Other
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London Isn’t the Only City That’s Burning
London is definitely a hot case right now. But once you start taking a look elsewhere, you’ll see that the UK is not the only country where riots are taking form. Student protests in Chile have been gaining momentum for…
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Boycotting for Balance
There’s been a couple articles as of late suggesting we change the way we deal with social inequity—by pointedly not participating in its fulfillment. Instead of setting our sights on the people actively promoting the problem, why don’t we all…
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Former Detroit Autoworker Named Poet Laureate for 2011-12
Philip Levine, at 83 years old, has been named the Poet Laureate for 2011-2012. As a former autoworker from Detroit, his poetry draws largely on his working-class Jewish background. Deemed “America’s most acclaimed working-class poet,” his work expresses the “simple…
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How Did Albert Camus Really Die?
There is a new theory displacing the old view of Albert Camus’ death by car crash. The French philosopher, author and Nobel Prize winner was traveling with his publisher, Michel Gallimard, when they crashed into a tree in 1960, with…
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Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
Who’s laughing now? Another reason to spare that spider’s life. It’s our moon–why wouldn’t we use it as a trash can? Spoon and chopsticks breed beautifully.
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Name That Accent
You know that accent you hear in old films from the 30s and 40s that’s “not faux-British, but it’s a particular kind of lah-dee-dah American diction?” This piece ponders the prevalence and subsequent demise of that particular sound—apparently known as…
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Letter Writers
All hacking aside, are we not all snoopers? This interview with Jonathan Keates tackles “great letter writers”—Lord Byron, Stendhal, Queen Victoria, Henry James, Evelyn Waugh—and the legacy of their correspondences. He also ruminates on the death of “the letter as…
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London Riots Roundup
Riots have been going on for three days now in London following the killing by police of Mark Duggan. You can follow the Guardian’s coverage here, but here are a few other stories as well. Prime Minister David Cameron pledged…
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Ideas of a Decade
A special issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, “An Era in Ideas,” goes under the surface of words like “death” and “terrorism” that have entered the public imagination since the September 11th attacks. The collection of essays reflects on…
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Odd-Jobs of the Past
Summer is the most appropriate time to reminisce about those “character-building” odd-jobs of yesteryear. Sometimes perusing a book’s dust-jacket, you learn that your literary idol endured some menial labor or surprising occupation and it confirms their humanity. In the spirit…
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Undocumented Prison Deaths
“..currently, there isn’t a single federal law requiring state-run jails and prisons to report detainee deaths, or what caused them. Not one.” After the Death in Custody Act expired back in 2006, there has been no accountability for the reporting…
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Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
Groupon can be tracked throughout history—way back to the ancient Greeks. Also, they apply to all forms of graphs. Real vampires with heat sensors! This is like minute math for adults. Canadian English just got REAL. And officially recognized by…