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Don't Like Christmas? Get A Life
by Garrison Keilior, Salon
You may feel excluded by Christian symbolism, but you're in America. Work with it.

Knock It, Then Try It
by Pete Wells, New York Times
I was relieved to hear that many bartenders — real bartenders, who make a living at this — occasionally invent cocktails that their customers would rather not try.

Mad As Hell
by Ken Auletta, New Yorker
Lou Dobbs's populist crusade.

Recliners Vs. Uprights: Tighter Seating Puts Passengers At Odds
by Scott McCartney, Wall Street Journal
With airlines squeezing more seats onto planes and flights more crowded than ever, some nasty battles are brewing, pitting passengers who recline their seats against the squished travelers sitting behind them.

50 Shots Fired, And The Epxerts Offer A Theory
by Michael Wilson, New York Times
It is known in police parlance as "contagious shooting" — gunfire that spreads among officers who believe that they, or their colleagues, are facing a threat. It spreads like germs, like laughter, or fear. An office rfires, so his colleagues do, too.

Forging A Coffee Chain Just A Few Links Long
by Louise Kramer, New York Times
When Jonathan Rubinstein decided to ditch his career as a talent agent to open a coffee bar in Manhattan, his friends and advisers thought he was making a terrible mistake.

On The Move To Outrun Climate Change
by Blaine Harden and Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post
In their separate ways, wild creatures, business executives and regional planners are responding to climate changes that are rapidly recalibrating their chances for survival, for profit and for effective delivery of public services.

A Freeway-Free Coastal Journey
by Robin Rauzi, Los Angeles Times
Santa Barbara tourists who arrive by train earn discounts for ditching the car. The program, aimed at cutting air population, inspires some odd adventures in sightseeing.

On Traffic-Signal Boxes, Art That Stops Traffic
by Alison Leigh Cowan, New York Times
What began four years ago as a tiny, grass-roots experiment to beautify the unsightly boxes that control traffic signals around town has become an unexpectedly impressive public art collection, with head-turning installations cropping up constnatly to transform drab streetscapes into outdoor galleries.

Saving The Great Wall From Being Loved To Death
by Jim Yardley, New York Times
The wall's most inescapable problem is the burden caused by its growing popularity.

OK, Who's Got All The Teaspoons?
by Maya Kessler, Telegraph
If this is a global phenomenon, then 600,000 tons of teaspoons are disappearing each year. So where have they all gone?

Book Lovers Seek Lovers, Buttered Or Plain
by Sarah Lyall, New York Times
In the strange alternate universe that is the personals column in the London Review of Books, a fetish for even the naughtiest dairy product is considered a perfectly reasonable basis for a relationship.

Goodbye, Mr. Altman
by Stephanie Zacharek, Salon
A great director, a poet, Robert Altman changed the landscape of filmmaking, and never stopped shooting. It's almost impossible to believe he's gone.

The Coastline Is Retreating. Should The Montauk Lighthouse Stand Its Ground?
by Cornelia Dean, New York Times
When erosion threatens to send alighthouse toppling into the sea, people want to save it. But how? The way we answer that question involves more than engineering. It can become a statement about how we intend to live with our eroding coasts.

That's How The Light Gets In
by Gary Kamiya, Salon
To truly give thanks this week is to celebrate the world. But for all of our obsession with success and self-fulfillment, Americans don't celebrate very well.

Diddy's Little Helpers
by Hastings Cameron, Village Voice
Why hip-hop ghostwriting is an art now, and an actually respectable one.

Return Of The Press Barons
by Drake Bennett, Boston Globe
As a new breed of aspiring press moguls talk of buying big city dailies, there's more than just an industry at stake.

Art Of The Feud
by Rachel Donadio, New York Times
At their best, literary feuds show something at stake beyond personal vanity. At their worst, feuders can become like so many gorillas, pounding on their chests and marking their territory in the literary jungle.

Another Way
by Joel Achenbach, Washington Post
A band of idealists in the mountains of North Carolina is trying to build a low-energy lifestyle. But must we all live like hippies in the woods to make a difference?

Black And White And Read — And Seen — All Over
by David Gates, Newsweek
Covering the people who covered the civil-rights movement.

In Minnesota, The Mall Of America Is As Big As All Indoors
by Louise Tutelian, New York Times
Since it opened in 1992, the Mall of America, in the Minneapolis suburbs, has been claiming to be the mall for the entire country. What's amazing is how well it lives up to its billing.

School Districts With Officials But No Schools? New Jersey Has Them
by Winnie Hu, New York Times
Essentially, they exist in name only, yet have staffs to schedule board meetings, record the minutes and collect tax dollars to pay tuition and transportation costs for their students.

The Math Moron
by Emily Yoffe, Slate
I can barely add and subtract. Can I learn enough math in five moths to help my fifth-grader with her homework?

A Law That Says Man Can Have Only One 'Best Friend'
by Jim Yardley, New York Times
In Beijing, regulations limit households in eight districts to a single dog and forbid people from owning large dogs like golden retrievers and huskies.

