Skinny Americans have had it with their overweight countrymen, and will no longer take being put-or, in the case of airplane accommodations, sat-upon without protest. “I am completely and utterly frustrated with rising healthcare costs due to the deluge of fat Americans taxing the healthcare system. I’m in shape and have been all my life because I don’t soothe myself with food all day,” says one angry thinnie, and he is echoed by a host of others whose pride in their self-control (and good genetics, although that goes unsaid) is a major factor in the derision they pour upon their tubby neighbors like so much corn syrup down a fat man’s gullet. But there is another reason beyond physical discomfort in confined spaces or the unpleasant experience of having to see an avalanche of muffin tops on every corner that is fueling the war on the weighty.

“In our society, being heavy has become more of a stigma lately because we’re struggling with other issues of consumption,” says Abigail Saguy, associate professor of sociology at UCLA.

The economic climate, a recent history of people buying more than they can afford as well as environmental issues, including the depletion of our planet’s resources, are making people feel more angry about society’s overconsumption, she says. Obviously overweight people are an easy target.

“They’re almost a caricature of greed, overconsumption, overspending, over-leveraging and overusing resources,” says Saguy. “Though it’s not entirely rational, it’s an understandable reaction, especially in a country founded on the Puritan ethics of self-reliance, sacrifice and individual responsibility. If people feel they’re sacrificing, then see someone spilling over an airplane seat, they feel angry that that person is not making the same sacrifices they are.”

That’s right, lardass, every time you reach for that box of Snackwells that you will eat in one sitting-assuming you have some kind of furniture large enough to allow your massive carcass to attain a recumbent position-you are KILLING THE PLANET. Or at least that’s what the skinny people think, and we all know how virtuous they are.

“With a target in mind, the next consideration is body position. To slow your descent, emulate a sky diver. Spread your arms and legs, present your chest to the ground, and arch your back and head upward. This adds friction and helps you maneuver. But don’t relax. This is not your landing pose.”
–Popular Mechanics’ how-to guide for surviving a fall of 35,000 feet after one’s plane has exploded includes lots of information you hope you never need (try to smash through a glass skylight or land in a swamp) and awesome accounts of true-life miracles.

It is probably a little too early in the day to share this one with you, but I have been puzzling over it since dawn and am ready to be rid of it. I’m not quite sure what’s going on in today’s South Africa, but apparently it involves rapping ninjas, protection-needing butterflies, and progeria sufferers. I’ll let Die Antwoord’s lead ninja explain it himself: “To sum it all up, in this place, South Africa, you get a lot of different things: whites, coloureds, English, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, watookal-I’m like all these different things, all these different people, fucked into one person.” [Via]

Economic crises are notoriously the great testing grounds for the restlessly innovative spirit of capitalist enterprise. Adversity refines the mettle and taxes the imagination of your plucky entrepreneur, who doggedly carves new fortunes out of the main chances the chastened market affords for his wares. In the shadow of economic defeat, a thousand crisitunities bloom.

Or you know, maybe not. From across the pond comes an arresting Financial Times dispatch on how the global credit crunch has been an enormous boon for the hoariest brand of economic elite: the titled aristocracy. As global land speculators pack up their debts and head for the exits, the cash-rich beneficiaries of the Old-World bolt from their club chairs to expand their real-estate fiefdoms. Or, as FT correspondent Richard Warren puts it, altogether more discreetly, British aristos “have built castles, mansions and more for thousands of years but the combined effects of the credit crunch, legislation and financial need have encouraged a new wave of land acquisition and property development.”

It helps, of course, to leverage centuries of inherited privilege into collateral. “Ian Monks, partner at Bidwells, says UK aristocrats get loans when many other prospective purchasers cannot because their estates can be used as security. Better still, many have enough cash not to need loans, he says. ‘When times are booming they [aristocrats] don’t appear to do very much but at times of adversity they have quite an ability to get on and do things.’”

It also helps to lubricate a layabout lord unaccustomed to the rigors of activity with a tax break or two. A 2007 law permits a 100% tax writeoff for neglected farm buildings converted into commercial uses, so, Warren notes, “to help maintain their expensive mansions, rural bluebloods have turned disused barns into offices and stable blocks into studios for business people tired of commuting.”

