Headlines from May 23, 2012

Irony in Zimbabwe’s gradual improvement: Mugabe is necessary for now.
Senior GOPers increasingly bullish about Romney, whom they winced over during the primaries.
Analysis finds most members of Congress speak like high school sophomores.
Egypt’s election matters because “its winner will assume a crucial role” in far broader struggles to come. #opinions
Soon to come: Twilight, the religion.
“Kardashian” as unit: the amount of global attention Kim Kardashian commands across all media over the space of a day.
If Hirst did not try to paint an orange accurately, no one would know he can’t do it. Savage takedown of new Hirst show.
Woman who pled guilty to manslaughter believed by activists to have been “on trial for surviving a hate crime.”
Story of the 1965 effort, visiting more than a thousand towns, to record America’s “other language.”
Incredibly detailed inside-baseball account of 30 Rock‘s production.
Musings on the internet’s effects on the ultra-Orthodox.
Arachnophobia—fear of spiders—cured with two-hour treatment.
Tokyo transsexual cooks and serves his own genitals at public “Ham Cybele” banquet.
Teddy Wayne and TMN’s Rosecrans Baldwin talk about Mexican food in Paris, France.
See also: Mexican food reviewed in Paris, Texas.
Spirits professional offers advice on how to find good food in American bars.
Tips on how to look better in photographs.
Poem for your Wednesday afternoon: “Spring Reign” by Dean Young.
Syria proves countries with strong middle classes and diverse economies are worse at overthrowing dictators than those without.
Obama’s spending binge never happened—federal spending is rising at its slowest pace since the end of the Korean War.
Author of the book on Romney’s nightstand says the candidate missed the point of one of his passages.
Researchers find a third of malaria drugs used worldwide are fake.
The chicken: genomed animal, friend of Roman armies, ubiquitous food of our era.
Dismayed by her school’s unhealthy lunches, nine-year-old starts a blog that shames the school into making changes.
Supreme Court decides in-vitro children may not be due Social Security benefits, should their father die before they’re born.
Breast cancer epidemic among male Marines tied to contaminated water—and could hold the key to a cure. #longreads
Intrigued by the Unabomber’s ideas on tech, a professor becomes his pen pal and friend.
Tickets to visit world’s tallest tower, now found in Tokyo, sold out through July.