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Donna Pinckley photographs interracial couples and writes the negative comments they have been subjected to underneath
comment posted at 7:57 PM on Nov-14-15

Multiple shootings are happening at popular venues and restaurants in Paris The Guardian seems to be very well informed. But here is a link to Liberation as well
comment posted at 7:41 PM on Nov-13-15

"The number of people living in poverty in Portland’s suburbs shot up almost 100 percent between 2000 and 2011, according to the Brookings Institute. If the North’s poor black residents are driven to the same poverty in less desirable areas, then the Portland Boheme for middle-class whites has been purchased at a price of cultural disruption and displacement, even violence. And while immigration to cozier, comfortable climes, and gentrification and attendant displacement are not new phenomena, I find that people flocking Portland-ward rarely wish to accept their own culpability or complicity in this story—there is a desire on behalf of most newcomers to think of themselves as socially progressive and so properly enlightened, as if being anti-racist or super-considerate and well-meaning, responsible even, somehow makes this process of ‘urban renewal’ consequence-less and clean. It is not." Michael Copperman, La Boheme Portlandia.
comment posted at 2:22 PM on Nov-12-15
comment posted at 4:38 PM on Nov-12-15

Holy Cow, Home Alone Is 25! Remember Winnetka’s most famous big-screen family, the McCallisters—especially the resourceful son who got left behind? An oral history of one of the most beloved Christmas comedies ever made.
comment posted at 11:17 AM on Nov-12-15

Of the many concerns unearthed by the protests at two major universities this week, the velocity at which we now move from racial recrimination to self-righteous backlash is possibly the most revealing. The unrest that occurred at the University of Missouri and at Yale University, two outwardly dissimilar institutions, shared themes of racial obtuseness, arthritic institutional responses to it, and the feeling, among students of color, that they are tenants rather than stakeholders in their universities. That these issues have now been subsumed in a debate over political correctness and free speech on campus—important but largely separate subjects—is proof of the self-serving deflection to which we should be accustomed at this point.
comment posted at 8:33 AM on Nov-12-15

In Flanders Fields read by Michael Enright.
comment posted at 6:49 AM on Nov-12-15

A longtime legend in the piercing community has it that during the Victorian Era, young women from England were briefly caught up in the fad of having their nipples pierced. It was all the rage, and then it went out of style. It’s one of those stories, like Julius Caesar’s own pierced nipples, or King Tut’s stretched lobes, that seems made up, or at least padded with potential exaggeration. It’s the sort of thing that raises eyebrows, challenges how we think about Victorian Culture (The same people who supposedly covered their table’s legs because they too closely resembled female ankles were getting their nipples done?) and just plain seems impossible. Except it’s all true and then some.
comment posted at 10:18 AM on Nov-10-15

On October 23, The New York Times Magazine caused a stir when they released the results of their reader poll: "If you could go back and kill Hitler as a baby, would you do it?" US presidential candidate Jeb Bush is now the first of the candidates to announce, on video, that he would do so.
comment posted at 1:34 PM on Nov-9-15

One morning as I scanned the news...I thought of Edward Snowden and wondered how he was holding up in Moscow. I began to imagine a conversation between him and Daniel Ellsberg... And then, interestingly, in my imagination a third person made her way into the room—the writer Arundhati Roy. It occurred to me that trying to get the three of them together would be a fine thing to do.

John Cusack (yes, that John Cusack) asks Arundhati Roy to join him and Daniel Ellsberg on a trip to Moscow to have a conversation with Edward Snowden
comment posted at 11:38 AM on Nov-9-15

You send us your most ephemeral and worthless communications, and we'll carefully transcribe them into the most long-lasting medium known to man - a clay tablet. It's Dumb Cuneiform.
comment posted at 9:35 AM on Nov-7-15

"In a closed-door meeting Thursday night, Yale University’s apologized to a large group of minority students for the school’s failure to make them feel safe on campus."
comment posted at 12:59 PM on Nov-6-15

Watch Ozzy Osbourne Tour the Alamo 33 Years After Urination Arrest.
comment posted at 1:04 PM on Nov-6-15

Mormon Church makes same-sex couples apostates, excludes children from blessings and baptism
More details in the Salt Lake Tribune.

