Adam J. Kolber (Brooklyn): Unintentional Punishment. David Jenkins (Copenhagen): Black Holes and Hollow Promises: Citizenship and the Limits of Anglo-American Due Process since 9/11. From The New Republic, a special issue on Who Really Runs Washington. Zipcar and Flexcar started an economic revolution in urbanized America — but how much are we willing to share? From The Nation, Frances Moore Lappe on the food movement, its power and possibilities (and responses by Raj Patel, Vandana Shiva, Eric Schlosser, and Michael Pollan). There is no biological reason to eat three meals a day — so why do we do it? The story of how we got our alphabets: From intricate and beautiful Egyptian hieroglyphs, to wedge-shaped cuneiform imprints from ancient Mesopotamia — our ancestors developed many ways of recording their thoughts and information. Has our violent history led to an evolved preference for physically strong political leaders? Scott McLemee reviews Mary Ann Glendon’s The Forum and the Tower: How Scholars and Politicians Have Imagined the World, from Plato to Eleanor Roosevelt. Once it had to do with awe, now it just means "great" — how did "awesome" conquer the world? People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is suing SeaWorld for keeping slaves — the slaves in this case being 5 killer whales based at its marine parks. Do editorial page endorsements have any effect on election outcomes? Micah Cohen investigates. An experiment finds Richard Dawkins' weasels beat random monkeys to Shakespeare's work. A convict finds freedom overwhelming, starts a fire and heads back to jail. Crime conundrum: Why are rates of violence and theft dropping in the recession? Unless we finally start to honor the American people as individuals, the coming presidential election will miss the point.
