Sunday Links

Just a bit of light, Sunday night reading.

First off, the Boston Globe today had a terrific piece on the pending lawsuits between The Upper Crust and the illegal immigrants who claim to have been exploited by the chain. It is an excellent piece of investigative reporting, detailed and thorough. I wish it also gave us a clearer picture of the pizzeria's side of the story -- but that task is impossible, given a defendant's understandable desire to keep the record quiet in face of impending litigation. Regardless, this piece raises many significant questions, if only for the detail that an entire Brazilian town was conscripted to work at a single restaurant chain.

I know I make a lot of fun of the New York Times on this blog, particularly for their "lifestyle" pieces where they try to create a trend where there isn't one. But every once in a while, they come through with something like the following piece on Laptopistan, exposing the subculture of people who spend all day in a coffee shop working alone. These people always struck me as a bit of a paradox, and the article does a great job explaining how they are wired. It's very nicely written ("Throughout the week I will see only a handful of PCs, each looking sadly out of place, like they have arrived at a black-tie affair in a corduroy blazer."), and certainly worth a read.

Lastly, the excellent Chuck Klosterman piece from the NYT on zombies. I love it when an author I enjoy writes about stuff I enjoy. That in itself is a decent enough hook, but the piece is also great. The premise? "A lot of modern life is exactly like slaughtering zombies." His point, largely, is that in our everyday lives we encounter dozens of "wars of attrition," where, no matter what we do, the hits just keep on coming. Think of the never-ending battle to keep a clean inbox. Zombies, he argues, are just like that. "As long we keep deleting whatever’s directly in front of us, we survive. We live to eliminate the zombies of tomorrow. We are able to remain human, at least for the time being. Our enemy is relentless and colossal, but also uncreative and stupid. Battling zombies is like battling anything ... or everything."