Mormon Church Bleeding Members Over Gay Marriage
comment posted at 9:03 AM on Nov-6-15

At the A.V. Club, Caroline Siede examines how Hamilton and Allegiance might represent a new approach to historical drama.
comment posted at 6:32 AM on Nov-5-15

As debate rages about whether to introduce a sugar tax, this is the story of how Mexico defied its own powerful fizzy drinks industry to impose a tax on soda.
comment posted at 11:05 AM on Nov-4-15

Ikea Hack: $22 Standup Desk. "Interested in trying a standing desk but put off by the price? Check this out. Colin Nederkoorn, founder and CEO of Customer.io, has designed a simple base that can raise a monitor and keyboard up to standing desk height. Even better, it's constructed out of Ikea furniture that'll only run you $22. Nederkoorn named his creation the Standesk 2200."
comment posted at 12:14 AM on Nov-1-15

As Heroin Use by Whites Soars, Parents Urge Gentler Drug War Noting that “junkies” is a word he would never use now, he said that these days, “they’re working right next to you and you don’t even know it. They’re in my daughter’s bedroom — they are my daughter.”
comment posted at 12:35 PM on Oct-30-15

First, Kill the Witches. Then, Celebrate Them. by Stacy Schiff [The New York Times]

Among the oldest settlements in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and for years among the wealthiest cities in America, Salem had many claims to fame. It preferred not to count the witchcraft delusion among them; no one cared to record even where the town had hanged 19 innocents. It addressed the unpleasantness the New England way: silently. When George Washington passed through Salem in October 1789, he witnessed neither any trace of a witch panic nor of Halloween. Sometimes it seems as if the trauma of an event can be measured by how long it takes us to commemorate it, and by how thoroughly we mangle it in the process.

comment posted at 10:16 AM on Oct-28-15

"When a student at Spring Valley High School, South Carolina captured a cellphone video of a police officer flipping over a student and her desk, then throwing the student across the room, the video quickly got national attention: people were alarmed that a police officer in a school would do that to a teenager who didn't pose a threat."
comment posted at 12:51 PM on Oct-27-15

Depending on whom you ask, the use of the active voice over the passive is arguably the most fundamental writer’s maxim, thought to lend weight, truth, and power to declarative statements. This absolutist view is flawed, however, because language is an art of nuance. From time to time, writers may well find illustrative value in the lightest of phrases, sentences so weightless and feathery that they scarcely even seem to exist at all.
comment posted at 7:13 AM on Oct-27-15

US political leaders have negotiated a budget deal with the White House that keeps the government funded through March of 2017. The bill will increase spending for domestic and defense programs. At the same time it will make a major change to the Social Security disability program. Under the agreement Social Security disability payments will move to a flat benefit at 125% of the poverty level, instead of a sliding scale based on pre-disability income. Conservatives and liberals have provided more detailed explanations.
comment posted at 6:24 AM on Oct-27-15

The battle of Agincourt was fought on a muddy field in northern France 600 years ago on Sunday – St Crispin’s Day, October 25th 1415. Legend says Agincourt was won by arrows. It was not. It was won by men using lead-weighted hammers, poleaxes, mauls and falcon-beaks, the ghastly paraphernalia of medieval hand-to-hand fighting. It was fought on a field knee-deep in mud, and it was more of a massacre than a battle.
comment posted at 10:29 AM on Oct-25-15
comment posted at 11:47 AM on Oct-25-15

The Hot Dog Report: Everyone makes jokes about chicken lips in their hot dogs but someone finally tested a wide variety of brands to see what they're really made of.
comment posted at 12:24 PM on Oct-24-15

What do we really know about Osama bin Laden's death?

I saw this as more of a media story, a case study in how constructed narratives become accepted truth. This felt like a cop-out to [Seymour Hersh], as he explained in a long email the next day. He said that I was sidestepping the real issue, that I was ‘‘turning this into a ‘he-said, she-said’ dilemma,’’ instead of coming to my own conclusion about whose version was right. It was then that he introduced an even more disturbing notion: What if no one’s version could be trusted?

comment posted at 7:09 PM on Oct-21-15

Yo Zushi: Many of those calling out cultural appropriation of all kinds – from clothing and hair to musical genres – seem to share this proprietorial attitude, which insists that culture, by its nature a communally forged and ever-changing project, should belong to specific peoples and not to all. Banks is doubtless correct to feel this “undercurrent” of racial persecution by an industry that prefers its stars to be white and what they sell to be black, yet there is also truth in the second part of that undercurrent: “Y’all don’t really own shit.” When it comes to great movements in culture, the racial interloper is not wrong. None of us can, or should, “own” hip-hop, cornrows, or the right to wear a kimono.
comment posted at 9:27 AM on Oct-21-15

"A growing number of people on low incomes are now living in shared housing - known as "houses in multiple occupation" - where each room is rented separately. But there's concern that many tenants are living in poor conditions." [SLBBC]
comment posted at 6:55 AM on Oct-21-15

The Person-Guy is the cause of every evil and frustration in your life. The Person-Guy only wears odd socks, because he thinks that wasting our limited lifespan sorting them into matching pairs is indicative of a potentially authoritarian neurosis. The Person-Guy has a minor vocal tic, and it sends you into strange daylight fantasies; tearing out his throat with your bare hands, feeling the frantic little pulses of blood as they spurt and froth around your claws and then go cold. The Person-Guy likes all the same things you like, which is why you hate him. The Person-Guy is not reading this article. Only you are reading this article.
comment posted at 8:46 AM on Oct-20-15

