generate any revenue for the government, though part of it goes into H+R Block's pocket. It is, in the words of the economists, pure deadweight loss."

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed by AUSTAN GOOLSBEE reBlogged

New York Times realizes the obvious: "It is only now, nearly five years after Sept. 11, that the full picture of the Bush administration's response to the terror attacks is becoming clear. Much of it, we can see now, had far less to do with fighting Osama bin Laden than with expanding presidential power."

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed reBlogged

"In this the cigar workers were typical. American manufacturing laborers came and left for the day at different times. 'Monday,' one manufacturer complained, was always 'given up to debauchery,' and on Saturdays, brewery wagons came right to the factory, encouraging workers to celebrate payday. ... Their workdays were often, by 20th-century standards, riddled with breaks for meals, snacks, wine, brandy and reading the newspaper aloud to fellow workers."

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed by TOM LUTZ reBlogged

Eat it, G.O.P.: "On Tuesday, when this page runs the list of people it has endorsed for election, we will include no Republican Congressional candidates for the first time in our memory."

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed reBlogged

"Most astronomers doubt that any large comets or asteroids have crashed into the Earth in the last 10,000 years. But the self-described 'band of misfits' that make up the two-year-old Holocene Impact Working Group say that astronomers simply have not known how or where to look for evidence of such impacts along the world’s shorelines and in the deep ocean."

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed by SANDRA BLAKESLEE reBlogged

"Along with its effort to salvage Iraq, the Iraq Study Group offers President Bush some advice: Government officials should not lie to the public or each other, especially in matters of war."

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed reBlogged

"That lasted a day. By Wednesday evening, Vice President Dick Cheney was on CNN contradicting most of what Mr. Bush had said. We were left asking, once again, Who exactly is running this White House?"

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed reBlogged

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy."

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed by MICHAEL POLLAN reBlogged

Governor Schwarzenegger: "We are the modern equivalent of the ancient city-states of Athens and Sparta. We have the economic strength, we have the population and the technological force of a nation-state."

Originally from NYT > Most E-Mailed by GAR ALPEROVITZ reBlogged

Michal Migurski's Reblog

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Published Feeds

Feeds

Mar 10, 2010

Books: Dissertations on His Dudeness

Who Says Innovation Belongs to the Small?

36 Hours in Oakland, Calif.

The No-Stats All-Star

Surge in Mass, Drop in Transit

A National Mobility Project

Credit Crisis Slows Economy in Once-Hot Poland

Treadmill Desks

Bringing Pell Grants to My Eyes

Switching to Rail

The Minimalist: Putting Meat Back in Its Place

Gas Prices Send Surge of Riders to Mass Transit

After Neoconservatism

"Oh my God. He could be stealing my signal."

Many Utilities Collect for Taxes They Never Pay

American Theocracy

Why Tell the I.R.S. What It Already Knows?

The Real Agenda

Old-Timey Work Habits

New York Times Endorsements

Ancient Crash, Epic Wave

About Those Other Problems

The Bait-and-Switch White House

Unhappy Meals

United States Too Big