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by Steven Pinker, Los Angeles Times
Thinking about how words get made can challenge some of our fundamental assumptions.
by Tim Harford, Slate
The obscure game-theory problem that explains why rich countries are rich.
by Lorenza Munoz, Los Angeles Times
Some in Hollywood are hoping the latest film by Taiwanese director Ang Lee will change the way American audiences perceive the NC-17 label.
by Carol Rumens, The Guardian
Is there any purpose in translating poetry?
by Peter Kurth, Salon
HIV-positive since the '80s, I never expected to grow old — and I really didn't expect to end up with a crooked penis.
by Jonathan Jones, The Guardian
Why do journalists write the same six generic stories about art over and over again?
by Hooman Majd, Salon
My time with Iranian president this week underscored how the U.S. media has overlooked his political savvy.
by Eric Asimov, New York Times
In the way New York drew artists in the '50s, this city at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers seems to exert a magnetic lure on talented chefs who come from almost anywhere else and decide to stay right here. About the hardest thing to find in Portland these days is a homegrown chef.
by Philip Gefter, New York Times
Why are the Japanese couples in Kohei Yoshiyuki's photographs having sex outdoors? Was 1970s Tokyo so crowded, its apartments so small, that they were forced to seek privacy in public parks at night? ANd what about those peeping toms? Are the couples as oblivious as they seem to the gawkers trespassing on their nocturnal intimacy?
by James Kukstis, The Tripod
How to write an opinionated article, when nothing seems to be new.
by Amy Scattergood, Los Angeles Times
This is an ode to harissa. It's replaced my ketchup, my salsa picante, even (gasp) my Louisiana hot sauce. I put it on everything. Well, not exactly everything, but the potent North African chile sauce goes into my bean soups and sandwiches, it spikes my aioli and tops my pizzas. I even take it on road trips, as a kind of food insurance, where it's done wonders for roadside hamburgers and omelets, even stadium Dodger dogs.
by Kevin Young, Slate
by Adrian Blevins, Slate
by John Noble Wilford, New York Times
Fifty years ago, before most people living today were born, the beep-beep-beep of Sputnik was heard round the world, It was the sound of wonder and foreboding. Nothing would ever be quite the same again — in geopolitics, in science and technology, in everyday life and the capacity of the human species.
by John Wray, New York Times
Making waves is what Michael Haneke has become famous for. Over the last two decades, the director has developed a reputation for stark, often brutal films that place the viewer — sometimes subtly, sometimes explicitly — in the uncomfortable role of accomplice to the crimes playing out on-screen. This approach has made Haneke one of contemporary cinema's most reviled and revered figures, earning him everything from accusations of obscenity to a retrospective at Museum of Modern Art next month.
by Deborah Warren, New Yorker
by Peter Galbraith, Salon
The scale of Bush's strategic miscalculation in Iraq is striking, emboldening Iran to extend its influecne in the Middle East.
by Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times
The more I see China wrestling with its environment, the more I'm convinced that it is going to prove much, much easier for China to have gone from communism to capitalism than to go from dirty capitalism to clean capitalism.
by Harry Jaffe, Washingtonian
Six chiefs have tried to fix DC's schools in the past ten years—and failed. Now comes a 37-year-old Korean-American from Toledo with no experience running a school system who's convinced she can succeed.
by Donna St. George, Washington Post
On Clare's team, all the girls have disabilities: autism, Down syndrome, other conditions that delay development. Some have more physical skill. Some are more comunicative. But together they are Destiny, cheerleaders all, a troupe of 12 that has produced what was missing in many of their lives: Belonging. Acceptance. Friendship.
by Ian Hacking, The Nation
A Canadian philosopher surveys some of the livlier flashpoints in America's battle over evolution.
by Penelope Green, New York Times
Couch surfing takes an ancient notion of hospitality and tucks it into a thoroughly modern paradigm, the social networking web site. But, as its members say sternly, it is not a site for dating, or for freeloaders.
by Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times
There is no green revolution, or, if there is, the counter-revolution is trumping it at every turn. Without a transformational technological breakthrough in the energy space, all of the incremental gains we're making will be devoured by the exponential growth of all the new and old "Americans."
by Emily Yoffe, Slate
I have never played golf. So why, oh, why, did I start now?
by Stephen Elliott, San Francisco Chronicle
What does it matter if a novelist is also a pundit or a performer or a narcissist?
by Christopher Cunningham, Slate
by Arda Collins, New Yorker
by Maxim Biller, New Yorker
by Nicholas Wade, New York Times
Where do moral rules come from? From reason, some philosophers say. From God, say believers. Seldom considered is a source now being advocated by some biologists, that of evolution.
