Wasting Money Making Money
Another interesting report from NPR’s “Planet Money.” All about those stupid dollar coins.
Wasting Money Making Money
Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.
— Ira Glass (via nefffy)
(via nprfreshair)
A Peek Inside The Westboro Baptist Church
Wow, these guys are the absolute worst. You have to try pretty hard to be this hated by everyone.
I had no idea they were so organized… pretty interesting peek inside their “church.”
First Listen: Ra Ra Riot, 'The Orchard'
I saw these guys (Ra Ra Riot) open for Andrew Bird a few years ago in Philly and was impressed. So far I’m liking their follow-up album a lot too. The album is streaming free in it’s entirety on NPR for the next week or so.
NPR | Ousted Evangelical Richard Cizik Reflects On Faith, Future
I wish there more evangelicals like Richard Cizik.
“Most important, [we need to become] independent of partisanship and ideology rather than subservient to partisanship and ideology,” he says. “Evangelicalism [has] become so subservient to an ideology and to a political party that it needs, as I say, to be born again.”
Paydown Loans. Yuck.
I recently heard an interesting interview on NPR with Gary Rivlin, who just published a book called “Broke, USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc. How the Working Poor Became Big Business” about the Pay Day Loan industry.
What a sad and grossly predatory industry.
You can read or hear the interview here…
And here’s an podcast from the Planet Money folks called “Inside A Payday Loan Shop.”
