From World Affairs, John McWhorter on the cosmopolitan tongue and the universality of English. From Popular Mechanics, 3 mysterious builds: A look at how ancient peoples moved monoliths (and how to move heavy objects with simple tools). Chris Lehmann reviews Stripping Bare the Body: Politics, Violence, War by Mark Danner. Welcome home: It is high time to abolish the concept of ethnic minorities. Lost in the sauce: An article on the effects of alcohol on mind wandering; and are full or empty beer bottles sturdier and does their fracture-threshold suffice to break the human skull? Monsters and the moral imagination: Stephen Asma argues that monsters help shape our ethics and put us in touch with our humanity. A review of On Rumours by Cass Sunstein (and more and more). From Counterpunch, Kim Nicolini on Marx's Hollow Utopia: Spike Jonze re-envisions "Where the Wild Things Are". To chase streets gangs out of suburbia, adults will have to make a dramatic change: They'll have to start paying attention to the culture their children live in. What the Iraq bombings mean: Are devastating, synchronized car bombings a sign that Iraqi forces can't keep citizens safe? "History goes on; human beings don't change very much": John Gray says he is no despairing grump, just trying to help us by injecting realism into political thinking. Cleanliness is next to godliness: New research shows clean smells promote moral behavior. From The New Yorker, Sasha Frere-Jones on hip-hop's demise (and a response). From Yankee Pot Roast, an article on Halloween Costumes to Scare Your Man (Off, Forever).