Robert Pollack (Columbia): Natural Selection, the Human Genome, and the Idea of Race. From Taki's Mag, Paul Gottfried on the limits of race; Steve Sailer on how white pride is uncool; and Jared Taylor on the question of what it means to be white. From Ovi, an article on Christian extremists within the U.S. military: myth or reality? An interview with George Scialabba on the untethered, untenured mind (and Wesley Yang reviews What Are Intellectuals Good For? by George Scialabba). Have you ever been a "judicial activist"? Taking the Hill: Facing a fight on health care — and trying to avoid the mistakes of the past — President Obama’s team is working Congress from the inside. Guardians of cool, look away now — Coldplay are good. In light of the postmodernist cul-de-sac of relativism which, for all its social constructivism, cannot escape crude causality, M. Beatrice Fazi proposes a metaphysics of difference for decoding expression in interactive media. A review of Merleau-Ponty: Key Concepts by Rosalyn Diprose and Jack Reynolds. A review of Ronald Aronson's Living without God: New Directions for Atheists, Agnostics, Secularists, and the Undecided. A review of Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins's Biology Under the Influence: Dialectical Essays on Ecology, Agriculture, and Health.

From Witness, Chris Abani on Ethics and Narrative: the Human and Other. Like good nightclub promoters, MySpace sought out the ladies, then created an experience that everyone enjoyed — but is the party coming to an end? A review of A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving, and Their Remarkable Families by Michael Holroyd. Donna Seaman reviews The Girl with Brown Fur: Tales and Stories by Stacey Levine. From New Scientist, an article on John Tyndall, the man who discovered greenhouse gases. For a happier life, shake off your misplaced optimism. Paying with our sins: To help the federal and state governments fill their coffers, legalize and tax every vice. How much potential harm justifies suppressing facts, whether from My Lai or Iraq, that might help the public judge the way a war is waged in its name? An excerpt from Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe by Robert Lanza. A review of Thomas Maier's Masters of Sex: The Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the Couple Who Taught America (and more and more and more). Misreading the end of literary culture: We should not rue the passing of a bookish golden age that never existed.

From The Guardian, is agnosticism anything more than a polite, or cowardly veil around atheism? A debate. Can secular humanism be a kind of brainwashing? Symbol of precision: Timothy Williams puts the case for rigorous, formal philosophy to Julian Baggini. From Cracked, a look at 6 people who secretly ruled the world; and here are 6 ways that porn runs the world. Pedagogy of the Oppressor: Another reason why U.S. ed schools are so awful — the ongoing influence of Brazilian Marxist Paulo Freire. From Telos, a review of Catherine and Michael Zuckert's The Truth About Leo Strauss: Political Philosophy and American Democracy and Steven B. Smith's Reading Leo Strauss: Politics, Philosophy, Judaism. Republicans vs. bureaucrats: You can't starve government and blame it too. Who needs reference books in the age of the internet? Nothing compares to whiling away the hours between hard covers. From CT, a review of With God on All Sides: Leadership in a Devout and Diverse America by Douglas A. Hicks; and a review of The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right by Jon A. Shields. A look at why the human brain is made for environmental complacency. The S Word: To find common ground on abortion, let's talk about sex (and more). Who will be the new king of cussing in politics?

From Salon, fiction is crucial to our survival as a species: A review of On the Origin of Stories by Brian Boyd; and cellphone novels, the rage in Japan, now have competition in America — Twitter fiction. Obama is The Boss: What Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen share is an understanding that real life happens on the ground. A review of Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst. The 13 people who made torture possible: They authorized it, they decided how to implement it, and they crafted the legal fig leaf to justify it. Tzvetan Todorov on Bush’s intellectual torturers. The Rise of the Black Hipster: What happens when the hybrid hipster culture hits black America? From In These Times, an article on the Cuban Revolution and the American Left. From THES, a review of From Marxism to Post-Marxism? by Goran Therborn; an essay on FR Leavis' The Canon: The Great Tradition; and an article of Quentin Skinner, a historian renowned for examining past ideas in pursuit of disconcerting truths about the present. China Underground: An article on the Uighur Jimi Hendrix. Big Bosoms and the Big Bang: Did the human condition really emerge in Europe?