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I don’t usually see the Express since I live exactly 0.47 newsbox-free miles from the office, but it wins today’s A.D.D.-combatting front page contest with its “real talk” explanation of how four or six (depending on whether you believe the Pentagon, or the murderous soldier’s skull tattoos) Afghan civilians lost their lives (and fingers) at the hands of that drug-infested Army unit. This story notes that in addition to whatever uppers and downers the Army was prescribing them the soldiers were smoking hashish “constantly” procured by interpreters who went by the names “Yama”, “Crazy Kid” and “Mad Max.” Kinda weird that the dealers are named in the story when so much of the shit is sealed, huh. P.S.: just me or does Calvin Gibbs disturbingly resemble Dylan Klebold?
The Times reports on how the tax cuts battle has given rise to a vigorous sideline “debate over the definition of rich.” But that’s a little misleading, because “rich” is an adjective and what some members of Congress are actually pushing for appears to be a revision in the definition of certain numbers: “Others in Congress have questioned why ending what Mr. Obama frequently calls ‘tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires’ should also raise taxes on families making $250,000.” And see, where someone working with the outmoded reality-based definition of “millionaire”, as in “someone with wealth in excess of one million dollars” might be tempted to think, “yup, Obama’s frequent characterization of that particular tax bracket sounds fairly totally accurate!” you would be “wrong”, and more importantly “not rich”, because only the rich know the true meaning of “rich,” and by a overwhelming majority the individuals you might think of as “rich” people know they are in fact far, far away from being rich enough.
Hey, so it turns out America has a bit of a manufacturing sector left! These clever “private equity” rascals in New York found a group of nylon factories from which they managed to squeeze an 18-fold, $922 million return in just over a year! In the worst economy since the Great Depression!? Wonder how many $13-an-hour workers they will have to lay off to meet those debt payments…
Rare is the occasion I read a Style story about some bold new endeavor being pursued by some ambitious Greater Washingtonian and think “now there is a guy who has got his finger on the pulse of America” but whoever had the idea about lingerie football is a definite exception.