April 2010
53 posts
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Lunch With M. →
Undercover with a Michelin inspector.
(Thanks, Zed Mahboob)
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Oklahoma: the day homegrown terror hit America →
When war veteran Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, the US was stunned. Why did Americans like him hate their country? And, as the rightwing militias rise again, what lessons does that fateful day hold?
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The World of Doormen Is Obvious, Yet Mysterious →
The thing about doormen is, often they were doing completely unrelated work, like selling survival gear or bagging pork chops, when something random happened and suddenly they were doormen, tipping their caps and announcing that the in-laws were on the way up with a fruitcake.
(Thanks, Ailin)
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Thoughts on Flash →
I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads.
By Steve Jobs
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The Torture Colony →
The truth, so unlikely in this setting, is that Colonia Dignidad was founded on fear, and it is fear that still binds it together. Investigations by Amnesty International and the governments of Chile, Germany, and France, as well as the testimony of former colonos who, over the years, managed to escape the colony, have revealed evidence of terrible crimes: child molestation, forced labor,...
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CNN’s Prisoner of War →
He had been hunted, kidnapped, and told he was filming his own execution. But CNN correspondent Michael Ware had no plans to leave Iraq. Now, it won’t leave him.
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Can you disappear in surveillance Britain? →
David Bond wanted to see if it’s possible to vanish so one day he packed his bag, got into his car and kissed his wife goodbye
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The Secrets of Sleep →
From birth, we spend a third of our lives asleep. After decades of research, we’re still not sure why.
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The World's Greatest Con Man →
Seducing, swindling, and blackmailing European matrons, Helg Sgarbi perfected a scam that made him a fortune. Then one day he met the billionaire BMW heiress.
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Live-Blogging the Senate Hearing on Goldman →
A Senate subcommittee is examining the role that Goldman Sachs played in the financial crisis, especially in light of the securities fraud charges against the firm. Louise Story of The New York Times covered Tuesday’s Senate hearing in Washington and live-blogged it for DealBook.
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Mind Over Meds →
Leon Eisenberg, an early pioneer in psychopharmacology at Harvard, once made the notable historical observation that “in the first half of the 20th century, American psychiatry was virtually ‘brainless.’ … In the second half of the 20th century, psychiatry became virtually ‘mindless.’ ” The brainless period was a reference to psychiatry’s early infatuation with psychoanalysis; the...
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What Happened When I Went Undercover at a... →
What I saw and experienced at JiM both enraged and disturbed me. I had trouble staying in character as I watched one man, as part of his therapy, act out beating his father to death with a baseball bat — just one of several “Are you kidding?” moments. How anyone could believe that a JiM weekend could turn a man straight still baffles me.
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The Pin Kings →
Five young Massachusetts guys want to reignite competitive candlepin bowling. Can they pull it off?
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The Improbability Pump →
Unlike germ theory, the idea of evolution strikes at the heart of human ego, suggesting that we were not the special object of God’s attention but were made by the same blind and mindless process of natural selection that also built ferns, fish and rabbits. Another answer is ignorance: most Americans are simply unaware of the multifarious evidence that makes evolution more than...
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The Boy Who Grew Up to Be Charles Manson's Son →
Rockar Matthew Roberts learned that Charles Manson might be his biological father. Then came the strange part: his whole life suddenly made sense.
Thinking in the Rain →
An artist takes on the umbrella.
Social science on terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan →
Social scientists do counterinsurgency.
Love, Sex, Freedom and Paradox →
There’s no such thing as the Car or the Shoe or the Laundry Soap. But everyone knows the Pill, whose FDA approval 50 years ago rearranged the furniture of human relations in ways that we’ve argued about ever since.
Evidence Is Only Part of the Story →
When it comes to new treatment guidelines for breast cancer, back pain and other maladies, it’s the narrative presentation that matters.
The Runaway Genius →
The herculean struggle to get Terrence Malick’s first movie in two decades–a film version of James Jones’s war epic The Thin Red Line–to the screen was complicated not only by its elusive director’s reticence but also by the two producers who believe they made it all happen.
The Next Empire →
All across Africa, new tracks are being laid, highways built, ports deepened, commercial contracts signed—all on an unprecedented scale, and led by China, whose appetite for commodities seems insatiable.
The Wrong Man →
In the fall of 2001, a nation reeling from the horror of 9/11 was rocked by a series of deadly anthrax attacks. As the pressure to find a culprit mounted, the FBI, abetted by the media, found one. The wrong one. This is the story of how federal authorities blew the biggest anti-terror investigation of the past decade.
Anglicanism and the Church of England →
The battle within the Church of England to allow women to be bishops.
The Passion of David Bazan →
At the Cornerstone Christian rock festival, a fallen evangelical returns to sing about why he broke up with God.
