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United States Senator Dianne Feinstein Publicly Accuses C.I.A. of Spying on Congress. 'The chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday accused the Central Intelligence Agency of improperly removing documents from computers that committee staff members had been using to complete a report on the agency’s detention program, saying the move was part of an effort to intimidate the committee.' 'Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and the chairwoman of the committee, suggested on the Senate floor that the agency had violated federal law and said the C.I.A. had undermined Congress’s constitutional right to oversee the actions of the executive branch.'
comment posted at 5:43 PM on Mar-11-14

Deathigner is an animated, charming look at how mortality personalities learn to do what they do.
comment posted at 7:34 AM on Mar-9-14

Sherwin Nuland, surgeon and award-winning author who challenged idea of dignified death, has died at age 83. The son of first generation immigrants, Nuland survived a troubled childhood and succeeded in medical school only to face near-paralyzing depression, for which he was successfully treated with electroconvulsive therapy (first-person TED talk). His award-winning book, "How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter", included realistic descriptions of the process of death and helped to frame the national debate on assisted suicide.
comment posted at 7:15 PM on Mar-6-14

Literature courses often examine works with grotesque, disturbing and gruesome imagery within their narratives. For instance ... “Mrs. Dalloway” paints a disturbing narrative that examines the suicidal inclinations and post-traumatic experiences of an English war veteran. By creating trigger warnings for their students, professors can help to create a safe space for their students

The "trigger warning" has spread from blogs to college classes. Can it be stopped?
comment posted at 2:38 PM on Mar-5-14

A tale of a young woman in Lebanon, related in a manner that should resonate with many Americans. "This story is an analogy to what the Shia, most of whom belong to Hezbollah culture, are like in Lebanon. I tell it because it presents things in familiar terms to many Western readers. When people ask me what it was like, to grow up in the lands where Hezbollah structured the predominant culture, I hesitate to answer, because I want them to understand."
comment posted at 7:31 AM on Mar-1-14

Obama to award Medal of Honor to 24 after discrimination review. WASHINGTON — President Obama will seek to right a historical wrong next month when he awards two dozen veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam — including 17 Latinos — the Medal of Honor after a lengthy Pentagon review into racial and ethnic discrimination in the awarding of the nation's commendation for combat valor.
comment posted at 9:07 AM on Feb-23-14

Watch NYC Gentrify Through Google Street View GIFs
comment posted at 11:50 AM on Feb-21-14

Top-secret documents published by The Intercept reveal how GCHQ and the National Security Agency have targeted Wikileaks and "the human network that supports Wikileaks", with tactics ranging from covert surveillance to prosecution, targeting The Pirate Bay and Anonymous, urging countries to file criminal charges against Julian Assange, and secretly logging visitors to the Wikileaks website.
comment posted at 12:21 PM on Feb-18-14

United Nations finds evidence of human rights violations within North Korea.
comment posted at 3:17 PM on Feb-17-14

"Why am I not constantly grieving?" The wonderful Roger Angell on love, loss, sex, death, time, and the view from age 94.
comment posted at 10:39 AM on Feb-17-14

The Last Meals Of Death Row Inmates Documented By Henry Hargreaves
comment posted at 3:52 PM on Feb-14-14

"It was one of the most effective optical illusions in American politics—until it wasn’t." Alec MacGillis, in the New Republic, describes why "Chris Christie's entire career reeks. It's not just the bridge."
comment posted at 11:40 AM on Feb-13-14

Benny Goodman Sing Sing Sing.
comment posted at 10:05 AM on Feb-8-14

It's well known among the small world of people who pay attention to such things that the liberal-leaning reporters at The Wall Street Journal resent the conservative-leaning editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. What’s less well known—and about to break into the open, threatening the very fabric of the institution—is how deeply the liberal-leaning reporters at The New York Times resent the liberal-leaning editorial page of The New York Times.

The New York Observer reports that the journalistic staff of The New York Times is in "semi-open revolt" against the opinion pages. Chris Bray asks: "When was the last time you were surprised by something in the opinion pages of the New York Times, leaving aside the moments you were surprised by how awful something was?"
comment posted at 6:49 PM on Feb-7-14

The New York Times is reporting that anyone with a cell phone in the vicinity of Tuesday's anti-government demonstrations in Kiev received the following text message: “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.”
comment posted at 3:44 PM on Jan-21-14

President Obama unveils new policy directives for the NSA. Full text of the speech. And for lols, here are some photos also from Slate.
comment posted at 6:48 PM on Jan-17-14

