Headlines from April 21, 2009
- In an effort "to make Norm Coleman go away," Democrat groups ask supporters to donate $1 a day every day Coleman refuses to concede.
- "The wall is the perfect crime because it creates the violence it was ostensibly built to prevent." The history of Israel's wall.
- Spain leads the way in development of costly but green high-speed trains, reawakens sleep towns, angers airlines.
- When a 9,200-ton destroyer is sent to fight Somalian pirates, it's clear sea power must change.
- Elizabeth Strout wins fiction Pulitzer for Olive Kitteridge. (full list of winners here)
- I really didn't tell people as I grew older that I wanted to be a writer--you know, because they look at you with such looks of pity. From August, Strout's chat with Birnbaum.
- Contribute to this month's Of Recent Note: Celebrate (and/or mourn) your favorite print periodicals.
- Excelsior 1968 is a high school yearbook for the fictional Bristol County Secondary School...Each student here is redrawn (and renamed) from my mother's actual 1968 high school yearbook.
- Steven Bevacqua thought he saw secret messages in the new issue of Wired--it turned out to be a hidden puzzle from guest editor J.J. Abrams.
- A course syllabus for ENG 371WR: Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era.
- Some of pop's most delightful figures endure exactly because we can't figure out what they are up to. SFJ on fame and the rise of Lady Gaga.
- The walk-in cocktail is a gin-and-tonic mist.
- Price declines in Spain, Ireland, Portugal, and Luxembourg stoke fears about deflation.
- Notes on how Africa may come out of the financial crisis with stronger financial systems.
- Are the values espoused by the Somali pirates so very different from those upon which America was founded?
- Cowboy culture meets contraception in fascinating article about wild-horse mating.
- To alter public opinion about the mentally ill, treatments need to be shown working.
- Interesting, thorough Newsweek profile on the current state and future of epilepsy surgery.
- Photos of "myster spotsy," where "bizarre forces" obscure reality.
- Death of Maxim blamed on an absence of any erotic charge and too much Photoshop.
- Stunning photos of Saturn from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
- Anthropologist who says cooking made us human insists we'll find proof of fires 1.8 million years ago, fear not.
- New songs from the Streets appearing on Twitter; Mike Skinner "can't be bothered" to sell his music anymore.
- Excerpts from Steve Reich's Double Sextet, winner of the Pulitzer.
- Gallimard editor praises France's fixed-price system, where chain stores can't sell for less than independents.