How The War On Terror Is America’s Mania

The Article: NSA Snooping: The War on Terror Is America’s Mania by Klaus Brinkbäumer in Der Spiegel.

The Text: America is sick. September 11 left it wounded and unsettled — that’s been obvious for nearly 12 years — but we are only now finding out just how grave the illness really is. The actions of the NSA exposed more than just the telephone conversations and digital lives of many millions of people. The global spying scandal shows that the US has become manic, that it is behaving pathologically, invasively. Its actions are entirely out of proportion to the danger.

Since 2005, an average of 23 Americans per year have been killed through terrorism, mostly outside of the US. “More Americans die of falling televisions and other appliances than from terrorism,” writes Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times, and “15 times as many die by falling off ladders.” The US has spent $8 trillion on the military and homeland security since 2001.

America has other threats. The true short-term danger is homegrown: More than 30,000 Americans are killed by firearms every year. An American child is 13 times more likely to be shot than a child in another industrialized country. When it comes to combating the problem, President Barack Obama and Congress are doing very little — or, to be fair, nothing at all. They talk about it every now and then, after every killing spree. The gun lobby, incurably ill, counters that the weapons are necessary for self-defense.

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One Man Risks Life To Pay Off Over $100,000 In Student Loans

The Article: I risked my life to pay off $108,000 in student loans by Jennifer Liberto in CNN Money.

The Text: Thomas McGregor risked his life to pay off his student loans.

McGregor graduated in 2008 from the University of St. Thomas law school in Minnesota with $108,000 in student loans.

After several months of job hunting, and with the threat of a deeper recession looming, McGregor decided to enlist in the Army.

“I paid off $108,000 of law school loan debt,” said McGregor, 31. “All I had to do was put my life on the line.”

McGregor knew what he was getting into. When he joined, he was told there was a “100% chance” he’d be deployed overseas.

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Does Art Help The Economy?

The Article: Does Art Help The Economy? by Kyle Thetford in The Atlantic.

The Text: An unexpected upshot in the wake of Britain’s latest spending review was the fate of the culture budget — it avoided a pummeling. What might be considered an easy target in a time of austerity emerged relatively unscathed, with only a 5 percent decrease in funding from £472 million to £451 million.

The arts world had already been hit by a 30 percent cut meted out in the 2010 budget and had been waiting to find out whether they might be granted a reprieve at this latest round of belt-tightening.

This time, advocates for arts funding breathed a collective sigh of relief, with the budget reduction described as a “best-case scenario” — they had been bracing for much larger cuts.

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Why Liberals Don’t Get Texas

The Article: Liberals Don’t Understand Texas by Abby Johnston in Salon.

The Text: I am an eighth-generation Texan, and if my accent doesn’t give me away, that is the first fact I will volunteer about myself in conversation. Name me another state where eight generations win you immediate legitimacy. But I’m also liberal. And this makes me no less proud of my home state.

Let me explain. You’d be hard-pressed to find a state with more pride, unsurprising for a territory that was once a sovereign nation. Texas is diverse and sprawling, born of many different backgrounds and melded together with its own swagger. Our bouffant-haired culture and hospitality have seen many portrayals in the media, but it’s hard to describe our peculiarly accented je ne sais quoi to someone who doesn’t understand why Texas Monthly needs a barbecue editor or hasn’t seen the landscape change from forest, to desert, to mountains in a day’s drive.

I’ve since adopted Austin as my home, seeking refuge in the liberal oasis and protected by its bubble of progressive ideology. Left-leaning politics are not an anomaly in Texas’ capital city, but the six weeks of debates that led to the passage of restrictive abortion legislation were a painful reminder of the ideology that lay outside of Austin’s city limits. Gov. Rick Perry called two special sessions to ram through the controversial bill, which will all but guarantee the closure of 42 abortion clinics, leaving only five designated as ambulatory service centers to accommodate a state larger than France.

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McDonalds Proves How Much Its Minimum Wage Salaries Suck

The Article: McDonalds’ suggested budget for employees shows just how impossible it is to get by on minimum wage by Robyn Pennacchia in Death and Taxes.

The Text: McDonald’s has partnered with Visa to make a website dedicated to showing its employees how to properly budget their meager peasant salaries. However, what it actually does is illustrate the fact that it is nearly impossible to get by on minimum wage, as shown in this “example” budget chart:

Yeah– now, when I first saw that, I assumed that the top line was for a part-time McDonald’s employee. Then I got out my calculator– that is actually what you would make if you were working full-time at McDonald’s. 1,105 dollars a month.

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