Headlines from February 19, 2013

The most important fact about the United States in this century is that middle-class incomes are stagnating. #opinions
In 2013, you can get almost anything but have no idea what it is. How to buy recreational drugs online.
A new survey shows underage drinkers prefer beer, and especially Budweiser. #drinking
Program makes rhyming couplets from tweets unintentionally written in iambic pentameter.
Poem by William McGonagall, deemed the worst poet in English literature, goes up for auction.
Also on auction: Mark David Chapman’s letters about his obsession with The Catcher in the Rye.
I have a different perspective for what my legs are now. Now they’re just tools, you know? Q&A with Rep. Tammy Duckworth.
Q&A with Stanley McChrystal on special operations tactics, tech revolutions, and killing machines.
Depp, Verbinski recruit Keith Richards, Tom Waits, others to sing pirate songs and sea chanteys for a new compilation. #music
How to say no without feeling like a jerk. #advice
Photos of huge multi-species bird nests built on telephone poles in southern Africa. #nature
South Africa’s Mamphela Ramphele announces her intention to form a political party to contest the nation’s elections.
The 2012 World Press photo award winners. #photos
How to achieve inbox zero for life.
Rather than mapping the brain, the Obama administration should solve the brain-behavior connection—the crux of neuroscience. #opinions
The opposite of President’s Day: How the world’s dictators and monarchs celebrate themselves.
Like the first laws limiting hours worked, [the minimum wage was] paternalistic in nature, and applied only to women and children.
Columbia professor introduces the complexity of quantum mechanics by confusing students with performance art. #video
Investigators look into the 2012 Australian Olympic swim team’s poor showing, find a “toxic” culture of bullying and drugs. #sports
Ocean acidification caused by carbon dioxide emissions could be putting oysters on the path to extinction.
In New England, researchers persuade shipping companies to alter routes and reduce ocean noise for whales.
Strengthening ties with the Union would require the Cherokees to adjust to Lincoln’s new emancipation policies.
Confirming some historians’ beliefs, scientists say Picasso used house paint. #art
The man who spent three years painting the same oak tree over and over again explains his process. #tmn
Given a blank map of Manhattan, New Yorkers fill it with what matters most to them.
Twenty-first-century buildings that look like alien spaceships. #architecture
List of helicopter prison escapes—France tops the list with 11.