even more quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a new rolling new york times thread

No way.

I have almost-a-bachelor's degree, and almost-law-school debt. And I've been single for 11 years. Coincidence?

I know someone who broke it off with a guy she loved over massive debt, and later regretted it.

maybe the dumbest NYT op-ed i have ever seen (and that's saying something):

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/opinion/lets-give-up-on-the-constitution.html?ref=opinion&_r=1&

but how could a 21st century democracy operate w/o a magic piece of paper written by gods

That op-ed piece was far from stupid. It's entirely true that when it came to actually governing the USA, the constitution was seen as non-binding by the people who helped write it, not because they didn't respect it as a necessary guide for the conduct of the government, but because circumstances kept forcing them to either supercede it or else ignore the urgent needs of the country.

That the author of the piece concludes that we should ignore it is a questionable conclusion, but only because the odds are we'd get through the present 'crisis' okay if the needs of the moment were given precedence over the weird kludges we all must live under, but we'd live to regret it later as those in power became more and more arbitrary.

I am more in favor of fixing things under at least a fig leaf of constitutional justification. The most obvious one would be changing the internal rules of the Senate, which are entirely outside the constitution and totally under the control of each new session.

arguing that we should ignore the law whenever it suits us is stupid. it has nothing to do with any strawman arguments about our 'perfect' framers, et al.

funny how fast the constitution went from being a precious thing that we must all cherish and uphold when a republican pres was enthusiastically shredding it to a lame outdated unworkable product of white male elitists (who owned slaves, remember) now that a democratic pres is enthusiastically shredding it.

I for one have never cherished the constitution

good for you

i use it to wipe up my dog's leavings.

I print out a copy every morning and then burn it

it is the worst document in human history

you forgot 'just a goddamned piece of paper.'

i'm sure there'll be a const-conv p soon. we can't even raise taxes on richies.

if only there were other countries that had human rights w/o this one magical piece of paper but alas we are the country w/ human rights, and it's all thanks to our magical piece of paper. we really do have the best magical piece of paper, even though it mostly just constrains our government in stupid ways and ensures a horribly nonrepresentative voting system. why don't other countries model their magical piece of paper on our magical piece of paper? it is a mystery.

what is it with you and pieces of paper lately

it is time to embrace the digital age

i don't always shoot paper, but when i do it's the constitution

I agree with iatee to an extent. Right-wingers are not entirely wrong when they argue that judges distort the constitution (in order to give us rights that almost anyone today would agree should never be infringed -- the right to have children, to marry someone of another ethnicity, etc.). They have to do so, because the constitution is not so hot.

the left doesnt have much to gain from romanticizing rules written during a period of v. limited government. constitution should be treated like a vestigial organ not 'the source of our liberties' etc.

god is the source of our liberties

usa has daddy issues

the Soviet Constitution also "guaranteed" Soviet citizens lots of wonderful civil rights and liberties. just sayin'.

yeah what kind of fool would 'romanticize rules' like freedom of speech, assembly, et al.

http://yatf.org/images/EagleCrying.GIF

http://youtu.be/saCtEfDetCw

The sons of a noted former NYT writer profiled in the NYT. Yes of course.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/fashion/nathaniel-and-simon-the-brothers-rich.html

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-txO_g8rU5X0/T87AtwV6FTI/AAAAAAAAAlk/OppdqukN96M/s640/Gladiator.gif

Joaquin should just go around doing that in real life.

Aspiring writers from Peoria might roll their eyes, of course.

Oh, maybe more than just that group are rolling their eyes.

That may explain why “dates” among 20-somethings resemble college hookups, only without the dorms. Lindsay, a 25-year-old online marketing manager in Manhattan, recalled a recent non-date that had all the elegance of a keg stand (her last name is not used here to avoid professional embarrassment).

After an evening when she exchanged flirtatious glances with a bouncer at a Williamsburg nightclub, the bouncer invited her and her friends back to his apartment for whiskey and boxed macaroni and cheese. When she agreed, he gamely hoisted her over his shoulders, and, she recalled, “carried me home, my girlfriends and his bros in tow, where we danced around a tiny apartment to some MGMT and Ratatat remixes.”

She spent the night at the apartment, which kicked off a cycle of weekly hookups, invariably preceded by a Thursday night text message from him saying, ‘hey babe, what are you up to this weekend?” (It petered out after four months.)

the end of courtship?

whiskey and boxed macaroni and cheese

People who know how to live . . .

I'll bet if you poured whiskey on some mac and cheese powder you could start a really, really big fire with it

"said Anna Goldfarb, 34, an author and blogger in Moorestown, N.J. "

"A fancy dinner? You’re lucky to get a drink."

“Maybe there’s still a sense of a man taking care of a woman, but our ideology is aligning with the reality of our finances,” Ms. Rosin said. As a man, you might “convince yourself that dating is passé, a relic of a paternalistic era, because you can’t afford to take a woman to a restaurant.”

Not sure any of this is quid ag territory. But it's terrible/great nonetheless.

“At 10 p.m., I hadn’t heard from him,” said Ms. Silver, 30, who wore her favorite skinny black jeans.

xpost yeah i knew this thread wasn't perfect for it but wasn't sure where else to post it.

I think perhaps a "millennial culture alert" thread is in order?

I don't know. The part ZS quoted looks about like my GenX, 20s in the 90s hookup/dating life, just with different bands.

hannah rosin never not trolling men

didn't really know where to put this so I'm putting it here

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/nyregion/new-generation-confronts-unaffordable-luxury-of-food.html

“I don’t think about what anything costs,” Emily Gerard, a recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and a publishing assistant making the requisite salary, told me recently.

Spoken like someone who doesn't pay her own bills ime.

But what solace can it offer to realize that $300 a week put into an S. & P. 500 Index fund over the past five years would have provided an annual rate of return of 10.34 percent and grown to $100,354 today?

hahaha the girl in the article is 23, if only she had started saving $300/week when she was a college freshman and hadn't spent any money on food in the last 5 years she'd have enough for a downpayment on an apartment she couldn't afford.

New Yorkers in their early 20s spend almost all their money on rent and going out, shocking new trend.

kids be eating!

But what solace can it offer to realize that $300 a week put into an S. & P. 500 Index fund over the past five years would have provided an annual rate of return of 10.34 percent and grown to $100,354 today?

hahaha the girl in the article is 23, if only she had started saving $300/week when she was a college freshman and hadn't spent any money on food in the last 5 years she'd have enough for a downpayment on an apartment she couldn't afford.

New Yorkers in their early 20s spend almost all their money on rent and going out, shocking new trend.

― Sadly, 99.99 percent of sheeple will never wake up (I DIED), Monday, January 14, 2013 9:48 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree this is a poor example, but it's still pretty dumb to live like these people do in your 20s and not save any money.

it's pretty dumb to do a lot of things

And I don't think it's true that most people in their 20s in the city always spent most of their money on rent and going out -- certainly not the going out part.

I mean, we are talking about this:

Typically, she told me, she spends about $250 a week eating in good restaurants, which amounts to about $13,000 annually, and this does not include the additional $50 to $100 a week she spends on cooking classes, wine tastings and cheese pairings. Because about half of her salary is given over to food, she works an additional 10 to 15 hours a week tutoring and baby-sitting to supplement it.

What is she supposed to do, not eat?