News Nuggets 755

The new sport of highlining at Yosemite earlier this summer.  From National Geographic.

Libya: Revolutionary Forces Push Into Gaddafi Hometown Sirte from the Associated Press via the Huffington Post
"With NATO jets roaring overhead, revolutionary forces fought their way into Moammar Gadhafi's hometown Saturday in the first significant push into the stubborn stronghold in about a week. Libya's new leaders also tried to move on the political front, promising to announce in the coming week a new interim government that it hopes will help unite the country. However, disagreements remain about what the Cabinet should look like."

Multi-Trillion Plan to Save the Eurozone Being Prepared from the Daily Telegraph [of the UK]
"European officials are working on a grand plan to restore confidence in the single currency area that would involve a massive bank recapitalisation, giving the bail-out fund several trillion euros of firepower, and a possible Greek default."

Slowdown, Debt Worries in China Add to Global Anxiety from the Washington Post
"To the long list of global economic anxieties — slow growth and high unemployment in the United States, the debt crisis in the euro zone, instability in the oil-producing Middle East — add a new concern: China. This week’s massive sell-off in world markets was sparked, at least in part, by fears that China’s huge economy may finally be cooling off. ... But the question now is whether the slowdown can be calibrated enough for a “soft landing,” or whether a more severe slump — a “hard landing” — is in the offing. The answer matters to more than just China."

Will America Survive the Great Recession? (David Frum) from the Frum Forum
An interesting long-form perspective Frum gave to a graduating class in Canada.
"One of the greatest of all American strengths is the willingness to examine national challenges remorselessly, in the confidence that only what is examined can be repaired.  For today, I’d like to discuss four of those challenges: human capital, natural resources (especially energy resources), the long-term debt, and the dysfunction of the US political system. All are implicated in today’s economic troubles. All impede recovery from the crisis. All overshadow hopes for American strength and prosperity in the years after recovery."

The Rapid Growth of the Suburban Poor (Elizabeth Kneebone & Alan Berube) from the Atlantic
"Significantly, the 2000s also marked a turning point in the geography of American poverty. The 2010 data confirm that poor populations continued their decade-long shift toward suburban areas. From 2000 to 2010, the number of poor people in major-metro suburbs grew 53 percent (5.3 million people), compared to 23 percent in cities (2.4 million people)."

The Fraying of a Nation's Decency (Anand Giridharadas) from the New York Times
"Far beyond official Washington, we would seem to be witnessing a fraying of the bonds of empathy, decency, common purpose. It is becoming a country in which people more than disagree. They fail to see each other. They think in types about others, and assume the worst of types not their own. It takes some effort these days to remember that the United States is still one nation. It doesn’t feel like one nation when a company like Amazon, with such resources to its name, treats vulnerable people so badly just because it can. ... The more I travel, the more I observe that Americans are becoming foreigners to each other. People in Texas speak of people in New York the way certain Sunnis speak of Shiites, and vice versa in New York."

The Phony Solyndra Scandal (Joe Nocera) from the New York Times
"If Brian Harrison and W. G. Stover, the two Solyndra executives who took the Fifth Amendment at a Congressional hearing on Friday, ever spend a day in jail, I’ll stand on my head in Times Square. It’s not going to happen, for one simple reason: neither they, nor anyone else connected with Solyndra, have done anything remotely criminal. The company’s recent bankruptcy ... was largely brought on by a stunning collapse in the price of solar panels over the past year or so."

The Price of Political Gossip (Frank Bruni) from the New York Times
"I read “Game Change” and thought: Elizabeth Edwards shouldn’t have been mortified like this. I also thought: John Edwards should have been mortified sooner. Even so, we can adopt tactics more dignified and trustworthy and a tone less voyeuristic. And we should. If we persist in treating politics as a three-ring circus, we just might find ourselves with nothing but clowns."
The GOP is ALREADY THERE.  Look no further than the Florida Straw poll yesterday.  See the story further down.

On the GOP Debate: Yikes! (Bill Kristol) from the Weekly Standard
"THE WEEKLY STANDARD’s official reaction to last night’s Republican presidential debate: Yikes. ...none of the candidates really seemed up to the moment, either politically or substantively. In the midst of a crisis, we’re getting politics as usual—and a somewhat subpar version of politics as usual at that."

Grass is Greener on Other Side of GOP Fence (Ron Fournier) from the National Journal
"Romney, Perry – ho-hum. Give us Christie or Palin – anybody other than the current cast of GOP presidential candidates. Walk the halls of Republican gatherings in Florida and Michigan this weekend and you’ll likely hear such rumblings of discontent. The GOP faithful are unsettled by the prospect that their field is settled. "
What they are really confronting is the sheer ignorance and stupidity of the base of their own party.  They want a candidate who can really sell VERY DOPEY uninformed positions and policies.  They want a charismatic candidate who can convince their overwhelmingly white, working-class, under-educated base that the GOP really has something to offer them besides culture-war bromides and attacks on "big government" programs that their own base voters very much rely on.  The smart ones (Jon Huntsman) don't sell and the dumb ones (most of the rest) don't last.  And, sorry David Frum, Chris Christie is not it!  Him entering the race right now would only split the moderate primary vote and increase Perry's chances.  Moreover, given how things have gone so far, Christie would probably have a shelf life no greater than all the other over-ripe slices of GOP spam that have been thrown up so far.  

More evidence of this:
Herman Cain Wins Shocker At Presidency 5 Straw Poll from Talking Points Memo
"It’s official: Cainmentum is back. In Florida anyway. In what can only be seen as a major defeat for frontrunner Rick Perry, former Godfather’s Pizza CEO and tea party superstar Herman Cain swept the results of the Presdiency5 straw poll, a gathering of several thousand state Republicans, Saturday."

Fed Up With the Author of ‘Fed Up!’? (Maureen Dowd) from the New York Times
"Romney, a champion flip-flopper, has painted Perry as a floppier flipper. In the high school version of the 2008 Republican primary contest, Romney was regarded by John McCain and other contenders as the loathed hall monitor, prissy and hypocritical. It’s not that he has gotten so much more popular or less plastic, although he has improved his performance. It’s just that his rivals keep getting more implausible."

Perry's Baffling Debate Failures (Mark McKinnon) from the Daily Beast
"Bush spent six months prepping for debates. Cheney rehearsed like crazy. So why, asks Mark McKinnon, does Rick Perry not seem to care about one of the most critical parts of the campaign?"
Hard to believe - but Perry makes Bush look like Einstein.

COUNTERCULTURE HISTORY NUGGET!!
When Kerouac Met Kesey (Sterling Lord) from the American Scholar
"The two counterculture heroes, one representing the Beat ’50s and one the psychedelic ’60s, had a lot less in common than you might expect."

ILLUSTRATION NUGGET!!
Pencil vs Reality... Where Do You Draw the Line? The Incredible Optical Illusions Created by Artist from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"You have often heard about art imitating life, but an artist has taken the saying to a whole new level with an incredible collection of drawings that reveal a masterful eye for illusion. Reality meets fantasy in this amazing series of drawings which are to be exhibited at art shows in London next month."