The Lonely Death of George Bell (slnyt) Incredibly well-researched, in-depth article on all the people affected by the death of a random man late last year, from the city workers charged with disposing of him and his things, to the people who knew him. Surprisingly moving, it is full of small uplifting moments.
comment posted at 3:58 PM on Oct-17-15

In The War of 2050, The Robots Call The Shots
comment posted at 11:09 AM on Oct-16-15

The Drone Papers-The Intercept has obtained a cache of secret documents detailing the inner workings of the U.S. military’s assassination program in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia. The documents, provided by a whistleblower, offer an unprecedented glimpse into Obama’s drone wars.
comment posted at 10:05 AM on Oct-15-15

I Have Gone to Bed Early: Translating Proust by Dan Piepenbring [The Paris Review]

Richard Howard, who turns eighty-six today, first appeared in The Paris Review in our thirteenth issue—from the summer of 1956. Since then, several of his poems and translations have found their way to these pages, and in 2004, J. D. McClatchy interviewed him for our Art of Poetry series. In our Summer 1989 issue, George Plimpton spoke with Howard about translating Proust.

comment posted at 3:33 PM on Oct-14-15

"Yousef Al Otaiba is the most charming man in Washington: He's slick, he's savvy and he throws one hell of a party. And if he has his way, our Middle East policy is going to get a lot more aggressive." - Ryan Grim and Akbar Shahid Ahmed
comment posted at 12:31 PM on Oct-14-15

“What do I think is the American dream? There is no dream for anyone who isn’t a lawyer or banker,” he said. “Everyone else, we are getting a raw deal. Immigrants taking all our jobs. Only jobs we get is keeping the rich happy: we release fish downstream for work, they catch them upstream for fun.” (slGrauniad)
comment posted at 1:32 PM on Oct-14-15

Thoreau was kind of a dick. Actually, more than "kind of." He was, in fact, a huge, total dick. (OK, he was a strident and powerful abolitionist. But somehow he managed to be a dick about that too.)
comment posted at 6:24 AM on Oct-14-15
comment posted at 7:12 AM on Oct-14-15

Tonight's Debate debate will be the first time a major news event will be broadcast live in virtual reality. That might not be such a good idea. Here is the When, the Where, the Who and How to Watch.
comment posted at 3:06 PM on Oct-13-15

The Runner’s High: It’s Like Smoking Weed [High Times]

Research on mice [Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences] has confirmed that a “runner’s high” arises from a release of anandamide, a neurotransmitter that stimulates the same cannabinoid receptors that cannabis does. If you have ever run, biked, lifted weights, or performed any kind of physical exercise, you may have noticed a sense of euphoria and the feeling you are relieved of physical pain and anxiety. They thought it came from β-endorphin, but now scientists have confirmed that anandamide is most likely the cause.

comment posted at 12:43 PM on Oct-13-15

ThatNordicGuy spends his free time combining photos of celebrities.
comment posted at 10:33 AM on Oct-13-15

Jason Baca has been the cover model for over 400 romance novels. What is his life like? "Things get a little weird" he admits.
comment posted at 12:36 PM on Oct-9-15

American Democracy is Doomed is a Vox long(ish)read by Matthew Yglesias summarizing the work of Juan Linz on constitutional crises in presidential democracies (previously), which combined with constitutional hardball and ideological polarization threaten to destroy American democracy (#nottheonion). As Yglesias describes the problem, it's primarily structural, an inevitable result of rules that have failed in every other country that has tried them. (We're 30 for 30 so far.) (All but the first link are pdf.)
comment posted at 2:44 PM on Oct-8-15
comment posted at 3:09 PM on Oct-8-15

Was Hamlet fat? Isaac Butler (previously) investigates for Slate.
comment posted at 11:53 AM on Oct-7-15
comment posted at 1:12 PM on Oct-7-15

Comcast is famously bad at customer service, "winning" Consumerist's Worst Company in America award for 2014 and 2010. In particular, it's famously bad at letting customers go. But for the low, low price of $5, AirPaper will cancel your service for you.
comment posted at 10:29 AM on Oct-6-15
comment posted at 11:04 AM on Oct-6-15

Mother Jones: How the Media Inspires Mass Shooters, and what it can do to prevent copycat attacks
comment posted at 9:48 AM on Oct-6-15

"The efficacy of antidepressant medication has been shown empirically to be overestimated due to publication bias [...] The efficacy of psychological interventions for depression has been overestimated in the published literature, just as it has been for pharmacotherapy. Both are efficacious but not to the extent that the published literature would suggest"
comment posted at 10:18 AM on Oct-5-15

Life as a waitress too often means low pay and sexual harassment — When you live paycheck to paycheck, reporting discrimination or harassment becomes complicated.
comment posted at 12:43 PM on Oct-4-15