What the hell was I going to write about?

I can’t remember, but it was one of three things:

1. To complain about Dambisa Moyo’s 2009 book Dead Aid, which I finally got around to reading. Basically, she says that Africa should give up on Western backed “aid” (she makes no effort to distinguish between different types of aid, and the contexts under which it is given), and do three things: 1) Have the west give African countries 5 years to phase out “aid” 2) Let China build all of Africa’s infrastructure for them (rather than the West) 3) Borrow money from private capital markets (she used to work for Goldman Sachs).

Given it’s haphazard treatment of details, it’s a pretty comedic book, but she gets accolades from right wingers who hate giving money to poor people. If you merely replace “aid” with the word “food stamps,” you’ll end up with the basic message of the American Tea Party: any amount of free stuff creates a “culture of dependence.” I’m sure she’s more educated and articulate than her book would suggest, but it appears that she is less concerned with writing useful policy analysis, and more concerned with waving a wide brush so she can raise her status as a celebrity.

While I don’t agree with everything Bill Easterly writes, he gives the subject a much better treatment.

2) To write about realism and caricature in Breaking Bad, or at least to note that I never get to see TV shows until after they are cancelled.

3) To reflect on the conservatism of punk rock music. I was listening back to some 80’s hardcore and remembering how horribly conservative a lot of this was. They had more rules on behavior than the Taliban (an inappropriate joke, but you get the idea…). Exactly what were they rebelling against, and what were they offering? Even Reagan was less uptight. A lot of us came out of some really chaotic situations, it’s odd (or maybe expected) that we’d gravitate toward dogma. Still, this stuff is no fun at all!

4) To complain about my low salary and uncertain prospects to make more money. This would make a horribly uninteresting post, however.

For now, though, here’s a trailer from a new movie on Punk from Southern Africa.