Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed
amazon.com
Yet that vision of smallness is under the auspices and control of Airbnb, following the template the company has set and the conditions that it profits under. Smallness implies homogeneity and a move toward uniformity, most likely under a Western default, under the ideology of the tech industry. The trade-off that Chesky implied was that the more m
... See moreKyle Chayka • Filterworld
As I passed through or near the great hives of production—Youngstown, Cleveland, Akron, Toledo, Pontiac, Flint, and later South Bend and Gary—my eyes and mind were battered by the fantastic hugeness and energy of production, a complication that resembles chaos and cannot be.
John Steinbeck • Travels with Charley in Search of America: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
Andrew…
Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Gardner Bovingdon • The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land
We have affirmed provision in old age, twelve years of education, and basic nutrition to be the right of every citizen because we have recognized that human dignity depends on the fulfillment of these fundamental human needs. And it is hard to argue that housing is not a fundamental human need. Decent, affordable housing should be a basic right for
... See moreMatthew Desmond • Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
When the twentieth century began, there were very few bookstores and libraries. Many books were sold by “subscription.” Publishers’ representatives literally went door to door soliciting orders.
Mike Shatzkin • The Book Business: What Everyone Needs to Know®
Why was the EPA willing to move on Flint and not in Washington County? The difference was public versus private water. If there had been forty houses below that leaking pond, and if Stacey, Beth, and Buzz relied on public water, which, unlike their private wells, was subject to regulation, then they’d have a winning criminal case.
Eliza Griswold • Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America
George and Lorraine Montoya lived on a dead-end dirt lane within easy walking distance of the historic Santa Fe Plaza. On the fringe of a prestigious neighborhood, the lane consisted mostly of two rows of modest homes, all built just before or after World War II. The few houses that had changed hands from Hispanic to Anglo ownership were easy to sp
... See moreMichael McGarrity • The Big Gamble (Kevin Kerney Novels Series)
Pocho is ordinarily a derogatory term in Mexico (to define it succinctly, a pocho is a Mexican slob who has pretensions of being a gringo sonofabitch), but I use it in a very special sense. To me that word has come to mean “uprooted Mexican,” and that’s what I have been all my life.