Headlines from April 4, 2012
- So far, no deaths reported from yesterday’s tornadoes in Texas.
- Story of threats facing Georgia shrimpers, who once netted $130,000 fishing four months out of the year.
- Luxury watchmaker teaches pair of Sherpas his craft after they save his life on Everest.
- Macau, not Las Vegas, now the gambling’s world capital.
- Yale’s “monkey market economy” involves real monkeys making dumb decisions like real humans.
- We need a novel from Kodiak Island, Alaska. And the streets of Topeka. We might never need another Brooklyn book ever. How to write the great American novel.
- Dispatch from the 2012 Public Library Association conference.
- Kurt Vonnegut sends his sense of insult to a man who burned his books.
- Pictures of airplanes deliberately crashed and burned. #tmn
- On the differences between intelligence and mindset, and why IQ tests are stupid.
- New documentary dangerously oversimplifies link between bullying and suicide.
- James Cameron’s only revision to the new release of Titanic was made at the behest of web-star scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
- They were, in French, faithful translations of their American selves. Alice Kaplan on how Paris changed Jackie Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis.
- Early memoir by Kaplan, French Lessons, offered as free e-book.
- In Hong Kong, only 1,193 of seven million people are eligible to vote for the city’s chief executive.
- Chinese newspapers and magazines have semi-secret rate cards for favorable coverage.
- Advancing a candidate for Egypt’s presidential election creates a no-win situation for the Muslim Brotherhood.
- The Brotherhood reaches America in the form of a smiling 20-something women.
- Both Buddhism and neuroscience converge on a similar point of view: The way it feels isn’t how it is.
- Scientists find formula for memorable movie quotes: generic advice, unusual phrasing.
- NYC Dept. of Education tries to ban “dinosaur,” “birthday,” other “distracting” words from standardized tests.
- Breakdown of professors’ spending power, country by country.
- Ode to Peru’s tower of food power, causa, combining mashed potatoes, avocado, and mayonnaise.
- Factual guide to everything you need to know about bourbon.
- Bamboo: The new birch.
- Seattle Times runs four-part investigation into Amazon’s philanthropy practices, publishing wars, and worker complaints.
- Math behind why, in Copenhagen, one mile on a bike is society’s $.42 economic gain, and one mile driving is a $.20 loss.
- Woman requests birth control from the tiny white man that the Republican Party has sent to live in her underpants.
- Found break-up note defines “fluffer” somewhat differently from the norm.