A new issue of The New Atlantis is out, including Christine Rosen on People of the Screen: A tale of two literacies; and a review of Enhancing Evolution by John Harris. From Context, Viktor Shklovsky: Five Feuilletons on Sergei Eisenstein. Since Mayor Michael Bloomberg's congestion-pricing plan failed in New York City, his transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan has taken a piecemeal approach to reclaiming streets from cars. The Paris Review inspires - - and reassures - - young writers, says Margaret Atwood. Harold Meyerson on the case for keeping the Big Three out of bankruptcy. Cleanliness is next to godlessness: Soaping away your outer dirt may lead to inner evil. A review of Mad, Bad and Dangerous? The Scientist and the Cinema by Christopher Frayling. From Big Think, Tyler Cowen on the free market and morality. Eric Banks on 100 candles for Claude Levi-Strauss. From AJR, many newspapers are laying off the reporters who monitor the federal government from a local angle — the cost could be steep. From Tikkun, an article on the irresponsibility of Thomas Friedman. Transformation 101: Technology is driving down the cost of teaching undergraduates — so why are tuition bills going up? Roget's Thesaurus is more than just a book about words — and the story of its author's often unhappy life provides a suggestive counterpoint to its complexities.

From New York, Manhattan is the capital of people living by themselves, but are New Yorkers lonelier? Far from it, say a new breed of loneliness researchers, who argue that urban alienation is largely a myth. John Cacioppo, author of Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection, on technology and loneliness. The Undying Animal: Morris Dickstein reminds us why literature still matters. The Web Guru: As media shatters, Jeff Jarvis is the ideologue seer of the New Age. Grey sky thinking: A review of books on British weather. Carlin Romano reviews books on sex addiction: Ooh! Aah! Eek! Ugh. Zzzz. Ooh! From The Global Spiral, the postmodern condition as a religious revival: A review of William Connolly’s Why I am Not a Secularist, Dipesh Chakrabarty’s Provincializing Europe, and Alvin Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief; and is science the only sure path to truth? An excerpt from The Big Questions in Science and Religion by Keith Ward. Charles Homas on the Last Secrets of the Bush Administration: How to find out what we still don't know. From U. of Chicago Press, an interview with Lennard J. Davis, author of Obsession: A History (and a review); an excerpt from Patty’s Got a Gun Patricia Hearst in 1970s America by William Graebner; and an excerpt from Autophobia: Love and Hate in the Automotive Age by Brian Ladd.

From Global-e, Michael A. Peters (Illinois): Information, Globalization and Democracy: The Utopian Moment? An interview with Susan Petrilli and Augusto Ponzio on the semiotic basis of knowledge and ethics. How should a democratic community make public policy? The first chapter from Democracy and Knowledge: Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens by Josiah Ober. From The Insider, an article on why capitalism is good for the soul. From African American Review, a review of Black is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy by Nikhil Pal Singh. A review of Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North by Thomas J. Sugrue. More and more on Gabriel Garcia Marquez: a Life by Gerald Martin.  A review of Fredric Jameson's Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. The introduction to Economic Gangsters: Corruption, Violence and the Poverty of Nations by Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel (and a review and a panel). From Arts & Opinion, an article on steroid hysteria: unpacking the claims; and why abstract art is not art. From Liberal Education, a special issue on the future of interdisciplinary studies. From Expositions, a review essay on the evolution of evolution theory and its controversies. Can’t keep track of your sex life? The Internet can. 

From Human Ecology Review,  Joanne Vining and Melinda S. Merrick (Illinois) and Emily A. Price (Utah State): The Distinction between Humans and Nature: Human Perceptions of Connectedness to Nature and Elements of the Natural and Unnatural; and Jerry Williams (Stephen F. Austin): Thinking as Natural: Another Look at Human Exemptionalism; and reflections on Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel. From NYRB, Michael Dirda reviews the work of Paul Auster. From Plenty, Christian Lander on stuff environmentalists like (and part 2). Though obviously not anti-intellectual, by Obama's own account he is a pragmatist, not strongly bound to any "isms". Life after bankruptcy: The age of privatisation is over; politics not the market is responsible for promoting the common good — philosopher Jurgen Habemas talks to Thomas Assheuer about the necessity of an international world order. From Utne, a series on “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World”.  An interview with Neal Stephenson: "I'm choosing to be left behind". A look at how death is a hot topic among writers these days. An article on the Center for American Progress, the ideas factory in Obama's Washington. A review of The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule by Thomas Frank. A review of Becoming Beside Ourselves: The Alphabet, Ghosts, and Distributed Human Being by Brian Rotman.