On Thursday morning, Ohio executed Dennis McGuire for the 1989 rape and murder of Joy Stewart. However, due to an embargo on the common used lethal injection drug pentobarbital, the state used an untried combination of midazolam, a sedative, and hydromorphone, a morphine derivative, for the execution. The procedure took 24 minutes, during which McGuirse was reported to have been "choking and snorting" and was described as "horrific".
comment posted at 10:51 AM on Jan-17-14

Why We Should Stop Teaching Novels To High School Students (Natasha Vargas-Cooper for Bookforum)
comment posted at 10:33 AM on Jan-17-14

The late Jesse Morris covers Black Flag's "Six Pack"- in the idiom- and voice!- of Johnny Cash
comment posted at 8:02 PM on Jan-15-14

Former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon died at a hospital near Tel Aviv last night, aged 85, after spending eight years in a coma. He was one of Israel's more popular leaders as a fierce defender of the Jewish nation, but was loathed by Palestinians and other regional powers who dubbed him the "the Butcher of Beirut". Israel is in mourning. Twitter is reacting. NPR reflects on his life as being one of a warrior's journey to peace.
comment posted at 6:25 PM on Jan-11-14

Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan, and the Spectacles of Female Power and Pain.
comment posted at 5:18 PM on Jan-3-14

An unpublished interview with novelist Sol Yurick by BLDGBLOG's Geoff Manaugh. "[S]uppose we think of The Iliad as one big trade war. Troy, as you know, sat on the route into the Black Sea, which means it commanded the whole hinterland where people like the Greeks and the Trojans did trading. The Trojan War was a trade war." (previously on the 2013 passing of the writer of The Warriors)
comment posted at 2:06 PM on Jan-3-14

Mark Twain famously derided Jane Austen (who would have had her 238th birthday yesterday), saying (among other things) that he could not read her prose even if paid a salary to do so. But what did Twain really think about Austen's work?
comment posted at 9:43 AM on Dec-17-13

The revelation that the median grade at Harvard is an A- prompted lots of discussion, especially among Ivy-league educated journalists. Some speculated high grades reflect intelligence. Others say professors just want their students to get jobs, or, selfishly, they want favorable teaching evaluations. As a teaching assistant in the economics department at Columbia, I too inflated student grades, but for none of those reasons. I just didn’t want to deal with all the complaining.
comment posted at 3:08 PM on Dec-13-13

Why Life Does Not Really Exist
comment posted at 6:57 PM on Dec-7-13

There's A Whole New Way Of Killing Cancer: Stephanie Lee Is The Test Case
comment posted at 9:09 AM on Dec-7-13

Waterstones announces their Ornithological Waterstones Landing Service, a brand new way to receive your favourite books. Per the FAQ: Q. Isn’t this just what they did in Harry Potter? A: Yes, this is exactly what they did in Harry Potter. You’re asking that as if this is a bad thing
comment posted at 7:28 PM on Dec-2-13

I Married A Jew. Published January 1, 1939 in the Atlantic.
comment posted at 2:47 PM on Oct-29-13

If you declare, in a famous poem affixed to the Statue of Liberty, in New York Harbor, “Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me,” you might consider that a certain commitment has been made. (SLNYer)
comment posted at 11:35 AM on Oct-22-13

Why American refrigerators are so huge, and what it says about our culture.
comment posted at 6:24 PM on Oct-6-13

"In New York City, if you yell “where do I get the F train?” at someone they will tell you, they might even STOP to tell you. If you ask them “Excuse me, I was wondering if you have a moment, I’m from out of town and my trying to find the F train, so if you could possibly…” If you set up your question with all that, they will have walked away from you after the fifth word.
In Seattle, if you are pushing your car for some reason, men will appear without a word and help you push. You’ll be pushing, and the next thing you know, there are men on either side of you." -- Cultural Secrets that I Know
comment posted at 1:23 PM on Oct-6-13

If we so quickly forget the bulk of what we read, is it a waste of time to read so much?
comment posted at 6:52 AM on Oct-3-13

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation has seized the domain of the popular online black market site Silk Road (previously), and indicted the site's owner, Ross Ulbricht, better known as Dread Pirate Roberts (previously).
comment posted at 10:18 AM on Oct-2-13

New documents released by Glenn Greenwald from trove leaked by Edward Snowden show that the agency officially viewed arguments about 'due process' to be an 'adversary propaganda theme', listed alongside military threats to drones.
comment posted at 6:57 PM on Oct-1-13

The first time I tried a Jetstream, it was one of a friend’s pens, and I completely derailed all conversation around me to drool wide-eyed at the writing experience and reverently whisper ‘WHERE DID YOU GET THIS PEN?’ - The web's leading pen bloggers on what is the best pen.
comment posted at 3:03 PM on Sep-27-13