For Eddie Feibusch, a Life in Zippers →
What, you need a zipper? O.K., Eddie Feibusch is going to sell you a zipper. Brass? Nylon? Swarovski rhinestone crystals? What color? Mystery orchid? Big or little zipper? For a purse? Or a hot-air balloon cover? How many? One? A thousand?
Uncovering Stephen Ambrose →
Nonfiction writers who succumb to the temptations of phantom scholarship are a burgeoning breed these days, although most stop short of fabricating interviews with Presidents.
Geek Power: Steven Levy Revisits Tech Titans,... →
They may have begun as a fringe cohort, but hackers alchemized the hard math of Moore’s law into a relentless series of technological advances that changed the world and touched all of our lives. And most of them did it simply for the joy of pulling off an awesome trick.
Is Marriage Good for Your Health? →
While it’s clear that marriage is profoundly connected to health and well-being, new research is increasingly presenting a more nuanced view of the so-called marriage advantage.
The Long March of the Lord's Resistance Army →
Reduced to wielding cudgels, the Lord’s Resistance Army is as outmatched as any insurgency could be. So why can’t it be stopped?
No Rabbit in a Hat, but Steve Cohen Has Magic Up... →
The Millionaires’ Magician does not like doing magic every waking moment. He goes to cocktail parties or dinners and everyone expects lamps to levitate and cards to materialize inside wine bottles. It gets excessive.
The Party's Over: China's Endgame →
How did this notion of Chinese supremacy gain hold? The answer is nothing more profound than statistical extrapolation. China was destitute when Deng Xiaoping grabbed power in December 1978. Since then, the country has averaged, according to official statistics, a spectacular annual growth of 9.9 percent. This rate, if carried forward, gives China the world’s largest economy in a few...
Now charlatans will know to beware the geeks →
Simon Singh’s historic win is also a triumph for his online allies
Hot-Air Balloons →
For an egocentric mogul (Mort Zuckerman), over-caffeinated TV host (Lou Dobbs, Chris Matthews, Larry Kudlow), or out-of-office politician (Newt Gingrich, Harold Ford), there’s no more satisfying source of media attention than the foreplay of running for office.
The Huckster →
Need to pick a good prison? Alan Ellis can help. Attorney, author, and self-publicist, Ellis is the creator of a new legal niche—one that places him in the time-honored American tradition of the fast-talking salesman.
The Anti-American Fallacy →
Weaned on the work of H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw and their loathing for conventional mores, Lewis and his confreres became the dominant force in American letters, and their views went largely unchallenged in the literary world. It was left to a critic named Bernard DeVoto to issue the first serious and meaningful challenge to their worldview
The Estrogen Dilemma →
Brinton is a brain scientist. Estrogen, particularly in its relationship to the health of the brain, is her obsession. At present it is mine too, but for more selfish reasons.
The Dark Side of Dickens →
Why Charles Dickens was among the best of writers and the worst of men
A Distribution of Chairs →
While India considers saving seats for women in the government’s upper tier, Anrica Deb tours the country’s rural east to see how quotas have turned women into local politicians.
Luce and Time vs. Harold Ross and The New Yorker →
What was at stake in the spat between Henry Luce and Harold Ross?
How the English breakfast has changed with Britain →
What do the once-traditional fried breakfasts on offer around Britain say about how our cultural landscape is changing?
Beating Obesity →
Unless America stops cheering the biggest loser and starts getting serious about preventing obesity, the country risks being overwhelmed by chronic disease and ballooning health costs.
Clash of the Bearded Ones →
Hipsters, Hasids, and the Williamsburg street.
The Guts of a New Machine →
Two years ago this month, Apple Computer released a small, sleek-looking device it called the iPod. A digital music player, it weighed just 6.5 ounces and held about 1,000 songs
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Biography of Usain Bolt, Mutant →
In just two years, he has demolished the 100-meter dash world records with times that are superhuman — literally thirty years ahead of what they historically should be. So what if the greatest athlete alive decided to actually get serious?
Should Kids Be Bribed to Do Well in School? →
Since there have been children, there have been adults trying to get them to cooperate. The Bible repeatedly commands children to heed their parents and proposes that disobedient children be stoned to death or at least have their eyes picked out by ravens. Over the centuries, the stick (or paddle or switch) has lost favor, in most cases, to the carrot. Today the petty bribes — a sticker for...
The Comeback Country →
How America pulled itself back from the brink—and why it’s destined to stay on top.
Inside WikiLeaks’ Leak Factory →
Meet the shadowy figure who exposed the US military’s deadly attack on a Reuters photographer and Iraqi civilians
Lady Gaga vs. the Occupation →
A moderate suggestion: Palestine isn’t the only driver of violent anti-American extremism. But it sure does matter.
Betraying Salinger →
I scored the publishing coup of the decade: his final book. And then I blew it.