Eze Paez (Pompeu Fabra): Six Ways Something Can Be Valuable. From the Boston Globe’s Ideas section, Britt Peterson on English, loanword champion of the world: It’s the number-one lender of words to other languages — but not everyone wants to borrow them; and on why we love the language police: An eccentric British grammar scold named N.M. Gwynne wants to take English back to the good old days, and readers are eating it up. Common mythconceptions: David McCandless on the world's most contagious falsehoods. From Politico, John Harris on the dark art of political b.s.: Pay no attention to the pundit behind the curtain — most of them are full of it; and spin is dead: It’s little more than entertainment now. Bonfire of the Inanities: Jacqui Shine on the history of the Styles section of the New York Times — and the real New Journalism. Paul Krugman on when government succeeds: “Modern American political discourse is dominated by cheap cynicism about public policy, a free-floating contempt for any and all efforts to improve our lives. And this cheap cynicism is completely unjustified”. Sarah Kliff on Michael Cannon, the man who could bring down Obamacare. Alice M. Rivlin on how the people who wanted market-driven health care now have it in the Affordable Care Act. John Herrman is in the trenches of the Facebook election: Identity, Facebook, and dog-whistling from the News Feed. Bill Cosby’s legacy, recast: Accusers speak in detail about sexual-assault allegations. Reihan Salam on a better solution to America’s immigration problem: End birthright citizenship. “To quote scripture? That’s out of bounds”: Fox cries foul over Obama’s Bible quotes in immigration speech.
