An interesting read on the recent reaction in Boston:
This remix of Puritanism and the neo-liberal imaginary (obsessed with what Ericson dubs "the myth of certainty and security") is a necessary but not sufficient set of conditions for declaring this peculiar "state of emergency." The remaining variable is demographic. It pits an aging, declining and reactive population (the third or fourth generation descendants of Irish, Italian, German, and English immigrants) straining to secure the slipping remnants of a mid-20th Century state-centered set of expected benefits, against a more vigorous and adaptable creative subculture within the Millennial Generation. Not surprisingly, there's been a steady outflow of educated Millennials from the Bay State to points South and West, where a younger, educated demographic is welcomed and treated with greater public courtesy. The Bay State response to a benign set of LED graphics, when compared to how these crudely drawn Mooninites were viewed in other venues across the U.S., makes the point unusually clear.
Read the full post and then if you need something lighter here you go: