From Z Magazine, an interview with Noam Chomsky on government involvement with science and art; and come hell and high water: Scientists indict state capitalism. On being podcastable in a multitasking age: An interview with Renee Montagne of National Public Radio's Morning Edition. 32 Battalion: The history of South Africa’s preeminent black-ops unit. A map of America: It’s the rules that define how images are prioritized in a Google Image Search that direct how these messages are sent and grouped; far from arbitrary, the machine refracts meaning. Electoral dysfunction: Why democracy is always unfair. From HiLobrow, the ghastly, frightful truth of our condition is only fully realized by the figure of Cute Cthulhu itself, because Cute Cthulhu is the spawn himself of the ill couplings depicted in tentacle porn; and if Plato’s allegory is in many ways a sort of proto-fantasy/sci-fi story, what does it all (as they say) mean? Well, one question worth pursuing is this one: Which world is the digital world? Planet Doom: Bradford Plumer on nine scenarios for imminent apocalypse — only one is global warming. Give it a rest, genius: Ann Hulbert on what the new success books don't tell you about superachievement. From The Village Voice, the NYPD Tapes: Graham Rayman goes inside Bed-Stuy's 81st Precinct. D.A.R.E. has been in America's classrooms for more than a quarter century, but experts still debate whether the program works. Craig Morgan Teicher reviews Planisphere by John Ashbery. The artist as troll: The Gutenberg Press, filing cabinets, Marxist newspapers, ballpoint pens, Live Journal, YouTube — the more things change, the more they stay the same. Don't lament everything lost to technology: What did we lose when we abandoned land lines? Obscene phone sex perverts, for one.
