Saw this a while back, but I thought it’s still worth sharing: despite the Teabagger’s cries, U.S.A. Today reports that “Tax Bills in 2009 at Lowest Level since 1950.”

It’s not a crime to owe money, and debtors’ prisons were abolished in the United States in the 19th century. But people are routinely being thrown in jail for failing to pay debts. In Minnesota, which has some of the most creditor-friendly laws in the country, the use of arrest warrants against debtors has jumped 60 percent over the past four years, with 845 cases in 2009, a Star Tribune analysis of state court data has found.

The StarTribune has a distressing article about people being thrown into jail for debt.

I enjoyed this bit of poetry in the New Yorker, which gently plays with the idea of “living each day as if it were your last.”

The June 2010 issue has an excellent article, “China’s Caves of Faith,” presenting hundreds of caves along a former Silk Road route that hold centuries of Buddhist art.

The pictures are beautiful, representing vibrant art in a multicultural blend of styles. The story, meanwhile, explores the tension of past exploitation by the West balanced against the need for foreign experts to help preserve these treasures.

In “Study Finds Blacks Blocked from Southern Juries,” the New York Times writes about how prosecutors’ dismissals result in racially imbalanced juries throughout much of the former Confederacy.

The reasons given aren’t that great, either:

The district attorney, Robert Broussard, said one had seemed “arrogant” and “pretty vocal.” In another woman, he said he “detected hostility.”

Mr. Broussard also questioned the “sophistication” of a former Army sergeant, a forklift operator with three years of college, a cafeteria manager, an assembly-line worker and a retired Department of Defense program analyst.