Sunday’s Must Read

Well, I’m clearly the least productive of the Blog for Arizona staff these days, even more so than usual. I’m still immersed in Thomas Piketty’s book, although nearing the end. And my friend Thucky has been a bit less prolific in his commenting these days, perhaps because he’s gone back to sleeping at 3 am, which is denying me what I’d thought was an endless source of material.

I do need to share this one, from Salon: Our sad “Mad Men” revolution: How consumerism co-opted rebellion. This piece is a lengthy conversation between two exceptional thinkers and fantastic communicators, Thomas Frank and Lewis Lapham. Most of the material you’ve seen before, yet it’s still a fantastic read. This is just a conversation, with a few audience questions thrown in, but the phrasing, the logic, and the historical material brought to bear are really exceptional.

Instead of trying to leave you with a favorite passage, I’ll leave with one that will allow me to avoid a page break:

The only idea that I can ever see in the minds of the moneyed interests is that money is good for rich people and bad for poor people. That’s about the beginning and end of their idea, I think.

What I can’t capture here is the flow of Frank’s and Lapham’s conversation. It’s what makes the piece such a great read.  Enjoy