The Trash Princess
by Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal
Why Americans love to hate Paris Hilton.

Trial By Fryer
by Gabrielle Hamilton, Salon
Some cooks think that because they throw a mean dinner party, they can run a restaurant. Until I tried to manage an overworked kitchen, an angry staff and an untested menu, I was one of them.

How Do You Measure People Skills?
by Paul Harris, Slate
The elusive landscape of social intelligence.

The Rise And Fall Of The "Bus Plunge" Story
by Jack Shafer, Slate
What killed this former New York Times staple?

Looking Good
by David Von Drehle, Washington Post
Our obsessio with physical appearance may not be so shallow, after all.

Falling-Down Funny
by A O. Scott, New York Times
In an era of meta-ironic wordplay, why do sight gags still get the big laughs?

Old School
by Debra J. Dickerson, Salon
I'm supposed to be inspired by women my age who run marathons and go back to college, but I'm too tired to be young. It's too much work.

Why I'll Always Wave The Flag Of My Father
by Tina Mihin, Newsweek
This flag isn't just decoration. It's a tribute to my dad, a proud American veteran and my hero.

Don't Need The Sunshine...
by Euan Ferguson, The Observer
The prices are lower, the locals friendlier and you'll have the tourist hotspots to yourself.

Street Food With Ambition In Berlin
by Gisela Williams, New York Times
New Yorkers have hot dog stands, Parisians have creperies, but street food in Berlin is all about imbisse — a word that encompasses everything from sidewalk stalls that sell currywurst (sliced sausage smothered with curry powder and ketchup) to holes in the wall that serve Turkish doner kebabs (thick pita sandwiches stuffed with shaved meat, salad and yogurt sauge).

The Corporate Wives' Club
by Vicky Ward, Financial Times
The list of rules goes on and you have to learn them if your husband is to get where he needs to get to, allowing you to get where you need to get to.

Modernity Or Tradition: Istanbul At A Crossroad Finds Its Own Way
by Matt Gross, New York Times
That jumble of identities may be a cliche, but over the course of a late June weekend in Istanbul, it was a cliche the city never let me forget, not even for a minute.

For Cooks, The Joy Of Winning
by John Freeman Gill, New York Times
When the oven mitts came off and the knives came out at the 16th annual Build a Better Burger contest in St. Helena, Calif., this fall, a 35-year-old sociology professor named Camilla Saulsbury was the first to draw blood. Unfortunately, it was her own.

Bare Down There Or Square
by Regina Lynn, Wired News
When Darpa created the internet, its engineers probably did not envision how the web would affect our most intimate grooming rituals.

Yellow Fever
by Vickie Chang, Village Voice
They got it bad, and that ain't good.

Fast-Food Notion
by Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post
In search of a nugget of truth.

In California, Ecologists Retrace A Pioneer's Footsteps
by Amanda T. Hawn, New York Times
The tidy parallels in time, place and purpose between the scientists of yesteryear and those of today are no accident. They are, rather, part of a major undertaking called the Grinnell Rusurvey Project.

Cyber-Neologoliferation
by James Gleick, New York Times
The language upon which the lexicographers eavesdrop is larger, wilder and more amorphous; it is a great, swirling, expanding cloud of messaging and speech: newspapers, magazines, pamphlets; menus and business memos; internet news groups and chat-room conversations; and television and radio broadcasts.

I Want To Tell You A Story
by Paul Auster, The Observer
I don't know why I do what I do. If I did know, I probably wouldn't feel the need to do it. All I can say, and I say it with utmost certainty, is that I have felt this need since my earliest adolescence. I'm talking about writing, in particular, writing aas a vehicle to tell stories, imaginary stories that have never taken place in what we call the real world.

In Malaysia, Take Many People And Ingredients, Mix, Enjoy
by Matt Gross, New York Times
This was a gastronomical Eden, where popular pastimes include questing for the best fried noodles and where one of the free tourist magazines is named simply Food Paradise.

Shifting Sands And A Slow Pace On The Georgia Coast
by Robert Coram, New York Times
Walking along the boradwalks, just gazing at the salt marsh can be excitement enough.

Your Unfinished Basement Or Mine?
by Franklin Scneider, Washington City Paper
My relationship went sour. I needed many women. I lived in the right place.

Last Dance
by Josh Feit, The Stranger
Will Seattle voters put hardworking strippers out of work? A report from the front lines of the war on naked ladies, lap dances, and $5 cokes.

That '70s Show
by Rachel Sklar, Village Voice
'Saturday Night Live' in the post-Tina Fey, YouTube unknown.

What Joy Is Missing
by Laura Shapiro, Slate
The latest edition of America's kitchen bible falls short.

Mind Over Matter
by JC Hallman, Salon
It wasn't the promise of saving lives that kept me attending an EMT class, but my will to witness the mystery of life in a bifurcated head.

Signs Of Love Are Written In A New Language
by Donald M. Murray, Boston Globe
I am a quick study. It took me less than a decade to feel comfortable hugging a son-in-law in my driveway or a young lady friend on a sidewalk.