A review of Social Work, Politics and Society: From Radicalism to Orthodoxy by Ken McLaughlin. A review of Psychotherapy, American Culture, and Social Policy: Immoral Individualism by Elizabeth A. Throop. Behavioral Theory: Can Mayor Bloomberg pay poor people to do the "right" thing? The poverty of political talk: It's still hard for politicians to speak clearly about the poorest Americans. In defiance of all reason and compassion, the criminalization of poverty has actually been intensifying as the recession generates ever more of it. Kim Phillips-Fein reviews Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity by Loïc Wacquant (and more). A review of Sasha Abramsky's Breadline USA: The Hidden Scandal of American Hunger and How to Fix It. All-American Squatters: Take Back the Land is “liberating” foreclosed homes to fight homelessness. A review of Why David Sometimes Wins: Leadership, Organization and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement by Marshall Ganz. A review of The Politics of Protest: Social Movements in America by David S. Meyer. The case for government doing good: Now is the time for Obama to champion the good that government does for Americans.

A review of Shapes for Sounds by Timothy Donaldson. An interview with Arika Okrent, author of In the Land of Invented Languages (and more). A look at the top ten geekiest constructed languages. A review of books on the English language. The words that make the English: Language is more subtle and complex than we think — speech reveals national character. Hovorte po slovensky: Slovakia criminalises the use of Hungarian. Tucker Childs is using digital technology to study and record one of Africa’s many dying languages. Swahili swerves into the internet age: Historic language of East African traders adapts to modern world — it's even on Facebook.  A review of I'm Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears: And Other Intriguing Idioms from Around the World by Jag Bhalla (and an interview). The idiotic joys of idioms: Idioms are not only great fun, they also cast fresh light on the less rational workings of the human mind (and more). The return of the epigram: Can 21st-century Twitter rescue the wordplay mastered by 1st century Romans? Johann Hari on lies, damned lies and the double-speak to expunge. A look at what your choice of words says about your personality. How much skrilla for fro-yo? UCLA slang book spells out lingo. John Bassett McCleary's The Hippie Dictionary is a 720-page archive of a now-vanishing lexicon.

The deification of Matthew Shepard: What the gay-rights movement has lost by making Shepard its icon. A review of Gay Rights and Moral Panic: The Origins of America's Debate on Homosexuality by Fred Fejes. A look at how the homosexual came to be: A journey through Freud. Growing up gay — how hard could that be? Just ask Christopher White. A review of Becoming Gay: The Journey to Self-Acceptance by Richard A. Isay. A review of Queer TV: Theories, Histories, Politics. Does his purple mink make him look gay? The rise of no homo and the changing face of hip-hop homophobia. A review of When Gay People Get Married: What Happens When Societies Legalize Same-Sex Marriage by M V Badgett. Gay marriage supporters have not met Brian Brown — they should; he might be more worth knowing about. Is it possible to systematically turn gay people straight? Meet DC's tiniest demographic: The ex-gay movement that wasn't. When public displays of affection by same-sex couples started capturing the attention of law enforcement agents, a few bloggers got fed up and organized the Great Nationwide Kiss-In. Nigger/Faggot: Notes on being gay & white in a black neighborhood. Wondering if she is gay? Your first instinct is probably right. Can gay alcoholics cut back their drinking and still maintain a social life?

From carbon insolvency to climate dividends: How observing the 2-degree target may lead to a new global order. How a carbon cap number can make millionaires: If we take 350 seriously, we can start affecting the climate in ways that we can account for to ourselves. The world's response to global warming is a classic case of all mouth and no trousers: The beauty of 10:10 is that it's both achievable and meaningful (and if you're not fighting climate change or improving the world, you're wasting your life). At least four big conundrums must be confronted if we are to make progress in preventing the worst outcomes from global warming. From Discover, the easiest way to fight global warming? Geoengineering has so far been something of a taboo topic for climate scientists; Peter Cox and Hazel Jeffery explain why it is now time to take it seriously. Is geoengineering humanity's last hope to avoid catastrophic global warming? (and more) From mimicking a volcanic eruption to mirrors in space, some geoengineering schemes are pretty far out there. Here are a few not-so-crazy ways to re-engineer the climate. The way we live will lead, inevitably, to the extinction of half of the planet’s biodiversity by century’s end; how can our morality, or our religion, prepare us for this? Is committed greenery entitled to the same protections as a religion?