From Salon: The Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University is renowned for its all-star faculty and an alumni roster that reads like the guest list at the G-20 summit. But just because a school has impressive names doesn’t mean that it’s an impressive school. The “mid-career” program that serves its most august graduates — people like Ban Ki-moon, Felipe Calderón, and Paul Volcker — is, despite an impeccable pedigree, a cash cow that grants degrees for attending what is […]
Russian Spies Just Aren’t Interesting Anymore
This is cool: Criminal complaints filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan on Monday read like an old-fashioned cold war thriller: Spies swapping identical orange bags as they brushed past each other in a train station stairway. An identity borrowed from a dead Canadian, forged passports, messages sent by shortwave burst transmission or in invisible ink. A money cache buried for years in a field in upstate New York. This isn’t: Neighbors in Montclair, N.J., of the couple who called […]
Who Picks out Bobby Jindal’s Clothes for Him?
This photo from The New York Times should be titled: “The Jesus Christ of Douchebags.”
Weekend Bites: Shitty Woody Allen Films, Jennifer Egan Interviewed, T.S. Eliot’s Cats and More
Woody Allen likes the shitty Woody Allen films. Jennifer Egan interviewed at The Rumpus. Wilson, by Daniel Clowes, is reviewed. Tolstoy and the Mormons. 20 writers to watch. T.S. Eliot and Cats. Secrets of Hitchcock’s Psycho.
Ira Glass Gets Wrong
“Or: How to Make a career in other people screwing up” Why is there such a big payoff for the listener in stories about wrongness? What makes it so pleasurable? Well, if the story works, you become the character, right? You agree with their early point of view, and then when it gets shattered, you are shattered with it. So in the storytelling, you want to manipulate the evidence and the feelings so that the audience is right there agreeing […]
Googling Descartes
Proof once again, that you can find just about anything online. This time, letters written by Descartes: Bos (Dutch Descartes scholar, Erik-Jan Bos) found the letter’s trace after keying the terms “autographed letter” and “Descartes” into the search engine late one night in January, contacting the college immediately by email and hearing back soon after. Via
Jacques Cousteau was Born 100 Years ago Today
Ayn Rand Paul: No Rules and Fish Sticks
The more I’m told that Rand Paul isn’t named after Ayn Rand, the less I’m inclined to believe it. Also, this: Friends of the family describe a traditional household with early American décor and the frequent aroma of Mrs. Paul’s chocolate chip cookies, if not fish sticks. They have lived since July 4, 1968, in the same middle-class enclave of Lake Jackson, where the streets are named for trees, flowers and fauna (the Pauls live on Blossom). They owned a […]