Christopher Hitchens’ column this month in Vanity Fairreflects the best of the writer’s intellect and prose. Upon learning of his cancer diagnosis, Hitch writes: “My father had died, and very […]
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Grist’s Umbra Fisk (the website’s point person for green living questions) recently revisited the toilet issue and doled out some very important water-saving tips: sink a half-gallon of water in […]
Dani Shapiro’s recent New York Times editorial was not the first shot fired in the never-ending debate about the limits of artistic license, but it is one of the most […]
Quality news media inspire constructive debate and diffuse innovations. An example came yesterday as the New York Times spotlighted the trend toward open-review publishing, reinvigorating conversations about the topic across […]
Every year, The Buckminster Fuller Challenge awards a $100,000 prize to a project that has the potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems and significantly improve human quality of life. The […]
Long before reality television challenged our faith in the sustainability of the human race, documentary films were an intriguing look into the minds and hearts of some fascinating subjects. By […]
The big cognitive and emotional news in the Mind Matters household is that it is expecting the arrival in a few weeks of a demanding, very long-staying guest, whose personality […]
A decade and a half later, the plan sounds even more improbable than at its inception
There is a ‘precious’ level to this map, and a naughty one.
n Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell (MA) Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac, and in spite of his fancy name, his French-Canadian parents had to emigrate to Massachusetts to find work. […]
Following on the somewhat silly Times cover piece on how distracted we all are, itself in opposition to Steven Pinker’s brilliant Times Op-Ed today, Walter Kirn’s contribution to The Atlantic’s […]
Ben Lewis at Prospect Magazine says postmodernism will be remembered as the graveyard of the admirable modernist project for its formulas, narcissism, sentiment and cynicism.
“It gives you a whole new way of looking at the day,” Dennis Hopper’s character Billy says in the unforgettable film, Easy Rider, which the then 33-year-old Hopper also directed. […]
100 years after Mark Twain’s death, the Mississippi River that inspired his mature writing has changed, and yet, Twain’s ideas remain discernible through it.
“There was a time when building the future was inspirational,” Brian Fies writes in his new graphic novel, Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? “Ambitious. Romantic. Even enobling. I […]
“Chucky Fat Face,” artist Chuck Close admits to being called by fellow artist Richard Serra during their graduate school days together at Yale early on in the film Chuck Close, […]
Travellers, discoverers and cartographers have named the world around us so that we might find our way in it. The purpose of a place name, therefore, is to be as […]
Cannibalism is the ultimate yardstick for barbarity, and the ideal excuse to subjugate the accused
Is there a link between Andy Warhol’s fifteen minutes of fame and the tragicomic history of Carpatho-Ukraine?
This week, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting released a report on best practices in digital journalism that I co-authored with several colleagues here at American University and the Center for […]
The mathematical physicist reflects upon his untraditional math and science education in Belize, and talks about how Einstein’s theory of relativity is a “profound connection” that can inspire young people.
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The centerfold of a Superman comic book inspired the inventor who sent the first-ever Internet message.
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This cartographic predator was born in 1583, and would be cut in half barely 65 years later
Brexit lends a renewed poignancy to Gillray’s scatological cartoon
Novelist Bret Easton Ellis is used to people asking him about the numb, disconnectedness of his characters—and whether that’s a reflection of his own worldview. Not so much, he says: […]
In a series of posts over at Scientific American’s blog CrossCheck, John Horgan describes how several recent articles and books have prompted him to re-evaluate his views on nuclear energy. […]
With declining social mobility and nearly one million under-24s neither in college nor work in the UK, Janice Turner laments the lack of inspiring onscreen and literary role models.
China is the world’s most populous nation (1). That much anybody knows. But even if we know a bit more (that the number of Chinese is around 1.32 billion, which […]
n No cloud without a silver lining: the extensive bombing damage to London during the Second World War provided an opportunity to develop a drastic plan for a green, open-spaced […]
James Hansen, NASA climate scientist, has argued strongly against Cap and Trade legislation, promoted the need for a carbon tax, complained of muzzling by the Bush administration, and has even […]