Looks like the baby boomer generation continues its domination of the social, political and cultural zeitgeist, overwhelming every other age-group demographic, at least in terms of economic clout.
According to the latest figures made available by our favourite group of coconuts, the Recording Industry Association of America, people ages 30 and older are buying 56% of the recorded music sold across North America, up nearly 14 points from a decade earlier. Although pop music may have been dominated by young people since the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, change is afoot if Elysa Gardner’s USA Today article, Pop: Rated G for grown up, is to be believed.
The Empire Backfires
On the first anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq, author Jonathan Schell, writing in March 29th issue of The Nation (posted today online), explains why Iraq is a cautionary lesson in the folly of imperial rule, recounting how “549 American soldiers and uncounted thousands of Iraqis, military and civilian, have died; some $125 billion has been expended; no weapons of mass destruction have been found; the economy is a disaster … terrorist bombs have taken a heavy toll; and Iraq … (has become) a cautionary lesson in the folly of imperial rule in the twenty-first century.”
In the same issue, Christopher Scheer, Robert Scheer & Lakshmi Chaudhry review the 5 biggest lies Bush used as justification for his actions.
Corinne’s Rio Diary: Prestação Final
Carnaval is almost over, and the journey home awaits
Hi all,
Well, I finally made it to one of those churrascaria restaurants, where they bring the meats around to your table on skewers. It was great!
I’d gone to Copacabana to change my plane ticket and see the Copacabana Palace Hotel, built in 1932 and featured in that 1935 movie, Flying Down to Rio. It’s big and white, has a large pool and a lovely restaurant facing the famous beaches, but the lobby is about half the size of the lobby at the Royal Anne Inn, or whatever they call the motel that used to be the Wandlyn. The Copa does have more marble, but the lobby is tiny for a fancy hotel with its reputation.
All The News That’s Fit To Print
Titling their article “Unembedded, unintimidated”, Salon today announced the appointment of veteran journalist and ex-Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal to their new Washington D.C. bureau. “The country wants and needs unintimidated news,” says Blumenthal. “The Bush administration has put enormous political pressure on the press not to probe its radical policies and their consequences. Salon intends to be fearless.”
Former New York, and Spy, magazine editor-in-chief Kurt Andersen — whose work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and Architectural Record, among other publications, and who was also co-founder of the lost and lamented Inside.com — will return to New York magazine as a regular contributor, explaining his decision thusly: “I wrote occasionally at the The New York Times magazine for Adam Moss [who now edits New York magazine], and that was always a very pleasant experience. He called me last week and had this good idea and said, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to have you in my first issue?’, and I agreed.”