links for 2010-03-12

• The New Yorker asks" Does this mean that Mexico, long considered a bastion of machismo, is in fact less sexist than, say, California?"
  As gay marriage comes to Mexico City, Alma Guillermoprieto takes an interesting look at an evolving culture. "The Catholic Church tacitly adopted “Don’t ask, don’t tell” a good millennium before the Pentagon did. And now Mexico City—where movies, television, birth control, foreign tourism, the Internet, and sex education at public schools have combined to change the culture at breathtaking speed—appears to have decided that the policy no longer serves."
  (tags: newyorker mexico gaymarriage)
• We Bought A Toxic Asset; You Can Watch It Die : NPR
  As much as I love Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me or This American Life or even Sound Opinions, the part of NPR I enjoy most is financial reporting. Seriously, I love Marketplace and Kai Risdell is my man. It's probably because they talk about things I don't really understand but feel like I should, and they do it in a way that simplifies it without making me feel dumg. This latest bit by Planet Money is a clever gimmick -- but it's also good fucking reporting. I'm becoming a WBEZ member today, and if you can afford it, you should too. "Remember those complicated bonds full of home mortgages? The ones that almost brought down the economy? A team of NPR reporters used $1,000 of their own money to buy a tiny piece of one — and plan to track it until it dies."
  (tags: NPR KaiRisdell Marketplace PlanetMoney Toxic)