Headlines from January 6, 2009
- Russia uses Gazprom to pull Europe into its tangle with Ukraine.
- When it comes to anticipating death, doctors would do well to trust patients' instincts.
- Instapaper for the commute: Incisive David Cole essay on what we should do with those who made torture American.
- "Alien vs. Predator" by Michael Robbins tests you to say you don't like poetry.
- If you like Robbins, you'll love Jay Hopler (see more).
- Soft Skull wants your help picking the cover for Pasha Malla's new collection of stories.
- Pasha Malla explains why different toilet seats have different designs.
- Did Cary Grant design the original secret-mirror sunglasses?
- Traffic author on why celebrities drive themselves--badly--rather than take limos.
- Video: Now-Senator Franken does Mick Jagger not so badly (but remains unseated).
- Photos of industrial remains from an abandoned soundstage for The Wire.
- Studying the resurgent popularity of The Crab-Canning Ship in Japan for signs of social unrest.
- Not in itself particularly noteworthy except in the manner of the Queen's death. British news events from 2009.
- Help build the world's tallest British sandwich.
- Krugman: Banks aren't lending; businesses and consumers aren't spending. Let's not mince words: This looks an awful lot like the beginning of a second Great Depression.
- Björk's fund will be called, er...Björk. Björk launches a green venture-capital mission to save Iceland.
- The Edge's Annual Question: "What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?"
- Rwanda's gorilla infatuation struggles to balance tourist dollars, gorilla vets with locals' basic needs, doctors.
- Though high-culture circles rarely consider videos games art, it's a rare popular medium where difficulty is a virtue.
- Classic board games are fun because everyone knows them--and everyone knows them because they're fun.
- Also: Matthew Baldwin's guide to the best board games of 2008.
- Reviewing the past year of the New Yorker's fiction, story by story by story.
- Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, and other relationships between classic authors.
- I take the train to New York City for a poetry reading in the East Village and notice immediately how pale everyone is. Daniel Nester tries on a fake tan.
- Read more Nester in The Morning News Annual, our yearly edition of collected works and new pieces.
- To me, books are the physical vessels that keep us linked to all the human times and places. "Valuable Artifacts" by Richard Bausch.
- The year in water-related photos.