Boxed set
Cycling past the University Library in Cambridge over Christmas, I noticed that some genius — in a neat touch — had placed a classic red telephone box on the forecourt. Why ‘neat’? Simply that the phone box as well as the Library had both been designed by the same architect — Giles Gilbert Scott.
But to see the joke you need to take a wider view.
Note the shape of the Library tower.
Quote of the Day
”I loathe writing. On the other hand I’m a great believer in money.”
- S.J. Perelman
Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news
Kate Rusby | Who Will Sing Me Lullabies
Long Read of the Day
James Fallows on the year ahead for the US
From the veteran journalist’s blog..
Three hundred and nine days from now, America’s prospects will look very different than they do as we begin this year—different one way or another. The results will depend on an electorate whose downcast mood contrasts with the strongest economic growth in decades. In the starkest way since Bush v. Gore in 2000, the outcome may be in the hands of a Supreme Court that is less trusted and more politicized than in that era, and far more visibly corrupt. Public information will depend on a mainstream press still struggling to cope with a movement like Trump’s, and social media companies that barely try…
Fallows is a sharp and perceptive observer of mainstream media in the US In his piece he includes a dramatic graphic of what Gallup heard from American voters in the run-up to Trump’s election.
It’s a vivid demonstration of how US mainstream media allowed themselves to be distracted from the important issues in the 2016 campaign. I can see the same deficient narrative building again this time, partly because of the ‘balance as bias’ dysfunctionality that still plagues political journalism everywhere. Nowhere, for example, will voters be introduced to the idea that Joe Biden might turn out to be a more effective President than Barack Obama — at least in terms of getting things done. Or that Trump is showing signs of serious cognitive impairment which make Biden look like Spinoza.
Books, etc.
From GoodInternet.
Linkblog
Something I noticed, while drinking from the Internet firehose.
100 Greatest Beatles Songs
Good list in Rolling Stone magazine.
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