Likewise, tail-end-of-the-Thatcher-era “legislation in the 1990s made it possible for greater numbers of residential leaseholders to buy their freeholds,” creating in the landed caste the tonic appetite for additional streams of cash revenue. “Prior to leaseholder enfranchisement, the great London estates made money from renewing 60-year leases, so the loss of these regular capital payments has meant they have had to find new sources of income,” Warren notes, courtesy of a far pithier observation from the director of one such estate, Simon Baynham, to the effect that this unaccustomed churn in capital flow meant that the lords of inherited land had “to pull their socks up.”

All this virtual spats-securing has made for some odd new real estate alliances, with for instance, the Duke of Bedford forking over £14.1 million for the swinging Time Out home offices in Totenham Court-just one morsel in the Bedford Estate’s 180-building Bloomsbury empire. No less an eminence than bonny Prince Charles is the principal landholder in a community of 5,000 souls known as Poundbury in Dorsetshire, via his splendidly capitalized Duchy of Cornwall. He’s also planning to launch an 850-home development in one of his home provincial baronies of Newquay.

And the siren call of leveraged property is by no means confined to the monarchy-besotted Sceptered Isle. With most credit-starved real-estate holdings across the globe now very much buyers’ markets, they are plopping like so many crumpets into the laps of privilege. Monaco’s Prince Albert II is soldering a deal with his island monarchy’s state-owned resort concern, Monte Carlo SBM and a partner named Aeirum Atlas Management, to launch a sprawling leisure development in Marrakesh, Morocco, with a private spa and resort and 25 multimillion-dollar homes. Even the now-beleaguered Shiekh Mohammed bin-Rashid al Makhtoun of Dubai, the world’s best-known royal real-estate baron, recognized the many advantages of British aritso-land speculation during the height of his own money troubled last summer, and plonked down a cool £45 million for a landed estate in Newmarket, Cambridgeshire-the greatest sum ever paid for an English agricultural estate.

Of course, not every royal eminence is poised to cash in. The Slovenian Prince Constantin zu Windisch Graetz, for example, can do little more than sulk from his London exile as other titled dopes from mittel-Europe join the land rush. That’s because his ancestors were just a little too delirious for property back in the day; he’s heir to 15 castles and some 250,000 hectares of family land-more than half of the country’s overall territory. Hence this wrenching testimony: “‘We are pretty high up on the most hated list in Slovenia,’ sighs the prince. ‘They just don’t want to give anything back because as soon as they give one thing back, then they have to give it all back.’”

It is vaguely heartening, one supposes, to see that the global aristocracy is still able to recognize that primogeniture is no longer the foundation of divine right. Still, we don’t see why the good prince should be so mopey. All the new feudal landed order needs is a capable free-market propagandist to paper all these titled deals over into the image of demotic creative destruction. Candidates abound, after all-can’t you just picture a future Tom Friedman column trumpeting the news that Country Estates Are Flat? Or a forthcoming Steven Levitt-Stephen Dubner collaboration touting the funky virtues of Scepternomics?

Richard Florida would weigh in, of course, with cutting-edge rhapsodies recounting how the mercantile Crown-financed age of exploration actually sowed the seed for the multiethnic bohemian street scenes that are catnip to yon Creative Class. And in exchange, these brave intellectual rentiers would be rewarded with prime terms on their own 60-year leases, and-dare to dream-new family crests. I can see it now: Milton Friedman and Prince Albert II, joined in holy battle against a retreating rearguard of federal bureaucrats and regulators, the Time Out logo streaming down, majestically yet munificently, from a banner overhead.

Chris Lehmann would gladly leverage his family estate for some tax benefits.

9/11 Terror Car Surplus Leaves Cop Cars for All

There’s a million dollars in New York City cop cars just sitting in Jersey, after the big airport security plan sort of fell apart (shock), and the tabloids are hopped up about it. But anyone who lives withing two blocks of a precinct house can tell you that’s the tip of the 9/11 money influx iceberg. They’ve like, run out of places to store cop cars. Also, anyone who’s seen one of those extremely annoying “terror parades” that involve like 10 cruisers going up Sixth Ave at rush hour with their sirens on… to nowhere. Oh, gosh, jeez, there so many cars! Won’t someone say something? (Over the weekend I aged about 40 years, apparently.)

