January 2010
46 posts
Postscript: J.D. Salinger →
J. D. Salinger has died. From 1946 to 1965, Salinger published thirteen stories in The New Yorker including such classics as “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” and “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters.” There will be much more to come online and in next week’s magazine, but for now, we are making twelve of his New Yorker stories available to all readers through our digital edition.
J. D. Salinger, Enigmatic Author, Dies at 91 →
J. D. Salinger, who was thought at one time to be the most important American writer to emerge since World War II but who then turned his back on success and adulation, becoming the Garbo of letters, famous for not wanting to be famous, died on Wednesday at his home in Cornish, N.H., where he had lived in seclusion for more than 50 years. He was 91.
Before Martyrdom, Breakfast →
Flagg Miller, of the U. of California at Davis, has listened to hundreds of audio tapes that once belonged to Osama bin Laden. It’s the everyday conversations among jihadis that he finds the most interesting.
The Myth of Campaign Finance Reform →
March 24, 2009, may go down as a turning point in the history of the campaign-finance reform debate in America. On that day, in the course of oral argument before the Supreme Court in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, United States deputy solicitor general Malcolm Stewart inadvertently revealed just how extreme our campaign-finance system has become.
For the Love of Culture →
Google, copyright, and our future.
In the Next Industrial Revolution, Atoms Are the... →
The door of a dry-cleaner-size storefront in an industrial park in Wareham, Massachusetts, an hour south of Boston, might not look like a portal to the future of American manufacturing, but it is. This is the headquarters of Local Motors, the first open source car company to reach production. Step inside and the office reveals itself as a mind-blowing example of the power of micro-factories.
Confronting Cholera: My Zimbabwe Diary →
The following events took place in April 2009, when I was privileged enough to be invited by Oxfam America to learn about their programs abroad. Focusing primarily on the rampant Cholera epidemic, but also on the importance of sanitation systems and crumbling economies, the diary feels especially timely now, given the Haiti earthquake disaster. Now more than ever, Oxfam and other humanitarian...
The evolution of evolution →
Just suppose that Darwin’s ideas were only a part of the story of evolution. Suppose that a process he never wrote about, and never even imagined, has been controlling the evolution of life throughout most of the Earth’s history. It may sound preposterous, but this is exactly what microbiologist Carl Woese and physicist Nigel Goldenfeld, both at the University of Illinois at...
The "Devastating" Decision →
Against the opposition of their four colleagues, five right-wing Supreme Court justices have now guaranteed that big corporations can spend unlimited funds on political advertising in any political election.
The Death of Fiction? →
Lit mags were once launching pads for great writers and big ideas. Is it time to write them off?
Playing Ourselves for Fools →
The trading system America sold the world is killing U.S. industry. Here’s a better way.
Capitalist Fools →
Commercial real estate is dominated by financial professionals, not hustlers looking for a quick flip. So why is the market about to melt down?
My So-Called Wife →
When husbands and wives not only co-work but try to co-homemake, as post-feminist and well-intentioned as it is, out goes the clear delineation of spheres, out goes the calm of unquestioned authority, and of course out goes the gratitude.
James Patterson Inc. →
Patterson may lack the name recognition of a Stephen King, a John Grisham or a Dan Brown, but he outsells them all. Really, it’s not even close. (According to Nielsen BookScan, Grisham’s, King’s and Brown’s combined U.S. sales in recent years still don’t match Patterson’s.) This is partly because Patterson is so prolific: with the help of his stable of co-authors, he published nine original...
The Minds Behind the Meltdown →
How a swashbuckling breed of mathematicians and computer scientists nearly destroyed Wall Street
'I look at the good' →
Sommer was born into a secular and educated Jewish family. Besides her twin sister, Mariana, she had another sister and two brothers. She discovered a love for music at the age of 3, and it has remained with her to this day. Her family home in Prague was also a cultural salon where writers, scientists, musicians and actors congregated. One of these, author Franz Kafka, she remembers well: He...
The Cocaine Coast →
Since 2007, Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony and one of the poorest nations in the world, has become the new hub for cocaine trafficking. The drug is shipped from Venezuela, Colombia, and Brazil to West Africa en route to Europe. Everyone suspected that these assassinations were somehow linked to drug trafficking.
The 24-Hour Cycle →
At the laundromat, irregular things happen. People square off over washers — mine; no, mine. They sit on the counters where you were planning to fold T-shirts. Women conveniently forget a negligee in a dryer so you’ll find it and marry them. Street people try to sell utterly unnecessary things. Pesky process servers visit bearing summonses. People stare without mercy.
Roll Over, Charles Darwin! →
On the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s masterwork, the author visits Kentucky’s Creation Museum, which has been battling science and reason since 2007. Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark: it’s a breathtakingly literal march through Genesis, without any hint of soul
Like a Thief in the Night →
The repo man does his best work alone in the dark. No good can come of a confrontation.
Giving Emerson the Boot →
Americanists of the world, unite! Weary with the cult of Ralph Waldo Emerson—the Sage of Concord, the Father of American Transcendentalism—ours is a call to arms. We have awakened from a century-long sleep to find ourselves confronted with a grave mistake, an intellectual blunder: an unseemly idolatry for one of the most confounding of American writers. Speed thee to thy rest, pernicious Sage,...
The Secret History of Typography in the Oxford... →
Browsing the OED is a tantalizing experience because it provides windows into so many obscure corners of history. But since the citations are small and fragmentary, they invite the imagination to fill in the blank spaces.
