My Customs Story

I read a few financial newsletters. One of my favorites is The Daily Dirtnap, by Jared Dillian. He’s mainly a sentiment and charts guy, big on ETFs over individual stocks, leans conservative politically but doesn’t beat you over the head with it, and writes about his six cats, with pictures sometimes. He’s also a Progressive House DJ with a decent following on Soundcloud and is finishing up an MFA. Earlier this week he wrote about coming back into the U.S. from a recent trip to the Caymans, and the weird reception he and his tattoos got from the Customs agent in Charlotte. He told readers to send him Customs stories, so I sent him mine.

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We, The People…

One day, when we look back on our lives, we will be defined by the way we behaved in this moment.

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That Didn’t Take Long

ABC News reports Miley Cyrus, Disney’s most recent pre-pubescent cash cow, is officially “embarrassed” by photographs set to appear in an upcoming issue of Vanity Fair, in which the 15 year-old star of Disney’s hit TV show “Hannah Montana” appears clutching a satin sheet to her naked breast.

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Who Loves Ya, Baby?

The true origins of celebrating the notion of romantic love on February 14 are not well documented, though the exchange of elaborate, handmade gifts between paramours was well established by the middle of the eighteenth century in England, and began to really take off in the United States once Esther Howland (herself now considered something of a saint by the American Greeting Card Association) began selling mass-produced Valentine’s cards in the 1840s.

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We Got The Funk

Thaddeus Russell, in a brilliant piece published today in Salon (which may require some hassle to view, but is well worth the annual subscription fee to have at one’s disposal), explains exactly why we can “cut and run” in Iraq, and leave the democratization of the Middle East to its citizens.

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