At first glance, natural selection and the survival of the fittest may seem to reward only the most selfish values. But for animals that live in groups, selfishness mut be strictly curbed or there will be no advantage to social living. Coul dthe behaviors evolved by social animals to make societies work be the foundation from which human morality evolved?
by Natalie Y. Moore, Washington Post
As we catch up here in the United States, we are gapplign with the social implications that come along with texting.
by J. D. McClatchy, New Yorker
by Stephanie Rosenbloom, New York Times
The kiss you share with the exquisite stranger is electric, deep and seemingly endless — tat is until you open an eye and see drool on your pillow.
If only you could have slept long enough to consummate the seduction. Then again, you had no idea you were dreaming. Besides, you cannot control the nightly ride on the wings of your subconscious. Or can you?
by Jacqueline L. Salmon, Washington Post
A legion of the godless is rising up against the forces of religiosity in American society.
by David Abel, Boston Globe
An increasing number of young people in America — and adults around the world — don't believe in God. Greg Epstein, who advises fellow atheists and agnostics at Harvard University, wants to create a kind of church for those who reject religion. But he's encountering resistance from some of the very people he wants to unite.
by Megan Marshall, New York Times
In "The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh," Linda Colley has written a biography that tests all common notions about the genre.
by Alice Kaplan, The Chronicle Of Higher Education
For some people Paris is a fashion show or a gourmet meal or a museum. For me and for my colleagues in French studies, it's a library where we wander aong the stacks, a fantasy captured by the French architect Dominique Perrault in his design for the new French National Library: four buildings in the shape of open books, towering over the River Seine.
by Adam Gopnik, New Yorker
Eating the fruits of the five boroughs.
by Michelle Slatalla, New York Times
My friend Jennifer called last week with a problem. Nobody in her household could figure out how to deocrate her daughter's igloo.
by Sara Vilkomerson, New York Observer
Ask and ye shall receive! Slowly but surely a seismic shift is occuring across the entertainment landscape: men are dropping trou, and penises and testicles are seemingly everywhere, flapping in the breeze.
by John Barry, The Smart Set
This is not a gig for the weak of heart. It's for the eternal optimist, the dead-end journalist who doesn't believe in dead ends. It's for the tolerant, the cheerful, the brave and gratuitously creative. It's a job for someone who doesn't have a lot to do on weekends.
by Regina Schrambling, Los Angeles Times
When any human being is searchable online not just verbally but visually, how can a critic possibly hope to retain anonymity long enough to give a restaurant a fair evaluation? Throw blogs into the mix and it's a mashup of Facebook and a masquerade ball.
by Patricia Dalton, Washington Post
There's been a fundamental change in family life, and it has played out over the years in my office. Teachers, pediatricians and therapists like me are seeing children of all ages who are not afraid of their parents. Not one bit. Not of their power, not of their position, not of their ability to apply standards and enforce consequences.
by Scott Mclemee, Bookforum.com
Twenty years ago this fall, Russell Jacoby's The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe mourned the death of the freelance thinker and examined its fresh corpse. But did we misread Jacoby's autopsy?
by Peter Meehan, New York Times
Mr Sorenson and a few like-minded coffee hunters around the country will go almost anywhere, do almost anything and pay almost any price in pursuit of the perfect cup of coffee.
by Eric Weiner, Los Angeles Times
Why did hard work at the expense of leisure become an American virtue?
by John McWhorter, New York Sun
Wearning my linguist hat, I am inclined to treat the new boldface as a variant usage of punctuation which, since it is used consistently by users, cannot on any logical grounds be rejected as "wrong."
by Gail Mazur, Slate
by Joni Mitchell, New Yorker
by Les Murray, New Yorker
by Paul Theroux, New Yorker
by Joel Achenbach, Washington Post
There are no people anymore. The word "senior" is in disfavor; the folks at AARP often use the term "grown-up" to refer to our most tenured citizens.
