The Withering Anonymity
How’s the post-privacy world working for you?
Bookslut
Anonymity: A Secret History of English Literature By John Mullan: Author Mullan reveals that the celebration of personality has all but done away with anonymity as a commodity. Credit goes to Mullan for term: “withering anonymity.”
Salon
What does Sarah Palin have to hide in her Yahoo emails?: Glenn Greenwald highlights the hypocrisy of the party that did away with privacy rights:”Shouldn’t these same people be standing up today and insisting that if Sarah Palin has done nothing wrong, then she should have nothing to hide?”
WebMD
Your Body Holds Clues to Political Views: Conservative or liberal? Even if you’re not telling, your body knows: more fearful responses, more authoritarian controls.
To the Rescue
We could all use friends in high places right about now.
BBC
Norway joins fight to save Amazon: Joining other nations, Norway commits to a billion dollars to help stop the deforestation of Brazil, one of the biggest contributors to global warming.
Telegraph
Corduroy Mansions: Need an escape from the turmoil? Alexander Call Smith serializes his latest novel for all of us to read.
New York Times
G.M. and Ford Officials Seeking U.S. Loans to Meet Fuel Goal: Sure, now the big car markers want to produce fuel-efficient cars, as long as the taxpayer pays for it. Line up at the trough GM, Ford.
The New Statesman
The Myth of the Super-Rich: Not about whether or not they exist–they surely do–but whether or not they are any good for the rest of us.
Tick Tock
The clock’s ticking, time is running out . . .
The Atlantic
Goodbye to All That: Why Obama Matters: Barack Obama may be imperfect, “often tired, sometimes crabby, intermittently solipsistic, he’s a surprisingly uneven campaigner.” But he’s the candidate for the future, the only one free of the baggage of past decades.
Economist
Egypt: Will the dam burst?: “Given rising resentment against the government and a generation-long resurgence of religious feeling, and given the simple fact that Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s president of hte past 27 years, is now 80 years old with no clear successor, it takes little imagination to conjure up an Islamic dynastic upheaval . . . .”
New York Magazine
The End: New York publishing giants may be facing their demise, and they haven’t a clue what to do about it.
Energy Bulletin
The dress rehearsal is over: The fall in oil demand gives the world a moment to catch its breath before the inevitable price-ratcheting process starts up again.
Moral Hazards
Where’s the morality in imprisoning inner city citizens for political gain, or over-medicating university students over liability worries? Is compassion a virtue or a trend? What’s the upside to being good?
The Guardian
The Escalating Breakdown of Urban Society Across the US: The Wire imagines a stunning example of a parallel economy working within a national economy that has abandoned an entire subculture. Writer David Simon explores a similar disconnect with the legal system in Baltimore, and how its citizens are fighting back.
The American Interest Online
Medicate U.: Over-medicating college students with psychiatric drugs may be a university’s defense against malpractice suits, risk-management masking real problems.
in character
How an Emotion Became a Virtue–it took some help from Rousseau and Montesquieu: It’s only a recent historical phenomenon that we see compassion as a virtue. Will we eventually return to dispassion?
The New Yorker
“Good People” by David Foster Wallace: It is through being good that we learn how to love–a short story.
Feisty Librarians
Today’s librarian: She may shush you, but she will stand up for your right to read anything. Anything.
GOOD Magazine
Stop Teaching Catcher in the Rye! Has that old sandby of teen angst lost its relevance? Is it time to make changes to the high school literature canon? You decide. (Be sure to read the comments, too.)
FactCheck
Sliming Palin: Did Sarah Palin drag Catcher in the Rye and Harry Potter tomes off the Wasilla library shelves? No, she didn’t. Did she try to intimidate the librarian? They’re a tough bunch, those librarians, not so easily ruffled.
Discover
Whales Had Legs Until 40 Million Years Ago, Fossils Show: Is this the sort of article that offends creationist mayors?
American Library Association
Banned Books Week: It’s that time of year, once again, to support your favorite banned books by such venerable authors as Mark Twain, Judy Blume, J. D. Salinger, J. K. Rowling, Maurice Sendak, and Toni Morrison.
The Virginia Quarterly Review
Young Reviewers Contest: If you’re under 30, submit a book review to compete for publication.
Cultural Wars
Despite calls for unity, cultural tribes line up for confrontation. Can’t we all just get along?
NY Daily News
Giants and Jets fans join uproar over stadium naming rights bid by firm with Holocaust ties: What do a beloved local football stadium and a concentration camp have in common? Where’s the bottom line of lucrative sponsorship contracts? Corporate culture vs. fan culture in New York.
Haaretz
Israel Asks for Arms, Air Corridor to Attack Iran: “The security aid package the United States has refused to give Israel for the past few months out of concern that Israel would use it to attack nuclear facilities in Iran included a large number of “bunker-buster” bombs, permission to use an air corridor to Iran, an advanced technological system and refueling planes.”
The Man Booker Prize
Man Booker shortlist announced: Can too many good books be a bad thing? Probably not, but it was an especially difficult challenge to select from the formidable long list this year. How many of the finalists have you read?
Politico
Palin reignites culture wars: Latte Libs vs. Rightous Repubs bring it on after Alaskan veep candidate makes her appeal.
Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet: the blog
Cultural Olympics, 2012: Of course we all know the UK will be hosting the Olympics in 2012. But, did you know about the Cultural Olympics to be held there as well, and in the same year? Get the scoop at Shakespeare’s blog. You didn’t know he had a blog, did you?
