January 2011
164 posts
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Video: Dr. Atul Gawande on Death Panels
Read more about Gawande’s take on the return of the term “Death Panels” to our country’s debate on health care reform.
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Get the facts about Egypt
foreignaffairsmagazine:
Get the background you need on Mubarak and Egypt—from Boutros Boutros-Ghali on Egypt in the Post-Sadat Era to CFR Fellow Steven Cook on Mohamed El Baradei’s chance for reform.
Also check out our ‘must reads’ from this Egyptian politics reading list.
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“Hunting is often portrayed as barbaric and cruel, and hunters are presented as...”
– Robert F. Smith on why he hunts and how hunting—unlike farming—led to greater social equality.
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More soldiers died from suicide than combat in... →
The folks over at Good have a tendency to turn us on to bad news, including this: “For the second year in a row, more American soldiers—both enlisted men and women and veterans—committed suicide than were killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Excluding accidents and illness, 462 soldiers died in combat, while 468 committed suicide. A difference of six isn’t vast by any...
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“But are evangelists like Shafer selling tiny houses short when they position...”
– Never afraid to turn a myth on its ear, Greg Beato demystifies the hidden compulsions of the tiny house movement for Smart Set.
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Genetic Engineering Can Do Good, Too →
Pam Ronald, a University of California, Davis, researcher, sees a future dominated not by Monsanto-like corporations but by small partnerships between farmers and scientists. By combining genetically modified crops with organic farming and other eco-friendly practices, Ronald believes, we can create a system that slashes pesticide use, insulates crops against floods and drought, and protects the...
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The Cost of Doing Business: Children's Mental... →
Speaking of marketing towards children, check out this quote from Z Magazine: “In the United States alone, expenditures on marketing to children skyrocketed from $2 billion in 1999 to $15 billion in 2005.”
The article continues, citing research on the psychological effect of consumer culture on youngsters: “Recent research shows that a high level of exposure to commercial messages is...
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“[I]n 2000 a Disney executive named Andy Mooney went to check out a “Disney on...”
– Peggy Orenstein on the the beginnings of “princess” culture and the pink economy.
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In Middle America, the middle-aged struggle to...
Sometime in early June—he’s not exactly sure which day—Rick Rembold joined history. That he doesn’t remember comes as little surprise: Who wants his name etched into the record books for not having a job?
Rembold, a 56-year-old resident of Mishawaka, Indiana, embodies the unnerving mix of frustration, anger, and helplessness voiced by so many other unemployed workers I’ve spoken to. “I lie awake...
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“The urine produced by 1,000 cows could generate 40 to 50 kilowatts of power...”
– The latest from the laboratory of Mr. Wizzard: the untapped energy of urine.
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The Incredible Disappearing Alaskan Village →
The small town of Newtok, Alaska is fighting for its life. As global temperatures rise, the town of 340 Yup’ik people is losing the land below it, as it melts into the sea. “The permafrost under Newtok is no longer permanent,” writes Mark Dowie in Orion (November | December 2010), “and the thick winter ice that once sheltered the village from increasingly violent storm surges thaws and breaks up...
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One month without Palin . . . impossible? →
The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank recently discovered that he has written 42 columns about Sarah Palin since her vice-presidential nomination in 2008. He’s taking a little sabbatical: one month, no Palin. Think you can do it too?
(Thanks, Good.)
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What is it that makes us long for the unexpected... →
It’s hard to know just where this new fondness for the random has come from, but certainly we seem starved for surprise and improvisation. Somewhere between the acceleration of contemporary life, the precision of communication technology, and the overall efficiency of the digital age, we seem to have developed an appetite for the haphazard.
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“Neither side, so far as I know, has produced a reliable distinction between good...”
– Wendell Berry on work—specifically, on a potential pitfall of transitioning our economy to a 30-hour workweek without deeply examining work as we experience it. Check the latest issue of Utne Reader for plenty more great writing on work in America.
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“The NY Times has got to go. It cannot be repaired. It is a hopeless government...”
– A tweet from the WikiLeaks twitter account—part of the ongoing saga of Julian Assange vs. the World. Business Insider elaborates here.
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Less Work, More Life →
It’s a tradeoff that a lot of American workers might appreciate.Pollsters find time stress a constant complaint among Americans. Until the current recession, Americans were working some of the longest hours in the industrial world.
By contrast, the Netherlands boasts the world’s shortest working hours. Dutch workers put in 400 fewer annual hours on the job than American workers do. And yet, the...
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“Celebrity demands could easily be dismissed as amusing diva excesses if they...”
– Celebrity biographer Kitty Kelley on the subversive power of unauthorized biographies.
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College is one of America's worst investments →
theweekmagazine:
At least that’s what a new study suggests. The study found that nearly half of students make “no significant gains in learning” in their first two years on campus, and that they spend 50 percent less time studying than their 1970s and 1980s counterparts.
This is “depressing,” but hardly “shocking,” says Matt Kiebus in Death + Taxes. Anyone who has spent time on a college...
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“The renovation has turned a cottage into a palace. Information, n., now runs...”
– James Gleick on “information.” Or, rather, on the Oxford English Dictionary on information, and the ever-changing innards of the tome.
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For Those of You Following the Tunisian...
thepoliticalnotebook:
… who also happen to have Twitter. Here is a list of some people that have some great on-the-ground reporting/updates and analysis going on:
@richardengelnbc
@bencnn
@arabist
@MideastChannel
@evanchill
@abuaardvark
@AJEnglish
@ahramonline
@bbclysedoucet
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“Perhaps it’s naive of me to think that gay people have the answers, that our...”
– Michael Luongo, on his experience editing and researching the Arabic edition of Gay Travels in the Muslim World.
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“What would happen if we actually found Bigfoot?”
– A few writers, including Minnesota Monthly’s Frank Bures, have been trying to figure out what the yetis, Sasquatches, and mysterious ape-men of the world really mean.
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“I admire the Dude. He’s very true to himself, whereas I can get my hair shirt on...”
– Jeff Bridges, groovy Buddhist and star of the True Grit remake, on his most well-known alter ego.