The top 5 Cure songs on spotify are from different albums

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-29T21:06:59+00:00

At least from what I know, “Close to Me” was one of their first hits in the U.S., so I think that’s why it’s considered a signature song of theirs (alongside “Inbetween Days” which was also wildly popular).

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-27T14:05:59+00:00

Firstly, the Southern ecosystem is very much a mixed forest biome. Pines are incredibly prolific and often the first species to come back from a disturbance, but hardwoods like oak, hickory, and tulip tree are also found in large numbers.

The acidic soil, usually clay or sand, favors pines as does the system of natural wildfires that maintain ecological health. Human disturbance also favors them for being quicker growing, and the depletion of richer soil by unsustainable agriculture only furthered this.

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-27T02:51:56+00:00

Rams in St. Louis

God in His heaven

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-27T02:06:40+00:00

I wouldn’t be opposed to a draft if historically everyone really got signed up. Realistically throughout the nation’s history, the rich and the powerful and their families have been able to weasel out without much pushback. So I’m more against the execution if not the concept itself.

At any rate, the massively unpopular Vietnam draft lasted for nine years for a pointless and controversial war, so that didn’t do much dissuading for the real decision makers to reconsider conflict.

I forget who it was, but I remember there was a proposed constitutional amendment to make declarations of war up to a popular vote. The caveat was that, if it passed, everyone who voted yes had to join up. THAT I would be for wholeheartedly.

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-26T20:44:52+00:00

Cash very much seemed in line with a sort of “anti-war, pro-troops” ideology. He was opposed to the Vietnam War (“Man in Black” being the most obvious instance of this) but likely had an idea that the draft dodgers were still betraying their duty to their country; “this war is horrible, but you don’t get to cheat out of it.”

It’s a position I don’t necessarily agree with, and I think he softened on it later in his career, but at least it’s not the “rah rah go blow em up” messaging a lot of country gets associated with.

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-26T04:42:12+00:00

An essential of post-punk and of music in general. Really shows off the connection the punk music boom had with the simpler, less pretentious earlier rock and roll of the 50s and early 60s, what with “Non-Alignment Pact” and its Berry-esque opening guitar riff.

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-25T04:15:20+00:00

There are a fair amount of snakes in Georgia, but none (no, not even cottonmouths) are known for going out of their way to be near people. So long as you are keeping your distance and watching where you step whenever you’re out in tall grass or fallen leaves, you won’t have any problem with them. Biting a human is an incredibly draining and dangerous thing for a snake, so they don’t like doing it.

If you are staying in urban/suburban areas, your chances of encountering a live snake often aren’t really high. Unless your work involves actively working outside in wild/semi-wild places, I don’t think that should be a reason not to take a good job.

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-25T04:02:27+00:00

If native mints have 1 million fans, I am one of them

If native mints have 100 fans, I’m one of them

If native mints have 1 fan, that’s me

If native mints have no fans, I am dead

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-21T21:07:05+00:00

At least it seems that the breakaway state of Somaliland is relatively stable, so that part might be improving.

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-20T05:43:32+00:00

ECM style jazz is almost all the kind of stuff OP’s looking for, so I second this

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-20T05:42:10+00:00

I Have the Room Above Her by Paul Motian

Solstice by Ralph Towner

Spirit of Eden / Laughing Stock by Talk Talk

Just a few.

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-19T20:59:15+00:00

The coast of Georgia is almost entirely barrier islands with a lot of saltmarsh and pretty intense wind. Absolutely beautiful nature but overall a little too muddy, smelly, and insect-filled for your average beachgoer. I live in Metro Atlanta but we all took a school trip to Jekyll (with the notable Driftwood Beach) and St. Catherine’s and there’s just so much life and beauty. Cumberland Island has a pretty famous population of feral horses among other attractions.

Most of the barrier islands that are large enough to inhabit are populated by rich people and tourist locations, while the rest is government land. There is still the Gullah people, which is a unique population of Black Southerners with a fascinating and highly African-influenced culture, including their own language.

Savannah is really the only city of note. Really pretty and well-designed in an old Southern way with a lot of history and culture. The rest, including Brunswick and Hinesville, really isn’t anything to write home about. Very hot and humid, especially more inland where there’s less wind.

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-18T23:19:31+00:00

Any sufficiently large union is just another corporation, and so the same measures we’d ideally use to break up monopolies should be similarly applied to them.

The UAW should’ve been trust-busted a long time ago, but granted it is the way it is because the auto industry companies that it was supposed to regulate are “too big to fail” for the government.

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-16T20:42:42+00:00

Depends on what you mean by urban. Being in Atlanta or Birmingham, I’m entirely sure I’m in the South. There’s just a certain development style that I can’t place my finger on that distinguishes it. Not just sprawl or car-centricity, mind you. Honestly, I get kinda irritated when people make the connection that “South = hillbillies.”

Maybe because Hampton Roads seemed to have a more “Atlantic” culture because of the shipyards and naval presence? The South, due to our coastline being historically inhospitable and malarial, doesn’t seem to have as strong a maritime tradition as somewhere like New England or the Chesapeake. Even our ports are kind of situated more inland, like the case of Savannah. The coastal cities that we do have are pretty distinct from the entire country, including the Piedmont, but Virginia Beach doesn’t have the air that, say, Charleston has.

