I've never watched The Wire

so I can't comment about it, but this last post in a series of 9 on "real thugs" watching a show about "real thugs" is overwhelmingly interesting.

Someday Sudhir Venkatesh will win a Nobel, I think, though maybe this is a long shot as his field doesn't seem to fit the prize fields.

So maybe he won't, but I do think that he has both an unusual eye for the story and an unusual perspective (these may be the same) on what it means to be white or black in America today. I'm currently enjoying his Off the Books, though at times it reads a bit like thesis research.

What does the man on the street think about the bonuses to AIG executives?

You might be surprised, at least depending on which man on the street you ask.

You have to be real careful when you mess with folks at the top, because when the war is over, you’ll need these guys real quick. Ninety-nine percent of people just doing what they’re told — you couldn’t find half a brain among all of them. But the ones with the brains — don’t let them go.

What's wrong with the picture? Here is what The Thugz see that the public so often misses. Doesn't look like we're doing anything that is going to help the struggling banks.

I was able to use the word incontrovertible in conversation yesterday

and that was a pretty fun moment, but I'm not sure that the word is properly used in its most common context: as incontrovertible evidence. I'm not sure evidence should be disputed as easily as conclusions; at least, if evidence is factual and conclusions are logical, you should be discussing the logic and not the fact. The latter seems to make conclusions de facto.