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

he's phrasing it like a dick cause he is a dick, but it's actually an issue that's worth talking about. people who do this generally leave garbage + non-redeemable but stil recyclable objects everywhere - puts a dent in the actual efficacy of recycling. in some places it's getting organized w/ fleets of pickup trucks driving around at night. a few days ago I actually saw one with her little 5 year old kid helping her out, sorta heartbreaking.

California has a weird thing pitting their govt-run recycling programs where you just give them all your trash against the private ones that are set up in the Vons parking lot and give you cash.

I'll admit that when I lived there, I felt conflicted about the homeless guys scavenging through my recycling bin. They spent all their time going from bin to bin with grocery carts hauling bags and bags and bags of the stuff. It's like "well, this person isn't going to be doing anything else with their day, like getting job training or whatever." It's likely though, that if you're reduced to going through trash all day in the heat, you probably have something going on that might impair your chances at gainful employment anyway.

In the end though, I have no idea about whether their collecting had a deleterious effect on the local government recycling program, so I can only shrug my shoulders.

Given the uselessness of Chicago's absurdly limited recycling program, I am all for people making a few bucks by going through our recycling.

that ethicist one was amazing. his response was ice cold iirc.

You should also ask how this fellow is to live if you thwart his pilfering recyclables. Rob liquor stores? Perform liposuction?

has anybody ever mentioned on this thread the number of nytimes photographs that look like they were taken by accident. is this like their house style?

― plax (ico), Thursday, August 5, 2010 7:09 AM Bookmark

I think it's sort of the goal of a certain school of contemporary photography to get something that is simultaneously well-composed and focused and has good color and yet deceptively looks like a bad candid snapshot so you get that sense of "immediacy" and "realness" or something. The above example is a particularly sloppy looking one though.

I've been reading this book:

http://www.aperture.org/exposures/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/s09-gefter-photography-after-frank-cover.jpg

which is a collection of articles by the NYT photo editor. the cover photo is by ryan mcginley who fits pretty well into the aesthetic hurting just described

ryan mcginley does extensive shoots for the NYT magazine sometimes -- they are all awesome

yeah he actually is really good

^^^ that is the use of the word "actually" i hate

his winter games stuff he did for them was amazing imo

http://www.ryanmcginley.com/wintergames

http://www.ryanmcginley.com/admin/wintergames/RYM_003_03a-v2.jpg
http://www.ryanmcginley.com/admin/wintergames/RYM_003_17a-v1.jpg

lost in the truffle fries controversy was how dope mcginley's art for the issue was -- this photo str8 up captivates me

http://www.ryanmcginley.com/admin/mia/mcginley_m.i.a._9.jpg

so pretty

http://www.ryanmcginley.com/admin/mia/mcginley_m.i.a._2.jpg

gonna stop now

that ethicist one was amazing. his response was ice cold iirc.

― the itsytitchyschneider (s1ocki), Thursday, August 5, 2010 10:28 AM (Yesterday)

yeah cohen is pretty ok most of the time but he really knocked this one out of the park:

We put our paper, plastic and other recyclables in city-issued containers in our backyard and move them to the curb for weekly pickup through our town’s recycling program. A scavenger regularly removes cans and bottles, presumably to redeem for cash. I say that by depriving the city of these items, he adds to our recycling costs. I want to ask the police to apprehend the “thief.” My wife says I lack compassion. You? J.M., BURLINGAME, CALIF.

It would take a colder heart than mine to call the cops on someone so needy that he survives by scavenging garbage. To focus your crime-busting on the poorest of the poor shows curious priorities. Are there no BP execs, no Goldman Sachs plutocrats, no producers of “Sex and the City 2” ?

Thomas Hart Benton was once to give a speech denouncing John C. Calhoun, but learning that Calhoun was ill, declined to do so, declaring, “Benton will not speak today, for when God almighty lays his hands on a man, Benton takes his off.”

Benton’s compassion for the physically afflicted should be extended to the economically assailed. To lead an ethical life requires us to empathize with other people and ask: What circumstances would induce a person to behave this way? And: Does the most moral response to this behavior involve the police?

You should also ask how this fellow is to live if you thwart his pilfering recyclables. Rob liquor stores? Perform liposuction? There is little social good in what amounts to criminalizing poverty. It is not that the poor have a right to steal; it is that they have no duty to starve.

