online archive
5:00PM
MAR 7 2008
Hypothetical threats of megadeath
From Monthly Review, an article on the health care crisis in the United States; and who really won the Space Race? Marriage isn't the half of it: Laws should grant the same rights to all of today's families. A review of Describing Inner Experience? Proponent Meets Skeptic by Russell T. Hurlburt and Eric Schwitzgebel. A review of Second Nature: Brain Science and Human Knowledge by Gerald M. Edelman. The most relevant lesson to take from Japan’s economy in the 1990s was that the interplay between financial and real economic bubbles causes serious damage. A review of George Steiner’s My Unwritten Books. From Mute, what does continue to evolve are repressive forms of population management sustained by hypothetical threats of megadeath. A review of The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order by Parag Khanna (and an interview). "Love, American Style"s debut was at the very instance when everything censors and prudes had worried over seemed to bubble and blister just beneath the social surface. Laurence Tribe on sanity and the Second Amendment. Michio Kaku on teleportation: very possible; next up, time travel. 400 years after his birth, John Milton remains our most thrilling poet. The journalist as novelist of New York: It's almost a disappointment to find Pete Hamill, legendary New York newspaper man, in this pristine, modern university office.
1:00PM
MAR 7 2008
From pillow talk to a political pillow fight
A new issue of Economic Sociology is out. A review of The Death of the Critic by Ronan McDonald. From Discover, here are 20 things you didn't know about relativity, and the 5 most radical ways to squelch a climate crisis. Entertainment Weekly goes behind-the-scenes of ''I'm F—-ing Ben Affleck'' (and more). Michael Weiss on the politics of Edmund Wilson, the Prometheus of American criticism. A review of Brand New China: Advertising, Media, and Commercial Culture by Jing Wang. A review of Great Collectors of Our Time: Art Collecting Since 1945 by James Stourton. Marcia Dyson and Michael Eric Dyson go from pillow talk to a political pillow fight. Eric Banks reviews a trio of novels by Patrick Hamilton. From Foreign Policy, Ambassador John W. Limbert (Ret.) on how to negotiate with Iran; and a look at the best places to be a senior citizen. Dennis Prager on questions to ask before you send your child to college. Greed in the name of green: To worshipers of consumption — spending won't save the Earth. Green Left Weekly celebrates The Communist Manifesto: 160 years old and still causing trouble. Literary sex is such a turn-off: When writers try to make depictions of sex literary, you end up with bad sex and bad literature. A look at why surveys may be undercounting the number of atheists and agnostics in the U.S. Long-life genes found in 100-year-old humans.
9:00AM
MAR 7 2008
The whole world was watching
From Wired, an interview with Philip Zimbardo, author of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (and new pics from Abu Ghraib). The Whole World Was Watching: A new film takes an almost hallucinatory look at the protests in Chicago in 1968. Why can’t a woman be more like a man? Women earn most of America’s Ph.D.’s but lag in the physical sciences — beware of plans to fix the "problem". A review of Susan Choi's A Person of Interest. In The Ten-Cent Plague, David Hajdu looks back on the passions inflamed by the comics scare. Just because the Democratic candidates are a woman and black man does not mean this is the first election to hinge on identities; identity isn't the problem — pretending it doesn't matter is. A special issue of New York is out, on Best of New York 2008. We all seem convinced we're right about politics, religion or science these days; what makes us so sure of ourselves? From Time, an article on the complex task of simplicity and a look at the science of experience. From Scientific American, an accelerating universe wipes out traces of its own origins — is this the end of cosmology? From Utne, under the glue gun: Hip crafters can run but not hide from Martha Stewart. Samantha Power is an idealist and self-proclaimed "humanitarian hawk"; now, the 37-year-old Harvard professor is one of Barack Obama's closest advisers.
