From Esquire, an article on Jonathan Coulton, Internet famous and loving every minute of it (he thinks). Overdosing on reality: A child of the Internet goes feral in full view. It has never been easier to document our lives — but why would anyone share all this detail, or anyone else bother reading it? From PopMatters, the public display of the private individual: It is the shift from Rockwell's paranoid "I always feel like somebody's watching me" to the insistence that someone need be watching to validate private feelings; and the paradox of the new media is that for each face-to-face interaction we sacrifice, we open up the possibility of connecting with thousands of like-minded people. Listen to me: An old genre (the rant) erupts in a new venue (YouTube). Going viral: Brandon Hardesty discovered that in the age of YouTube, if you can make it in the family rec room, you can make it anywhere. From 3D Space to Third Place: An article on the social life of small virtual spaces. Post GeoCities: How online communities are born and what happens when they die. For anyone who hasn’t been following the blog You’re Talking a Lot, but You’re Not Saying Anything, Kerry Skemp recently summed up the lessons learned with the ultimate “meta-commentary” post: "Commentary on My Commentary on Commentary".

From Scientific American, a special issue on Origins, including a report on a conference on the science of origins; and an article on mysterious origins: 8 phenomena that defy explanation. Cosmic Vision: A new generation of giant telescopes will carry the eye to the edge of the universe. From The Economist, in praise of astronomy, the most revolutionary of sciences; and a look at a battle between Big Science and human hunches. More and more on The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes. Michael Shermer on what skepticism reveals about science. A review of Sciences from Below: Feminisms, Postcolonialities, and Modernities by Sandra Harding. Want more women to study science? Hire more female professors. Does science foster a universal culture? Julian Huxley thought so, and wrote this into the mandate of the UN — what happened? In the future, doing science is like blogging. From THES, do academic journals pose a threat to the advancement of science? Why don’t Americans understand science better? Start with the scientists. Why America is flunking science: Don't just blame poor education for our nation's scientific illiteracy — but our politics and pop culture. A review of Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum's Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future (and more and more).

Lawrence Davidson (West Chester): Private Control of Foreign Policy. Paul MacDonald (Williams): Rebalancing American Foreign Policy. A review of books: American foreign policy is at a crossroads. Who runs what US foreign policy, and what role has Obama carved out for himself? From New Statesman, Obama is commander-in-chief of an unprecedented network of military bases that is still expanding; but what is historically distinct about US power is that it has enabled the spread of human liberty. Why Americans see Thomas Jefferson in every would-be revolutionary around the world. A review of From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776 by George Herring (and more). Matthew Yglesias reviews The Godfather Doctrine: A Foreign Policy Parable by John Hulsman and A. Wess Mitchell. A review of By His Own Rules: The Ambitions, Successes, and Ultimate Failures of Donald Rumsfeld by Bradley Graham (and more and more and more). Amid war and recession, Americans are in a no-nonsense, matter-of-fact mood — but that, says Paul Wolfowitz, is no reason to adopt the misguided doctrine of realism (and responses). The long, slow death of American triumphalism: Think of GI Joe as a modern American zombie — "he" may never have existed, but he just won't die.

An excerpt from Jesus and Justice: Evangelicals, Race, and American Politics by Peter Goodwin Heltzel. A review of Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South by Steven Miller. Behind the scandal-tainted C Street house is an organization big on protecting its own and small on church ties and theology. Sex and power inside "the C Street House": Sanford, Ensign, and other regulars receive guidance from the invisible fundamentalist group known as the Family (and an excerpt from The Family: Power, Politics and Fundamentalism's Shadow Elite by Jeff Sharlet, and more). A review of Boundless Faith: The Global Outreach of American Churches by Robert Wuthnow. From CT, a review of World of Faith and Freedom: Why International Religious Liberty is Vital to American National Security by Thomas F. Farr; and a review of Religion and American Foreign Policy, 1945-1960: The Soul of Containment by William Inboden. A review of Victoria Clark's Allies for Armageddon: The Rise of Christian Zionism. Christian fundamentalism helped turn Somalia into the next staging ground for Islamic radicalism. The modern Evangelical Left does not want to defend America, and the great mid-20th century theologian Karl Barth might partly be at fault. Totally evangelical: First Jesus, then Sylvia Plath, then pot — and so on.