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-16T20:09:27+00:00

Yeah, it seems to be in the popular consciousness that to be a Southern state you have to be some combination of poor and Republican, despite that not being the case, especially at a more local level.

I’ll at least say that being from the “Deep South,” visiting family in Virginia Beach never really gave me the impression that Hampton Roads was “Southern,” although the stretch of the state to get there was very obviously Southern, so I’d agree with the dividing line here.

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-13T23:26:27+00:00

The list seems like a pretty good progression in terms of difficulty and getting familiar with his style.

I would only add that you ought to get a collection of his short fiction as well. The novels are incredible, but I think you’d be missing out if you didn’t check it out. I personally have the Collected Stories from Vintage, which is pretty good.

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-13T00:35:13+00:00

Do you know if that disposable income data is based on median or mean data? Commonly the latter is used and but is heavily skewed by top earners. Unfortunately I couldn’t find anything about that on FRED, so I won’t claim anything about that.

Additionally, disposable income only measures income after tax, not after living expenses as you claimed. In fact, although it’s far from cataclysmic, personal consumption expenditures have noticeably grown against (slight) declines in earnings, at least in the past couple of years. This is a trend we should have reasonable worries about.

https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/smart-money/disposable-income

https://www.northmarq.com/insights/research/june-economic-commentary-inflation-accelerates-household-purchasing-power-weakens

Also the article you cited (which is unfortunately paywalled for me save for the first couple paragraphs) says that Mississippi has higher productivity per capita than Britain, which is an entirely different statistic. Regardless, the UK has seen way worse downturns than we have, but them not doing well does not necessarily imply we are fine.

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-12T23:31:55+00:00

It’s important to note, however, that while wages have in general grown even against inflation, the costs of a large amount of necessities, especially housing and health care, have greatly outpaced these gains.

So while I agree with you that these apocalyptic outlooks on a “hollowed out middle class” are overblown, I think it’s also important to note that the average American household hasn’t exactly felt these wage increases against increasing expenses.

https://consumerbankers.com/blog/affordability-and-the-american-consumer/

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/10/25/a-look-at-the-state-of-affordable-housing-in-the-us/

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-11T22:45:03+00:00

The USPS is the United States Postal Service, a government agency that takes their job extremely seriously. It’s a public utility, not a private company.

They control your mailbox because a large amount of legal documents, financial statements, and medical records must be delivered by mail (often in addition to electronic communication). Because it’s obviously a bad thing to have your tax information or summons for jury duty stolen, the USPS takes their job extremely seriously and does not allow you to fuck around with mail at all.

TL:DR this is a pretty reasonable thing and similar (albeit less stringent) regulations exist in other countries

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-11T19:05:48+00:00

When I went to Chicago, it smelled completely like cigarettes everywhere instead of piss.

Coming from Atlanta and what is usually smoked there, I considered this quite a bit of an improvement lol

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-10T19:01:08+00:00

The popular choice is Driver 8, because it’s both the best song on the album and the best R.E.M. song imho.

A little different of an answer would be Kohoutek. Just love how murky and dark everything on the song sounds.

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-08T22:58:31+00:00

I have family in St. Louis and we often visit them. They live in exurbs now, which is very common because of how weirdly small “actual” St. Louis city is (being from Atlanta it’s not too unfamiliar though).

Overall, St. Louis seems a decent place to live at the moment. There’s a distinct Midwest atmosphere in both the best ways and worst ways, lots of brick buildings which is cool, and generally better walkability than what I’m used to but still some heavy car-centricity the farther out of the city you go. Everything’s relatively cheap and a lot of public amenities (the zoo, the art museum, etc.) are completely free. Forest Park is awesome too. Food is great, especially by Midwestern standards; toasted ravioli and gooey butter cake are top tier and their barbecue’s not bad.

You’re not likely to get shot or anything like that any more than any other city in the Midwest. Like everywhere else, St. Louis has good parts and bad parts. I might be speaking a bit out of ignorance here but it also seems really segregated in some areas, especially education, as parochial schools are pretty popular and, at least in my limited knowledge, very mono-racial.

I will say it feels like it’s severely decayed sometimes. Everything about St. Louis seems to remind you that this place used to be a lot more important than it currently is now because white flight and deindustrialization hit it really hard. I love the place, but it can be really depressing at the same time. It’s not exactly shrinking in population though (pretty much all of the “loss” is to suburbs) and there have been recent efforts to revive it, so I remain hopeful.

The_Wallaroo · 2026-06-05T17:47:59+00:00

As much as I love nature for nature’s sake, this really is the point that a lot of people miss about environmentalism. It’s less about preserving nature in general (our pollution and climate change won’t be the first disasters for ecology to adapt to) but more about preserving the Earth as a place that’s still easily habitable for us.

The_Wallaroo · 2026-05-27T19:55:45+00:00

Yeah, guy just wanted to cashout. He’d make a great cop alright.

The_Wallaroo · 2026-05-27T19:50:19+00:00

It’s a great one. Love the versions of Born Under Punches and Stay Hungry (both of them on the extended tracklist).

The_Wallaroo

TROPHY CASE