In the New Yorker...

[Jeff Wrangler]

At lunch today I read Jane Mayer's article on the Koch brothers in the August 30 issue. Everyone should read that article.

Talk about malefactors of great wealth.

I wonder whether Brokeplex ever worked with the Koch brothers. I understand he worked in the oil industry. 

[Front-Ranger]

I saw that article but it just didn't interest me. Maybe it was the picture that went with it. Wichita is my home town. I left there at 18 and have never felt the urge to go back again.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I saw that article but it just didn't interest me. Maybe it was the picture that went with it. Wichita is my home town. I left there at 18 and have never felt the urge to go back again.

It doesn't have anything to with Wichita and it does have everything to do with the Koch brothers contributing millions upon millions of dollars to support ultra-right-wing, "libertarian," reactionary political positions--and all of it behind the scenes, frequently through "centers" and "think tanks" with harmless-sounding names. Their father was one of the founders of the John Birch Society.

This is why everyone should the article.

Edit to Add: Everyone should also scoot on over to Current Events and read the Frank Rich article that John posted on the irony of billionaires funding the Tea Party Movement. The Rich article discusses Mayer's article and reactions to it. These people like the Koch brothers are dangerous to democracy and freedom. They are aiming at nothing short of a plutocracy.

[Front-Ranger]

Yes, my father, a Wichita businessman, was a John Bircher. Those people fall somewhere between the Klu Klux Klan and the Tea Party Movement. That's a spot so small you could get wedged in, die, and not be discovered for three effen days!

[Jeff Wrangler]

Over lunch today I finished the Terry McDermott article about Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed in the Sept. 13 issue and started to read the Peter Hessler article about uranium mining in southwestern Colorado. When I get home today, i want to see whether I can find some of the places mentioned in the article on a map. This interests me because southwestern Colorado is my next ramble destination, possibly though not probably this fall, and if not this fall then next summer.

[Front-Ranger]

I read that story about uranium too! It coincides closely with the experience I've had at work where I am involved with mining projects. Mining people underestimate the dangers and risks, and nonmining people overestimate them.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Well, how clueless am I? Until I read it in The New Yorker at lunch today, I didn't know that the Gap owns Old Navy and Banana Republic. 

[Brown Eyes]

^I definitely knew about the Old Navy connection.  But, until now I didn't know about the Banana Republic connection... but now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense.

My parents have been subscribing to the New Yorker for decades (long before I was born) and have saved all the covers, etc.  And, just recently - randomly - my parents got me a subscription to the New Yorker.  So, now I've been receiving it regularly too.  It's fun.

[Front-Ranger]

Wow, I'm thrilled that you're joining the ranks of New Yorker readers, friend!

[serious crayons]

Fitzgeraldfest!! Completely serendipitously, I found myself this weekend simultaneously reading two New Yorker articles about F. Scott Fitzgerald.

One is from the 11/16/09 issue, an article I ripped out and saved to read when I was weeding through a giant stack of New Yorkers for recycling. It's about Fitgerald's attempt to become a Hollywood screenwriter. Apparently he was a dismal failure, partly because he was an alcoholic going through bad times, and partly because (unlike with Larry McMurtry, apparently!) his talents as a fiction writer did not transfer well to screenwriting. I stuck that clipping, along with several others, in my purse, to read when I found myself out and about with extra time on my hands.

The other is from the 9/27/10 issue, the one whose cover shows a bed occupied by two apparently post-coital bedbugs. It's about a little experimental theater company in New York that produces an eight-hour show called "Gatz" in which an actor reads "The Great Gatsby" in its entirety while other actors in the background play office workers who do things that sort of loosely reflect the action in the novel.

Both were really interesting!