BACK ON THE CHAIN GANG. The passing of Joe Bageant at a relatively young age is a damn shame in any case, but it's sad for more than his fans that his work hasn't gotten the attention it deserves. AlterNet has several of his articles, any of which could be recommended, but I especially like the one about the sex offender in whose Kafkaesque post-release treatment Bageant found a case study of the efficiency and cruelty with which the state squeezes citizens whose rights no one will defend. It's least-of-my-brothers stuff in the manner of Nelson Algren from a self-proclaimed redneck who saw how inhuman our way of life has become, and how good we've gotten at fooling ourselves about it. I don't always agree with his conclusions, but he looked at the world as if he were part of it, a perspective conspicuously absent from the writings of most of the manicured sociopaths who get taken seriously these days.

UPDATE. Speaking of sociopaths, though I can't vouch for the condition of his nails. Sample: "Much like Adorno’s 'Authoritarian Personality' or Hofstadter’s 'Paranoid Style,' Bageantism is a faux-analysis, a make-believe political sociology..." This by way of explaining that Bageant didn't know what real people were like. Self-awareness is not McCain's strong suit. Neither is class.