“He loved children with no holds barred, but never with the sentimental fakery of admiring their ‘purity.’ After watching his son, Matthew, playing one day, he said, ‘If your child likes-loves-you, the very love he bears you tears your heart out about once a day or once every other day.’”
-Lilian Ross remembers J.D. Salinger.

Before we move on to the minutiae of the day, let’s take a moment to recognize a rather significant anniversary: It was 50 years ago that four African American college students took seats at the whites only lunch counter of the Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina, and asked to be served. The Greensboro sit-ins were a vital part of the civil rights movement.

Within a week 1,000 protesters and counterprotesters packed the store. By the end of March “sit-ins” had spread to 55 cities in 13 states. By mid-April the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee had been established to expand student involvement. And by the end of July, when the Greensboro Woolworth’s counter was finally desegregated, this form of nonviolent protest had become one of the central strategies of the American civil rights movement.

The building that used to be the Greensboro Woolworth’s opens today as the International Civil Rights Center and Museum. Former Times executive editor Howell Raines returns to his old paper to discuss the role media coverage played in opening America’s eyes to the struggle, and speculates as to how it might differ today.

“The business side is run like it’s Esquire in 1968, and the edit side is run like it’s Amnesty International in 1987.”
-An editor at Harper’s describing the communication troubles between the business side and the editorial side.