"Duquesne has claimed that the unionization of adjuncts like Margaret Mary would somehow interfere with its mission to inculcate Catholic values among its students." - Daniel Kovalik
comment posted at 10:19 AM on Sep-18-13

"In the early days of human flight, a new word entered our lexicon: "aviatrix," the female version of "aviator." These women were true pioneers, although if you asked them, they would probably tell you they were just adventurous and loved flying -same as the men who took to the air in those days." Mentalfloss profiles seven women from the first decades of airplanes. If you'd like more tales of adventure and daring, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum website has a section on women in aviation, as does the San Diego Air and Space Museum (related Flickr gallery).
comment posted at 3:12 PM on Sep-17-13

Google knows almost every wi-fi password. Of course this means that the NSA also has access to them. Apple might not be much better.
comment posted at 6:31 AM on Sep-17-13

Bill de Blasio’s win in New York’s Democratic primary isn’t a local story. It’s part of a vast shift that could upend three decades of American political thinking.
comment posted at 11:39 AM on Sep-12-13

"Brigitte Höss lives quietly on a leafy side street in Northern Virginia. She is retired now, having worked in a Washington fashion salon for more than 30 years. She recently was diagnosed with cancer and spends much of her days dealing with the medical consequences. Brigitte also has a secret that not even her grandchildren know. Her father was Rudolf Höss, the Kommandant of Auschwitz."
comment posted at 1:22 PM on Sep-10-13

The Value of Suffering by Pico Iyer [New York Times]
comment posted at 2:03 PM on Sep-8-13

In the final days before the New York City mayoral primary on September 10th, current mayor Michael Bloomberg is coming under attack for an article published this week in New York Magazine in which he criticizes frontrunner Bill de Blasio for running a“class-warfare and racist” campaign because of the way in which he has used “his family to gain support."
comment posted at 7:15 AM on Sep-8-13

The guardian of the nation’s etiquette, Debrett’s, has now issued a handy 10-point guide to mobile (cell) phone etiquette in the digital age
comment posted at 7:49 AM on Sep-5-13

I had my students fill out mid-semester evaluations last fall. No big deal, just answer these four questions: 1) What am I doing to help you learn? 2) What could I be doing better to help you learn? 3) What are you doing to help yourself learn? and 4) What could you be doing better to help yourself learn? I had them turn the evaluations in anonymously to allow more genuine feedback. Later that afternoon, I started going through the responses. It was encouraging to see that, in general, responses to the first two questions indicated I was getting better, which was gratifying given the amount of time and energy I spent re-developing the class. For the most part, students were surprisingly honest when responding to questions 3 and 4, showing they understood their responsibility in their progress, or lack thereof. Somewhere towards the end of the ~160 evaluations, I came across one that answered question #2 with: “Teach naked.”
comment posted at 1:27 PM on Sep-4-13

With the price of raising a child rapidly rising, many people are choosing to go child free. This choice is seen by some as sensible and as selfish by others.
comment posted at 8:33 AM on Sep-2-13

Yesterday the House of Commons and the House of Lords debated a response to Syria's use of chemical weapons. The government lost the debate and the commons rejected military action. David Cameron said "the British Parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action. I get that, and the Government will act accordingly.." A government MP explains why she voted against and Charles Stross makes a suggestion for what could be done (distributing gas masks, field decontamination showers, NAAK kits, and medical resources to everyone in the conflict zones)
comment posted at 5:15 AM on Aug-31-13

"Have you ever dropped a stick in a river and wondered where it might go if it floated all the way downstream? Now you can trace its journey using Streamer." In addition to displaying the distance traveled, difference in elevation, and number of states, counties and cities the stick will pass through before reaching its outlet point, Streamer can do an upstream trace to show you which rivers and smaller streams fed into the spot where the stick was dropped.
comment posted at 1:29 PM on Aug-28-13

Academics are farmers and intellectuals are hunters - and the hunters may be the future of the liberal arts, writes Jack Miles.
comment posted at 11:28 AM on Aug-28-13

Christie's Auction House is set to appraise The Detroit Institute of Art's holdings as part an accounting of Detroit's assets. According to Art Market Monitor, the danger of the appraisal now taking place ... is that it will reveal a much greater value than the $2.5bn bandied about recently. Todd Levin, a Detroit-born art adviser and director of the Levin Art Group in New York, said the value of the museum’s entire 60,000-piece collection would have to be significantly higher — “at least in the low to mid-11 figures, In other words, at least $10 billion to $20 billion. (Previously)
comment posted at 3:05 PM on Aug-20-13

Which US State is the most overrated? Which would you like to see kicked out of America? Which has the weirdest accent? Which has the best food? Business Insider polls Americans across the country on important questions like these and maps the results.
comment posted at 10:33 AM on Aug-20-13