NY Times Opinion:
The lucrative art of war. That it happens shouldn’t be a shock ... it’s part and parcel of nearly every war. For brief, shining moments in our past, we’ve had Congressional hawks to swoop down and cut off the perpetrators. Where are the descendants of those hawks?
ColourLovers:
Scientific American:
Buried Prejudice: The Bigot in Your Brain. And yet, I have another story of Mr Jackson. Once again, from the ‘80’s. I was coming home late one night from Manhattan, walking through the Princeton University campus from the PJ&B ("Princeton Junction and Back”, the Dinky, the shortest train line in America). I heard a hubbub coming from Whig (or Clio, I never remember which building is which ... the one that was burned, and re-built), and paused under a streetlamp along the wide flagstone walkway. I knew Mr Jackson was going to be speaking there that night, so I wondered whether it might be worth walking to the front of the building. I looked up at the back windows. Mr Jackson walked by a window, and we happened to perceive each other. He saw me slightly backlit, and froze with a look of surprise (I thought fear at the time) on his face. I was dressed in black jeans, black leather jacket, carrying a black briefcase. I looked like a professional assassin out of some movie, in retrospect. His ‘handlers’ peeked out at me, and I thought it was time to beat a hasty retreat, taking a different pathway home.
Sometimes ‘bigotry’ may be plain self-preservation. We unconsciously judge by the predominant cultural archetypes.
Or, simply overactive imagination ... as my 20-something perceptions probably were.
Guardian.UK:
Historic image could be worth millions. “The clue is in the letter W. Schaaf believes the letter could stand for Thomas Wedgwood, a member of the pottery dynasty who was carrying out his experiments around 30 years earlier than Fox Talbot.” Which could place it at 1800.
NY Times Fashion & Style:
Steampunk hits the bigtime. I have to say, I didn’t realize it was a fashion movement as well.
CNN:
I’d forgotten that comic books were the scapegoats of the ‘60’s. Who recalls that Charlie Brown comic books were the most-traded between college students?
Spiked Review of Books:
The cultural contradictions of consumerism. Drives me nuts to visit an amazing historical location, and the area has nothing to offer but shopping and restaurants.
NY Times:
New DVDs: ‘La Roue’. “The complete version has long been lost, and in recent times “La Roue” has been seen only in the two-and-a-half-hour cut version Gance edited for wide distribution in 1924. The film has now been released on DVD by Flicker Alley in a print, assembled out of five different versions by the archivists Eric Lange and David Shepard, that runs for nearly four and a half hours.”
NY Times Business:
Just as the Fed hoped we’d have a break, Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac continue to dig substantial holes. The old S&L crisis cost taxpayers dearly; this’ll be one hell of a wallop, in an already-down economy.
SF New Mexican:
Anti-Darwinism film evolves into nationwide hit. “It’s the metaphysical atheists who are taking Darwin’s theory of evolution and they are using that as a bludgeon ...” A ‘bludgeon’ that gives us such useful things as advanced pharmaceuticals. Take away their meds, they’d change opinions in a heartbeat.
Science Daily:
Geochemists Challenge Key Theory Regarding Earth’s Formation.
New York Magazine:
Top photographers are angry over Polaroid’s fade to black.
SF New Mexican:
Deadly exposure: Plutonium-related cancers plague children of the Manhattan Project. An important read for those who believe plutonium is ’harmless‘. Bigger issues as plutonium leaches into the Rio Grande, perhaps upstream from Santa Fe.
Natural History Magazine:
Blast from the past, The Pearl of Allah.
Hispanic Business:
U.S. Hispanic Population 45.5 Million Strong, Fueled by Births.
Reuters:
Carly Simon stays silent about who was so vain. Jagger sang in the background, but the song sounds so Beatty.
The Art Newspaper:
Introducing the first identical twin painters in the history of art.
BBC:
“The last known survivor of a group of German army officers who tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944 has died aged 90 ...” I can’t help but think Cruise’s Valkyrie might have done for him later this year, if the rumors over the film are true. The range of accents in the previews remind me of the crazy ethnic mix in “The Magnificent Seven.” Maybe I’m wrong, and Valkyrie will rise above the range of accents, as TM7 did with Brynner and Buchholst. I should have more faith in the ability to suspend disbelief.
But I digress. Thank you for having the bravery to assist in the attempt. Rest in peace.
Ghost in the Machine:
Looking back five years after our ’glorious victory.’
The Atlantic.com:
Where Mother Saw Best. “Alice Friedman’s Women and the Making of the Modern House and Colin Davies’s Key Houses of the Twentieth Century probe aspects of the complex relationship between modernism— the dominant architectural style of the 20th century—and domesticity.”
Times Literary Supplement.UK:
Whatever happened to Old Europe?
Chronicle of Higher Ed:
America’s Most Overrated Product: the Bachelor’s Degree. “A 2006 study supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that 50 percent of college seniors scored below ‘proficient’ levels on a test that required them to do such basic tasks as understand the arguments of newspaper editorials or compare credit-card offers. Almost 20 percent of seniors had only basic quantitative skills. The students could not estimate if their car had enough gas to get to the gas station.” The value of college degree is entrenched in the national psyche, in spite of the lack of substance we’ve all been seeing over the past couple of decades. It’s about time we questioned the quality of graduates - and through them, the quality of education. The entire 1912 class of Princeton University became millionaires. Any recent such precedents? Didn’t think so. Two other random observations from the scattered lumber-room of my mind: A) Though Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have no degrees, you don’t generally get jobs at their companies without one. It’s okay for them, just not for you. B) When the military started requiring degrees for pilots, they lost the best stick-and-rudder aviators - men who lived and breathed airplanes. You don’t train reflexes through books.
Apprenticeships should be revived, IMHO, in many fields.
Bloomberg:
De Beers Finds Shipwreck, Treasure From Columbus Era. Off Namibia. Brings thoughts of Prince Henry the Navigator to mind.
NY Times Books:
In Love With the History Our Teachers Never Told Us.
Times Online.UK:
France celebrates their ... lemons.
