December 2010
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Male Contraception Goes Mainstream →
Fifty years ago, the birth control pill revolutionized contraception—and promptly introduced a host of now-familiar side effects for women, among them decreased libido and increased risk of stroke. That men ought to share the burden is an old argument, one that—until recently—looked unwinnable. Today, however, promising research aimed at creating more convenient and effective forms of male...
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Watchnprfreshair:
The good folks at Gothamist alert us to this short film, shot by filmmaker Jamie Stuart during the New York blizzard. Titled “Idiot With a Tripod,” this gorgeous piece of film is an homage to the 1929 short “Man With a Movie Camera.” The best part? Stuart sent it to Roger Ebert, who is saying it deserves to win the Academy Award for best live-action short subject. (You can see “Man...
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“Scientists now know that, while introverts have no special advantage in...”
– On being an introvert in an extroverted world, from Psychology Today.
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Soon-to-be Retirees Ought to Know . . . →
… that their working life is nowhere near over. If you’re over 60 years old and reading this post, it’s probably too late. Good for you if you’re under 30. You’ve got a better chance if you’re younger.
Age discrimination? No. The end of retirement as we know it—an emerging unpleasant reality that will reshape the quality of life and standard of living for billions. Start dealing...
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Peter Smith: The Best Food Longreads of the Year →
longreads:
Stories from Wired, Conservation Magazine, Edible Geography, Saveur, Slate, National Geographic, GQ and Prospect.
Longreads points to Good’s nice round up of food writing from 2010—including an article that was reprinted in Utne Reader (Michael Pollan’s “Food Movement Rising”).
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“Consumer-led industrial capitalism necessarily creates huge social divisions and...”
– From “The Humanization of the Cosmos—To What End?” by Peter Dickens. We promise it to be one of the most interesting articles from a Marxist publication all year.
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Five Utne Reader Visionaries in Health & Biology
Sandra Steingraber - A scientist, poet, and cancer survivor, Steingraber makes a passionate and lyrical case for eliminating carcinogens, which are ubiquitous in our environment.
Rebecca Onie - A scientist, poet, and cancer survivor, Steingraber makes a passionate and lyrical case for eliminating carcinogens, which are ubiquitous in our environment.
Tani Ikeda - In 2009 Tani Ikeda, a new...
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2nd Most Prolific Film Market in the World:... →
It all started in 1992, when Kenneth Nnebue, an electronics dealer in Lagos, Nigeria, needed to unload a shipment of blank VHS cassettes. He figured the tapes would be easier to sell if they had something on them, so he made Living in Bondage, a film about a down-and-out businessman who used witchcraft to get ahead. It had rock-bottom production values, but it told a story about magic,...
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“A landlocked nation of steppes and desert, Mongolia is now known mostly as a...”
– Mongolia is famed for its vast, open spaces, but calling it “empty” would be a misnomer. Not only does the country host a rich and largely pristine environment, but beneath the steppes and desert lie mineral riches worth an estimated $1.3 trillion.
Step-by-step Instructions for Visiting a Murderer →
#1 - Find the North Carolina Department of Correction Public Information System website. Enter the name of the offender. Write down the seven-digit offender ID number. Click on the box to see the photograph. Or you can do this later.
#3 - Ask a friend who is a lawyer to search the record to make sure the offender is not insane. Write down the name and telephone number of the lawyer who...
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Farming the Seas for Vacuum Cleaners →
Electrolux, an eco-savvy Swedish household-appliance company, has built a small line of vacuums made in part with plastic reclaimed from the world’s ocean’s trash whirlpools.
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Video: The Twelve Days of WikiLeaks →
Warm up with a little bit of yule-tide WikiCheer, brought to you by Mother Jones (and Utne Reader) illustrator Zina Saunders. Click this link for a rendition of “12 Days of Christmas,” devoted to government transparency and Iranian ninjas.
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Utne Reader Visionary: Conscientious fashionista... →
More than 8,000 chemicals were used to make the clothes in your closet. Approximately 1,800 gallons of fresh water were used to manufacture the jeans you’re wearing right now. All-too-commonplace numbers like these make it clear that the fashion industry needs an eco-makeover. Natalia Allen is up for the challenge.
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Bill Nye is the Archbishop of Scientism →
Bill Nye is enjoying a cultural rebirth on the scale of Red Scare-paranoia or feistier-than-meets-the-eye Golden Girl Betty White. And, what’s more, Nye recently took home the 2010 Humanist of the Year Award, granted to him by the American Humanist Association, for (among other things) educating children about dinosaurs, genetically modified food, and quicksand. It’s no wonder—being The...
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Hong Kong's unique development plan for metro rail →
The Transport Politic shines a nice spotlight on Hong Kong’s MTR transit system, which consistently plans and builds more rail-based public transportation, despite high population density and inflated construction costs. MTR has approached public transportation with a unique development model:
MTR, in association with the local government, has become one of the city’s major property...
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WatchAir traffic meets land traffic. This video by California is a Place is short, simple, and borderline iconic. Check out the other quirky documentaries, too.
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Timely: An Eco-friendly Guide to Holiday Boozing! →
Have you ever been sipping on a glass of merlot, thinking to yourself with vague anxiety, “God, I wonder if this wine was filtered with tropical fish bladders?” Sure you have. Now, thanks to Ethical Consumer, you can find out whether or not your favorite winery uses isinglass—a fining agent derived from fish swim bladders used to remove organic compounds in wine—along with various other...
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The Great Desprawling Experiment →
Situated on the outer edge of the Washington, D.C., Beltway in Fairfax County, Va., Tysons Corner is the kind of place that’s good for gassing up, grabbing a Cinnabon, and maybe browsing the wares at dime-a-dozen chains like Kay Jewelers and the Gap. But it’s not the kind of place where you would want to live—unless you happen to be a car, in which case it’s paradise.
It’s hard to conceive...
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“English will fade as a lingua-franca, but not because some other language will...”
– The English language is doomed (to be usurped from its global ubiquity).
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Happy Birthday, Like It or Not →
Happy Birthday to You” may be the modern world’s greatest hit, even the biggest hit ever—it’s hard to say. In the English-speaking world, we sing it more than any other song. It has also been translated into Finnish, French, Cantonese, and Arabic, among other languages. The Happy Birthday song is the song that ties us together more than any other; it is our universal bond.
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“With more attack satellites than any other network and nearly a million...”
– From an Onion News Network press release, detailing the station’s next move onto broadcast television.
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Utne Reader Visionary: Kickstarter's Perry Chen →
Creative artists typically have just three methods for funding projects: They can attempt to infiltrate the marketplace through gatekeepers like galleries, publishers, or recording labels; they can appeal to nonprofits and foundations that superimpose their own agendas on artistic goals; or they can wait tables. With Kickstarter, Perry Chen envisions a fourth paradigm.
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The Big Business of Micro-Lending →
You’ve heard of Big Oil and Big Tobacco. How about Big Microfinance?
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“I’ll be on my own. That means I’ll have to sell myself like mad—not my ideas but...”
– On an impending problem: when authors are forced to publicize themselves. —Robert B. Reich, from The American Prospect.
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