I would give a different answer if this foraging were the work not of an individual struggling to survive during tough economic times but was an organized effort involving fleets of illicit trucks staying one jump ahead of the designated recycling company. Context counts. What’s more, it is not clear if your town makes a profit from recycling. If it does not, the scavenger may actually save you money by lightening the load.

UPDATE: While putting out the trash one night, J.M. encountered someone going through his cans right by the house. Startled and mindful of the safety of his young children, he called the police with no discernible results. He has not phoned them again.

oh lol that link was already posted, my bad

Has McGinley progressed beyond being a slightly less creepy Terry Richardson? Hated all the shit he did for Vice when they were on the rise.

ryan mcginley is totally not what i was talking about. the stuff i posted looks like when you get a roll of film back and you go "i def didn't take this photo"

A.O. Scott in self contorting head scratcher

http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/08/13/movies/13eat.html?8dpc=&pagewanted=2

"So many people in this world confront much graver threats to their well-being: violence, poverty, oppression. This woman has nothing but good luck! True enough, but the kind of class consciousness that would blame Liz for feeling bad about her life and then taking a year abroad to cure what ails her strikes me as a bit disingenuous — a way of trivializing her trouble on the grounds of gender without having to come out and say so."

Um...on the grounds of gender WHUT?

Would rather eat glass than sit through even the trailer for this movie again

http://cdn.babble.com/famecrawler/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/M-003_DF-045921.jpg

Gross.

http://i37.tinypic.com/35hpsv9.jpg

“When I was growing up, the guys were always talking big melons,” said Mr. Bright, a retired biology teacher and school administrator who got into the big-melon game in 1973.

it's like the twee, ruling class twist on the chris rock bit about the big piece of chicken

loool i just helped myself to this joke

i mean the times is clearly in on it

but "low hanging fruit"

am i right

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html?_r=1

Pretty much beaten to death and turned into fertilizer here:

This is a Thread for ILXORS IN THEIR 20s!11!!!!!!!

I'm proud of our guys and gals in their 20s, they sure know how to take down a piece of crappy journalism

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/18/nyregion/18about.html?_r=1

loser loses thing

its not about money its about emotions the things u feel

You realize a homeless person is now wearing those suit pants and they're probably the nicest thing he's ever put on before. There are probably also holes and food stairs and dirt and urine on them already but don't think about that, it'll just bum you out.

Holy shit, I just realized that a friend's mom wrote that NYT piece about 20-somethings.

I am filled with internal conflict.

and indecision about your life and career path?

What? No. I'm 37. That kind of bullshit is for 20-somethings.

The friend must be feeling really happy now. "Gee, THANKS MOM."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/t-magazine/22talk-jacobs-t.html

Which is more annoying? The school or the author's strange fixation on what everybody is wearing?

“Kind!” shouts young Mia, resplendent in blue leggings, a pink oxford-cloth shirt and fuchsia toenail polish under her Salt-Water sandals.

new nadirs, every week.

those descriptions really add an indispensable vividness to this interesting piece of journalism

the school sounds okay, like i can imagine that being a pretty cute scene, but as described and written it's just horrible.

it's the "resplendent" that really sends it over the edge, but the hyper-detailed wardrobe itemizing is some vogue/bret easton ellis wtf hybrid, especially in the (admittedly debased) context of the times.

Since the city’s bobos are now making their own pickles and ice cream, why not mold little minds as well?

like how can this not be a joke? i know, i know...i ask this every time i read anything style-y in the times. but COME ON.

“My son is going to a public pre-K in the fall, and I am somewhat terrified.”

It's like these outfit descriptions are supposed to signify something that will make us all nod our heads sagely and say, "Ah, yes, these kind of people" and I am just too ignorant to get it.

haha the real problem is that it's impossible to tell if this lady is being sardonic w.r.t. to the clothing descriptions or honestly effusive.

Eight months pregnant with the couple’s third child, a girl, she is the epitome of the glamour mama, utterly lacking the whiff of patchouli one might associate with the home-schooling movement.

ok this person has absolutely no idea about homeschooling in this country at all. patchouli? gtfo

yeah, what