Situationist invades Hoxton… Street poems arouse Londoners… Public discourse colored by disfigured Futura… Robert Montgomery’s street poems have something to say to you.
This Week
Don’t Talk About It, Do It

Every Friday we take a look back at the week’s headlines, centering on a theme we’ve singled out as particularly important. This week, despite the apathy that greets the idea that meaningful change is possible, protestors continued to make their voices heard. And beyond the streets we were seeing the beginnings of important change—along with the positive and negatives consequences when people start to really do it.
The key question is not whether Vladimir Putin—and Putinism—will survive. They will not:
Continue ReadingRussia is facing growing problems of enormous complexity—economic, social, demographic, ethnic—that are impossible to solve within the rigid confines of neo-authoritarian “sovereign democracy.”
New York's Roadside Attractions
Wyckoff Farmhouse and Queens County Farm Museums
I grew up in North Florida. I wouldn’t disagree too strongly with those who consider it South Georgia. After all, Georgia is only a 45-minute drive from my childhood home.
When I was in the fifth grade my class took a trip to a historical farm museum in Tifton, Ga., called Agrirama, a fully functioning re-creation of a Reconstruction-era sugar cane farm. There were historical re-enactors who split the class on gender lines, boys going to work in the barn and fields, girls taken to prepare the meals and take care of the homestead. We were there for a full school day. I shoveled shit (literally), fed a sugar cane press, and was remonstrated for the inexperience I showed in doing both. All of this was historically sound, because any able-bodied boy was expected to contribute in like fashion. It sucked. Continue Reading
China Welcomes You
How to Officially Forget
More than two decades later, a return visit to Tiananmen Square finds it scrubbed clean—just as it was immediately following the Incident. Except now there is thick smog, and ghosts. In contemporary Beijing, the past is like Kentucky Fried Chicken: unavoidable.
The News From America
People Here Actually Show Their Livestock
The United States is an enormous country, much too big for the nightly news. We asked one of our editors to randomly call people in towns around America and find out what’s really going on.
Gallery
Cartographies of Time
Selections from Daniel Rosenberg and Anthony Grafton’s captivating history of timelines, now in paperback—from time circles to time dragons, to a history of civilization drawn on a single piece of paper.
From the Editors
The Morning News Seeks an Intern
The Morning News seeks an intern for the Spring 2012 semester. You should be an opinionated writer and editor and have a strong interest in social media and learning how a web magazine is produced.
This is an unpaid internship. Geographic location is not important, but please have a sturdy internet connection.
To apply, email a cover letter, including any résumé-like points, clips/experience as well as links to your Twitter, Tumblr, and/or blog to talk@themorningnews.org by Feb. 17, 2012.
End Zone
Super Bowl, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Bill Belichick
Like a lot of people this Sunday, I’ll be choosing sides in a contest whose outcome is going to be disappointing. The team I’m rooting for (the 2007 Green Bay Packers) can’t win. This is a replay of one of my least favorite Super Bowls in recent memory, one which offended me so thoroughly the first time around, I actually refused to watch it. So to have any fun, I have to pick a side. I have to get emotionally invested. When I watch a football game, I have to mean it.
TMN vs. Explodingdog
Have Faith in Duck
Today is the final installment in our series with Explodingdog. Over two months, Sam published a comic story here each week on TMN based on your suggestions. Today’s is a special double-feature.
Spoofs & Satire
Life After Long-Term Unemployment
You wanted it. You were willing to give up BBC dramas for it. Now it’s time to readjust to the working life. Welcome back.
Opinions
Enjoy the Silence
Just because no one uses payphones doesn’t mean the phone booth needs to go the way of the dodo. One man’s plea for preserving society’s greatest unused invention.
End Zone
Season Retrospective
I don’t mean to sound bitter, but I am. Not just because the Packers aren’t going back to the Super Bowl. Not just because I called both Conference Championships wrong last week. No, my bitterness is more complex, and of longer standing. For as we look past the Pro Bowl to the Super Bowl, I see a less-than-thrilling finale to what started out as an odd, exciting season in the NFL.
This Week
As I Unexpected

Every Friday we take a look back at the week’s headlines, centering on a theme we’ve singled out as particularly important. While “interesting” is diluted and obscured to the point of redundancy, “epic” continues to diminish in stature. Meanwhile, “unexpected” lurks in quiet inescapability. Amid all the hyperbole, it was the unexpected that caused us to pause for thought this week.
Continue ReadingLiberals recognize the real problems facing the poor, the hardships resulting from economic globalization and the socially destructive force of increasing inequality.
Witch Hunt
The Devil’s Trumpet
History is an imperfect science—the truth often weaves within nuance and mystery. For those playing the role of historian, the trick is knowing what you’re looking for.
TMN vs. Explodingdog
Just Keep Waiting…
Today is the seventh installment in our series with Explodingdog. Sam is publishing a comic story here each week on TMN based on your suggestions. Leave your ideas for next week’s installment in the comments.
Letters From Tel Aviv
Herbivore, Carnivore, Omnivore
A grocery visit or dinner out in Israel can sometimes leave your stomach churning, but not for the reasons you might think.
Gallery
The Four Temperaments
In Thomas Woodruff’s paintings, Hippocrates’s Four Humors afflict beasties, batterflies, and tigers on tender, spooky landscapes.
End Zone
Conference Championships
It could have been the ghost of Brett Favre. Or Aaron Rodgers’s two-week vacation. Maybe those State Farm “discount double-check” commercials produce bad karma in addition to vague irritation. Or maybe this girl is right, and the Packers would have won if only her friend hadn’t talked her into putting sparkles on her green nail polish.
This Week
Soft Power Triumphs Softly

Every Friday we take a look back at the week’s headlines, centering on a theme we’ve singled out as particularly important. This week, despite all that Wikipedia has achieved, quantity and brute force wasn’t fairing well, with soft power and quality winning the long war.
China loves soccer, but its complete lack of ability has a root cause: the system:
Continue ReadingIn a country so proud of its global stature, football is a painful national joke. Perhaps because Chinese fans love the sport madly and want desperately for their nation to succeed at it, football is the common reference point by which people understand and measure failure.