Seth Colter Walls: Do you have your stream-capture program of choice fired up and set to tap into Firefox for the new Erykah Badu track release? Update: Finally up!
Choire Sicha: Hello, Wire Tap Studio.
Seth: Pfft.
Choire: That shit WORKS, dog.
Seth: Audio Hijack all the way.
Choire: Sigh. Is she tardy? Is it 3:33p.m. yet? Or is she in another time zone? Seth, I have a question. Is there a Straight White Man Time? Is it like… the real time?
Seth: Huh?
Choire: Well you know. Drag Queen Time is like, “25 minutes late, if you’re lucky.” And Colored People Time is “Um, what? I’m supposed to be where?” So what’s Straight White Man Time?
Seth: http://time.gov/timezone.cgi?Eastern/d/-5/java
Choire: Ah. All punctual and shit. Huh.
Seth: But for the record, I think all people have one time. I don’t want any part of your ugly weekend inbox accusation party.
Choire: Oh puhlease.
Choire: Also, you know Badu’s like, “Hold on, Mars is nursing, I’ll upload this shit when I feel it astrologically.”
Seth: Well, let’s posit it this way:
Seth: Delays could occur because the suits (mostly white) at Universal are asking Badu and her managers: WTF?
Choire: Don’t you think they gave up on that about two years ago though?
Seth: It’s not clear that the chain of corporate command on this record is entirely, um, adhered to at all times.
Choire: I would love to see her as a home industry. Just having fun and BEING MAGICAL.
Seth: But these home industries really don’t work well. (See: Prince)
Choire: They must now. (See: Kristin Hersh, Trent Reznor.)
Seth: Nope.
Choire: No, actually, LET ME MANSPLAIN IT TO YOU.
Seth: Trent had a good run, but then he had such a good run, he was all: peace out, imma go have some kids.
Choire: Yeah, and now he doesn’t make more than $2 million a year. I HOPE HE’S OKAY!!! Giving away all his music and clearing minimum a million a year.
Seth: Well, he learned that you can always sell a fetish object to your hardcores, even after they downloaded a copy for free.
Choire: Sure! Great!
Seth: But anyway. Universal Motown. They’re a good label.
Choire: True!
Seth: They did a really good job with the Q-Tip studio record, The Renaissance. After about 15 other labels spent the 00s dicking Kamaal around. And they also convinced everybody last year that that Kid Cudi trainwreck was a visionary work of art.
Choire: That went extremely well for them! I do not understand how.
Seth: So, as a label, I think they’ve got their business figured out as much as anyone. But still, on this record… Who are we kidding, though. We love that Badu is hard to deal with. We love it the same way we love how Prince is hard to deal with. Or Neil Young, for that matter.
Choire: 354,000 records sold for New Amerykah is not a bad thing for a label in the year of 2009. OH, BREAKING: moorishbrooklyn: @fatbellybella 3:33pm Eastern, Pacific, Central or melanin time?”
Choire: That is what I am talking about. (AUTORETWEET)
Seth: Um. Listen. Talk to Chris Matthews.
Choire: Oh please.
Seth: I have the feeling you’re going to be saying “oh please” to me a lot during this conversation.
Choire: Well, that’s par for the course. I will ladysplain some things to you though.
Seth: While we’re at this, why don’t you fill me in on the Badu personal life backstory. I’m a lame person who doesn’t keep up with the tabloids.
Choire: Well, she had some babies with different dudes?
Seth: What’s, as they say, the dealio?
Choire: I don’t even know. I can never tell whether she’s in Texas or Brooklyn or where most of the time. I mean, mostly she is just home with her almost-one-year-old.
Choire: And I have to say… there ought to be a Wikipedia lists of Women Solo Artists Who Put Out New Albums At The Same Time As Their Baby’s First Birthday. Disambiguation page NOT NEEDED.
Seth: All that I know I gleaned from “A Life in the Day of Andre Benjamin.”
Choire: Oh heyyy. Mmm, that was a nice break. You know, what’s to say? She’s actually sort of delightfully, perfectly public-private? Like: there’s a stage persona which is probably quite similar to her private persona and then there’s The Music.
Seth: Which is your favorite of the Music things?
Choire: Oh, gosh… obviously I loved the last one. I also love, as you do, Worldwide Underground. And the live one.
Seth: All of the albums are good I think, but I’m partial to Worldwide Underground, which is so…something. Effortless, jammy, abstract, hooky.
Choire: Right??? It’s really pretty. And analog-funny. And SUPER weed-smoking.
Seth: I think I agree, but define “analog-funny.”
Choire: Ummm. blippy, like a record. Like not all cleaned up.
Seth: Oh see, I ONLY have it on vinyl.
Choire: You are such a fag, for a straight guy.
Seth: Oh please.
Choire: WELL DONE!
Seth: Worldwide Underground is actually one of the things I took from my ex after the breakup last year. Sometimes you take a hoodie, sometimes you take a Badu LP.
Choire: I wish there was a hoodie that played Badu when you walked around in it.
Seth: Look for Deitch’s first exhibit in LA.
Choire: Those are two of my least-favorite proper nouns.
Seth: How much of a jerk are you going to feel like if the song pops up at 4:33 EST right on the button?
Choire: Um. Not at all?
Seth: You and your rando Twitter buddy might have to take it back.
Choire: It is not a problem. Me and Badu have a thing going on. A fundamentally funky thing.
Seth: Oh.
Choire: I don’t think she knows about this! I mean it’s not like she ever returns all my calls or letters or emails or candy hearts.
Seth: I didn’t have time to go through all the comments yesterday. What’s the difference between mansplaining and ladysplaining?
Choire: Someone needs to come up with a word for men who don’t listen. Also I just made up ladysplaining. You know what ladysplaining probably is? Saying something too subtly for the men to hear it.
Seth: Hm. NOT ALWAYS.
Choire: (I don’t ever do that, so I wouldn’t know.)
Seth: Also, everyone is basically late to everything, everywhere.
Choire: Not Waylon Jennings.
Choire: That fucker was PROMPT.
Seth: No, you did not just talk about outlaw country. Hey, did you know that the new recording of Magnus Lindberg’s “Chorale” is now available on eMusic? Now you do.
Choire: Oh wow. Actually, that’s cool!
Seth: Also, eMusic seems to have acquired the last bit of the Ondine catalog that they didn’t already have. Which means Arena 2/ Coyote Blues / Tendenza / Corrente are available, too.
Choire: OMG. She just posted
Choire: “3:33 PST erykahbadu.com 11 minutes ago from web.”
Choire: PST?? I’m about to get some PTSD.
Seth: Heh. And then everyone clicked “close tab.”
Seth: (See how I put the period inside, though?)
Choire: ❤ YOU! Seth: Wanna livechat the new Lindberg single?
Choire: You know, I just remembered I cut my foot earlier and my shoe is filling up with blood?

[SOME TIME PASSES]

I wasn’t sure any political ad could top James Perry of New Orleans’ recent salvo, but here’s a radio spot for Illinois State Senator Rickey “Hollywood” Hendon, who is running in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor. I would vote for him based on this ad alone. [Via]