The Washington Post’s report on the bloated and secretive American intelligence community is more a story of today’s information overload than villains with cloaks and daggers.
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“Let’s not have a conversation about race.” Tina Brown at The Daily Beast says that Shirley Sherrod’s firing isn’t a teachable moment, but rather a “dangerous distraction.”
Nobel Laureate Gary Becker and Judge Richard Posner oppose the extension of unemployment benefits. Six months compensation is not enough, says Becker, but two years is too long.
The Guardian condenses the more than 90,000 intelligence documents leaked out of the Pentagon concerning the war in Afghanistan; Wikileaks published the documents online.
Inception is a film that entertains, but also one that may pride itself on making viewers think. It’s your choice. This art of coupling entertainment with (the possibility of) puzzles, […]
“As the 21st century unfolds, perhaps religions will undergo a radical shift: to become more hybrid in nature and flexible in narrative.” A professor of genetics on the malleability of myths.
“Like children with their hands in the cookie jar, dogs steal food quietly to make sure they don’t get caught. The finding adds to evidence that dogs can work out what others are thinking.”
Runaway executive bonuses on Wall-Street are here to stay, says John Cassidy at The New Yorker. The financial writer laments Washington’s failure to curtail abusive payouts.
“The obstacles to energy access are not technical. What is missing is a global commitment to move energy access up the political and development agendas.”
“Members of the Cuban arts community say more musicians, artists, actors and writers are traveling between the two countries.” The Times reports on a burgeoning arts exchange.
“The upper-crust of extremely wealthy families are hell-bent on destroying the democratic vision of a strong middle-class which has made the United States the envy of the world.”
“No other rich country is nearly as punitive as the Land of the Free. The rate of incarceration is a fifth of America’s level in Britain, a ninth in Germany and a twelfth in Japan.”
“It’s time to put beautifully-written nonfiction books into our English classrooms.” Ta-Nehisi Coates says reading well-written factual accounts adds nuance to an education.
Should the governments take action to reduce national debt or spend money to create jobs? Mark Weisbrot says the U.S. should fund the stimulus until unemployment is lower.
“Today’s technology may be determining not just how we spend our time: It actually may be ‘rewiring’ the way we think, how we experience the world around us.”
“Brion Gysin was a true subversive,” writes Laura Hoptman in Brion Gysin: Dream Machine, the text accompanying New York City’s New Museum’s exhibition of the same name. “Gay, stateless, polyglot, […]
U.S. human rights diplomacy is usually code for economic policy, says The Economist’s Babbage blog. So why can’t the State Department openly talk about development as a worthwhile goal?
Timothy Noah at Slate on, “What your enjoyment of sleep-away camp, or lack of same, says about your character.” How much did these hideaways determine our adult psychology?
Spiegel says that despite Israel’s declared freeze on building West Bank settlements, construction continues with the support of Jewish-American aid foundations.
“Can pot be a cause for the psychotic breakdown? Can pot actually help schizophrenics?” Dan Mitchell at The Big Money’s new marijuana blog says there is no causal relationship.
“To me, the unsung villain of the mortgage crisis is the 30-year fixed rate self-amortizing mortgage with no prepayment penalty,” says Megan McArdle at The Atlantic.
“We could be living inside a black hole. This head-spinning idea is one cosmologist’s conclusion based on a modification of Einstein’s equations.” The New Scientist on some very new astronomy.
A federal court has ruled that cheerleading cannot properly be called a sport because it does not provide for equal opportunities and participation in sports. Has the court gone too far?
“Where does our sense of right and wrong come from?” David Brooks at The New York Times prefers a naturalistic explanation of moral code over a purely divine or rational one.
“It looks like an iPad, only it’s 1/14th the cost: India has unveiled the prototype of a $35 basic touchscreen tablet aimed at students, which it hopes to bring into production by 2011.”
“Biofuels have always sounded better during the Iowa caucuses than they have performed in reality.” The Chicago Tribune on why federal ethanol subsidies may be on the chopping block.
If people realized how different they are from their fellow citizens, the country would fall apart in a weekend. Working as a journalist taught me that. I can’t help noticing, […]
Bioethicist Jacob Appel believes that Washington should fortify all of our drinking water with trace amounts of lithium, which has been show to decrease suicides.
n n If you want reliable, world-class journalism, you could do worse than The Economist. This London-based weekly magazine excels in reporting of the respectably serious kind. Serious, as in […]
. n . n American cities are gridded, and thus easily readable and navigable. Their Old World counterparts are older, messier and much more disorienting. That is the conventional wisdom. […]