by Jill Lepore, New Yorker
Smear tactics, skulduggery, and the debut of American democracy.
by David Owen, New Yorker
The rise and fall of contract bridge.
by Denise Winterman, BBC News
Lessons in emotions should be introduced in all schools in England, says the government, in the latest twist on what's known as "emotional intelligence". But can children really be taught how to be happy?
by Rachel Cooke, The Guardian
Thompson clearly feels that she brings a fresh eye — and a special passion — to the already thoroughly picked-over life of the world's bestselling crime writer. But perhaps her publisher is worred others may not agree.
by Daniel J. Wakin, New York Times
That little note, an octave above middle C on the piano, played a role in projecting Mr. Pavarotti's fame around the world. That is no surprise. The tenor high C has a long nd noble tradition, and a healthy dose of mystique.
by Steven Heller, New York Times
With the computer, "font" has entered the vernacular, and almsot every keyboard jockey has become an aficionado.
by Liam Fitzpatrick, Time
10 years after his death at the age of 56, Yau continues to be as obscure as he was in life. But with the issues of conservation and cultural identity at the forefront of social debate in Hong Kong, his body of work — spanning almost 40 years and recording the city's passage from hard-bitten entrepot to looming metropolis — cries out for recognition as the extraordinary social and artistic document that it is.
by Joel Garreau, Washington Post
The post-9/11 era has caught up with William Gibson's vision.
by Alex WIlliams, New York Times
"Made in the U.S.A." used to be a label flaunted primarly by consumers in the Rust Belt and rural regions. Increasingly, it is a status symbol for cosmopolitan bobos, and it is being exploited by the marketers who cater to them.
by Mike Armstrong, Los Angeles Times
Sending a check to a charity with my name on it isn't a birthday gift.
by Jack Shafer, Slate
The New York Times "Escapes" section demonstrates its lack of imagination.
by Timothy Ferris, New York Times
Contemplation of Voyager's billion-year future among the stars may make us feel small and the span of our history seem insignificant. Yet the very existence of the two spacecraft and the gold records they carry suggests that there is something in the human spirit able to confront vast sweeps of space and time that we can only dimly comprehend.
by Joe Drape, New York Times
Cambodian Cuisine is not the first restaurant to endure costly delays on the way to opening its doors, and it will not be the last. Murphy's Law rules the insane world of New York City restaurants.
by Mark Dery, Salon
I may have grown up to be a foodie, but I still think fondly of Taco Bell and its mushy burritos and fast-food mission facades.
by Steve Wasserman, Columbia Journalism Review
The decline of the coverage of books isn't new, benign, or necessary.
by Joanie Mackowski, Slate
by John Sutherland, The Guardian
I have seen the future of literary criticism - and, as John Reed said - 'it works'. Works better, in fact, than Reed's beloved Soviet Union ever worked. And it will work, I believe, for other humanities discipliens. Science, I'm not so sure about. But perhaps there too.
by Jean Valentine, New Yorker
by James Richardson, New Yorker
by Gary Shteyngart, New Yorker
And so, in the midst of my Hebrew-school winter vacation, two Russian families crammed into a alrge used sedan and took I-95 down to the Sunshine State.
by Lara Vapnyar, New Yorker
by Robert McCrum, Guardian
The great essayist woul dbe appalled by the writing, but applaud the democracy of the web.
by Ellen Winner and Lois Hetland, Boston Globe
School art class matter more than ever — but not for the reasons you think.
by Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times
In his morbidly fasciating non-fiction eco-thriller, "The World Without Us," Weisman imagines what would happen if the earth's most invasive species — ourselves — were suddenly and completely wiped out.
by Ronan Bennett, The Guardian
I forgot the easiest part of writing a novel is the beginning. Readers want to be intrigued, so the storyteller can weave his strands to his heart's content. But soon, readers want to see how the strands cohere and after that they want to see them tied up in a way that is aatisfying and credible. This is the really hard part — developing the character and allowing the narrative seeds to germinate and flower into an ending that works.
by Joel Stein, Los Angeles Times
Every home needs a urinal — doesn't it?
by Meghan Daum, Los Angeles Times
In an age of disposable objects, it's nice to see that one product's passing can still stir nostalgia.
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