(Thanks, Tristan)
Obsessed With the Internet: A Tale From China →
The Qihang camp promised to cure children of so-called Internet addiction, an ailment that has grown into one of China’s most feared public health hazards. The camp’s brochure claimed that an estimated 80 percent of Chinese youth suffered from it. Fifteen-year-old Deng Senshan seemed to be among them. He was once a top student, but his grades had plummeted over the past couple of years, and he...
Typing Errors →
The standard typewriter keyboard is Exhibit A in the hottest new case against markets. But the evidence has been cooked.
Kid Goth →
Neil Gaiman’s fantasies.
Why Haiti Matters →
In the tragic aftermath of Haiti’s 7.0 earthquake, images of the disaster break our hearts and remind us of the fragility of life. What America must do now—and why.
By Barack Obama
(Thanks, Squashed)
Haiti in Crisis →
Mark Leon Goldberg on why the island nation that can’t catch a break from organized crime, food riots, and Mother Nature deserves our support.
Class War →
How public servants became our masters
Divorce, Jihadi Style →
What role do women play in Al Qaeda? A few are suicide bombers; others may encourage their men to become one.
Jersey Jetsam →
In “Jersey Shore,” which takes place in the scruffy resort town of Seaside Heights, about a quarter of the way down New Jersey’s coastline, the explosions began even before the show premièred, in early December. Promos showing a group of young men and women of Italian heritage making entertainingly ridiculous statements about themselves and whooping it up on the boardwalk at night—dancing,...
Is Google Good for History? →
Is Google good for history? Of course it is. We historians are searchers and sifters of evidence. Google is probably the most powerful tool in human history for doing just that. It has constructed a deceptively simple way to scan billions of documents instantaneously, and it has spent hundreds of millions of dollars of its own money to allow us to read millions of books in our pajamas.
Prisoners of Parole →
Whether out of neglect or leniency, probation officers would tend to overlook a probationer’s first 5 or 10 violations, giving the offender the impression that he could ignore the rules. But eventually, the officers would get fed up and recommend that Alm revoke probation and send the offender to jail to serve out his sentence. That struck Alm as too harsh, but the alternative — winking at...
The lost script →
It’s a writing system called Ajami, it’s a thousand years old, and a Boston University professor thinks it could help unlock the story of a continent
(Thanks, Simen)
How the AOL-Time Warner Merger Went So Wrong →
A decade ago, America Online merged with Time Warner in a deal valued at a stunning $350 billion. It was then, and is now, the largest merger in American business history. The Internet, it was believed, was soon to vaporize mainstream media business models on the spot. America Online’s frothy stock price made it worth twice as much as Time Warner’s with less than half the cash flow.
(Thanks,...
What Makes a Great Teacher? →
For years, the secrets to great teaching have seemed more like alchemy than science, a mix of motivational mumbo jumbo and misty-eyed tales of inspiration and dedication. But for more than a decade, one organization has been tracking hundreds of thousands of kids, and looking at why some teachers can move them three grade levels ahead in a year and others can’t. Now, as the Obama administration...
The Americanization of Mental Illness →
Americans, particularly if they are of a certain leftward-leaning, college-educated type, worry about our country’s blunders into other cultures. In some circles, it is easy to make friends with a rousing rant about the McDonald’s near Tiananmen Square, the Nike factory in Malaysia or the latest blowback from our political or military interventions abroad. For all our self-recrimination,...
How Warren Beatty Seduced America →
It was a high-stakes gamble, sending three of Hollywood’s biggest, most uncompromising talents—Warren Beatty, Elaine May, and Dustin Hoffman—to make a movie in the middle of the Sahara. As $51 million evaporated and relationships crumbled, a legendary disaster was born: the 1987 comedy Ishtar.
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The Interpreter →
Has a remote Amazonian tribe upended our understanding of language?
How Visa, Using Card Fees, Dominates a Market →
Every day, millions of Americans stand at store checkout counters and make a seemingly random decision: after swiping their debit card, they choose whether to punch in a code, or to sign their name. It is a pointless distinction to most consumers, since the price is the same either way. But behind the scenes, billions of dollars are at stake.
(Thanks, Eush)
Nil by mouth →
I mentioned that I can no longer eat or drink. A reader wrote: “That sounds so sad. Do you miss it?” Not so much really. Not anymore
Learning to Smoke →
It’s not permitted. It pisses people off. It makes you puke. It confuses you, and it brings clarity. It makes you an outcast, and it helps you meet wonderful strangers. Lessons from a man who did the unthinkable.
(Thanks, Indefensible)
Only a poltroon despises pedantry →
Introducing new words is all very well, but sticklers like me prefer the traditional approach to language
Sex, Violence, and Individual Liberty →
If you consider a stash of obscene videos scarier than a stash of firearms then this is the country for you. In America you have a constitutional right to own a gun, and you may traffic in firearms with legal impunity; but you risk being imprisoned for buying and selling arguably obscene pornography.
My American Friends →
The first thing I ever heard about Americans was that they all carried guns. Then, when I came across people who’d had direct contact with this ferocious-sounding tribe, I learned that they were actually rather friendly. At university, friends who had traveled in the United States came back with more detailed stories, not just of the friendliness of Americans but also of their hospitality...
Stat Crew Spotter for a Night →
At every Division I college basketball game, there’s an official scorer who sits with a straight view of the timeline, and who wears the zebra-striped shirt of ultimate authority. He or she keeps track of points and fouls in a coil-bound book, and every player who checks into the game must do so with the scorer’s permission. The official scorer is the fourth most important person in...
Darfuristan →
How the world’s campaign to stop a genocide created a quagmire