Other
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BAD MOMMY BLOG: Princesses, part II
I have a few more things to say about the princess posse. I didn’t say it all in one post because I have a short attention span and figure you do, too. The princesses aren’t that big a deal. Far…
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Destructo Swarmbots On the Verge
First there were cyborg rats. Then came electroneural Shark and Awe. All part of DARPA’s ongoing effort to weaponize the animal kingdom, which is all part of DARPA’s ongoing effort to weaponize everything, including the weather. But for now, let’s…
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Poetic Lives Online: Links by Brian Spears
Whoever wrote this poem lo those many years ago ought to be forced to wear those shorts. I’m really surprised there hasn’t been more of a response to David Orr’s piece in the NY Times Book Review last week. Are…
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Yelling ‘Bout Yelp
The San Francisco-based website Yelp allows users to post reviews of businesses. The idea’s simple enough: trust consumers to tell you the truth about the kind of service you’ll get at this or that restaurant, or the kind of waits…
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The Rumpus Long Interview with Bill Ayers
The Unrepentant Terrorist? Founder of the Weather Underground, and favorite whipping boy of the failed McCain campaign, Bill Ayers talks to The Rumpus about the ’60s, the present, and his fans in the Chicago Police Department.
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The Best Word Book Ever, Then and Then
In 1991, the editors of Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever made some key editorial changes in an effort to level the race, gender and religious biases of the original 1963 edition. The side-by-side comparison offers a composite look at…
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Rediscovering the West
As much as these poems tap into a mythic story of the West, they are not linear narratives, but circuitous maps of anxiety and desire, a portrait of an inner world masquerading as meditations on people and place.
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…Is Another Man’s Fertility Fetish
The main character in Karan Mahajan’s novel, Family Planning, is a man who is only attracted to his wife when she is pregnant. “He liked the smooth, alien bulge of her stomach or the tripled heartbeat when they made love,…
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The Eyes of Our Skin Are Closed
The enchantment of Dangerous Laughter is not merely a function of the tales themselves, but also of the way in which Millhauser tells them – with careful, attentive prose that is rich in detail yet never overwhelming.
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The Boss from the Hell Bosses Already in Hell Get Sent To
From the self-employed comfort of my couch and a distance of about thirty years, oil company CEO Edward “Tiger Mike” Davis gives excellent memo; his contemptuous, petty rants read like the love song of Daniel Plainview. But for anyone unlucky…
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Reading Online
Fact: The Internet changes how we read. But is reading on the internet not really “reading” at all? In a recent column in The New York Times Virginia Heffernan analyzes how her three year old son “reads” on Starfall, a…
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Private Sector Detention
Last week Pennsylvania judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. plead guilty to illegally prosecuting minors, in order to get kickbacks from privately-run juvenile detention centers. Children were sentenced to three months incarceration for making fun of their teachers on MySpace. The judge had…