Belinda Edmondson (Rutgers): Making the Case for Middlebrow Culture. From The Futurist, a look at some of the “wild cards” that futurists need to be looking at critically right now. Hans Kung on why celibacy should be abolished. What if it was -50C outside, booze and drugs are almost triple what they are in the rest of the country, and a bunch of your friends committed suicide because they got dumped? That’s Nunavut teenhood. Do you speak American? Discrimination against accented workers is on the rise. After decades of putting up awful buildings, Columbia tries to break its streak. Behind the numbers: What weather forecasts really mean. A review of Suicide by Edouard Leve. Nuclear weapons on instant alert?: The US and Russians still have their missiles on a hair trigger, putting the Non-Proliferation Treaty at risk. A review of Solving Stonehenge: The New Key to an Ancient Enigma by Anthony Johnson. A review of Manufacturing Depression: The Secret History of a Modern Disease by Gary Greenberg. There was a time when illegal abortion was the only option for a woman with an unwanted pregnancy. Postmodernist historians of everyday life in totalitarian societies have underrated the role of ideology at the individual level, preferring a performative reading of subjectivity — yet this fails to explain why the Soviet and Nazi regimes generated absolute commitment. We are what we eat, and in an era of global warming, food is the canary in the mine. Should I be worried about electromagnetic pulses destroying my electronics? Gossip blogging now is a career path in its own right — here are nine young practitioners who are set to become Web stars. Television Personalities: Meet Joel Silberman, the man who makes sure bloggers are ready for their close-up.
