Prelude to Federation - Like a neocolonial SEZ (or TAZ) Paul Romer, not to be confused with David, posits "less developed countries contract with capitalist nations to set up Hong Kong's for them... that we rethink sovereignty (respect borders, but maybe import administrative control); rethink citizenship (support residency, but maybe import voice in political affairs); and rethink scale (instead of focusing on nations, focus on cities—on city states like Hong Kong and Singapore)." cf. neocameralism [1, 2, 3] [more inside]
posted by kliuless on May 21, 2009 - 16 comments

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip ends tonight, and Aaron Sorkin will be leaving television production for a while. His current project is Charlie Wilson's War, a movie starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman, based on the late George Crile's excellent, funny nonfic book of the same name. The movie will trace "party animal" Congressman Charles "Good Time Charlie" Wilson's (D, TX) rise from a scandal (he was caught in "a hot tub tryst with two cocaine-sniffing showgirls in Las Vegas",) to his role in the 1980's covertly funding Afghanistan guerrillas so they could expand their war with the Soviet Union. Wilson's actions would eventually help collapse the Afghan PDPA government, a power vacuum which would be filled by the Taliban. Who would have thought ending the Cold War would be so easy?
posted by zarq on Jun 28, 2007 - 60 comments

...his boyfriend Josh. --beautiful story, made all the more poignant at a time of more and more state constitutional amendments ensuring second-class citizenship, and a Democratic party urging us to just shut up already, but still give.
posted by amberglow on Mar 4, 2006 - 49 comments

Temples of democracy A long time ago, Matt apparently stated that state capitols look phallic in order to advertise that the Man does business there. Now you can judge for yourself. Here are all 50 capitol buildings, including artistic renderings, photos and histories. And Alaska's is decidedly non-phallic--the same goes for the proposed Gehry-like giant air conditioner-esque one too. And get a load of North Dakota's Ed Wood-ish house chamber.

So . . . what makes a good capitol building (or state house or what have you) to you? (For the record, I favor the more capitol-ey capitol, the traditional; like those of California, Mississippi, Colorado, Missouri and Wisconsin, etc. Then there's the impressive simplicity of the Jefferson-designed Virginia capitol. But I also like Oregon's art deco capitol, from what I see in the photos.)
posted by raysmj on Jan 26, 2006 - 40 comments