Dive bars. Every town must have one. This is an interesting story about the bar that I imbibe at most often. I'm sure there are more like this. Please share.
posted by TurkishGolds on Apr 12, 2003 - 42 comments

US income distribution moves towards 3rd world profile? - US Census Bureau data on growing family income inequality, 1947 to 2001. Also see: The "L Curve" (for a graphic depiction of current US wealth distribution). "The most egalitarian countries have a Gini index in the 20s. European countries like Germany, Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Poland, Norway, and Sweden all fall in that range, according to World Bank figures. Canada and Australia are just over 30. The United States is around 40...Once inequality reaches 50 percent, disparities become glaringly obvious, to the point where they undermine a society's sense of unity and common purpose....Sierra Leone takes the prize. At 63 percent, it offers the world's most extreme example of inequality." By multiple measures, income inequality in the US is rapidly increasing, and a substantial percentage of middle class Americans may be gradually sliding into poverty..
posted by troutfishing on Jan 15, 2003 - 137 comments

A rebuttal to the "cult of Turn Off Your Computer," or as might be more familiar here: "It's Only a Website."
Curious about others' views on this. I've been on-line for so long(shut up, not consecutively), avatars/personas/whateveryoucallem just seem like silly extra work to me, outside appropriate contexts like on-line RPGs and the like.
posted by Su on Aug 11, 2002 - 16 comments

The PBS show "Nobel:Visions of our Century" interviews past Nobel Prize winners on their views of social responsibility. Which got me thinking, is the Nobel Prize the top award society can give? Is it a Grammy? A Pulitzer? Or is it something completely different altogether? Granted I will never win any of them, I was wondering what the planet Earth's top honor was.
posted by remlapm on Dec 12, 2001 - 7 comments