Don’t pity the renters.

***

Gingers unite! Celebrity redheads speak up for endangered orangutans.

***

A new theory asks: Did an optical illusion sink the Titanic?

***

This is what your brain sounds like: experimental musician Masaki Batoh turns brainwaves into spooky music.

***

Six things rich people need to stop saying, courtesy of Cracked.com.

***

Comics get an official endorsement.

***

Hurrah for hacktivists! Operation Darknet forces more than 40 child pornography sites offline.

***

“Public service and the public imagination,” opines The Nation, “have been weaponized.”

***

Watch a 40-year time lapse of Las Vegas sprawling into the surrounding desert.

***

Find out how many companies are tracking your every online move with just a click.

***

Radioactive chandeliers (actually made from uranium) commemorate the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster after last year’s Japan-bound tsunami.

Image by Anna Tesar, licensed under Creative Commons. 

  

Turns out that the myth of the 8-hour sleep is a recent phenomenon—and that lying awake at night could be good for you.

***

Get ready for the Bourdain stamp of approval on a new line of foodie books.

***

Neiman Watchdog asks: Do politicians know anything at all about schools and education?

***

A perfectly preserved 300 million year old forest discovered under a coal mine in China features trees with branches and leaves intact.

***

We were totally OK with climate change until it started to affect our Shiraz.

***

How to ask political candidates questions and get answers.

***

What does a 55-gallon drum of sex lubricant say about the way we interact with Facebook?

***

Dexterous robots toil at the bottom of the sea to safeguard the web.

 

Mandarin, Arabic, or Spanish? Of all the world’s tongues, what is the best language to learn?

***

One woman’s brief, backbreaking, rage-inducing, low-paying time inside the online-shipping machine.

Image by Alyssa L. Miller, licensed under Creative Commons. 

 

Romance novels are the least stuck-up books in the world, almost never reviewed or discussed at a dinner party. One is supposed to be embarrassed to have a taste for them. And yet, The Awl reminds us, so many of us do….

***

Don’t be scared of Picasso and Pollock. New research shows that fear heightens your appreciation of abstract art.

***

Would food taste better if you kept it on the kitchen counter? The project Save Food from the Refrigerator finds alternative ways to keep food fresh.  

***

Experimental chefs in India have captured the taste of smog.

***

Artists can—and should—be ordinary, too.

***

It’s time, argues Strong Towns Blog, to start getting used to a world with no new streets.

***

A dispatch from an über-clandestine, global gathering of casino sharks and card counters.

***

“[T]he most recent Gallup surveys” writes Joel Kotkin, “[. . . show] a remarkable correlation between the states and regions with the highest proportion of childless women under 45–the best indicator of offspring-free households—and the propensity to vote Democratic.”

***

Like Sherlock Holmes, with booze: The mystery of the Canadian whiskey fungus. 

***

Are there too many think tanks with too few original thoughts? Tevi Troy thinks so.

***

Transcending partisan rancor, lefty Ralph Nader and rightwing Bruce Fein provide a blueprint for a new kind of politics.

***

Big Think exposes the myth of the tortured writer and “the kind of single-minded devotion (to anything) that seems so at odds with our disposable culture.”

 

Image by jjpuzzles, licensed under Creative Commons. 

 

According to a new poll, parents claim that traditional fairytales are too scary for modern children.

***

The importance of roughhousing with your kids, as explained by The Art of Manliness.

***

The Invasivore Movement: Four invasive species make their way to the dinner table.

***

How to fix a broken border—specifically, that really long one along the southern edge of United States.

***

Indoor, urban composting using the Parasite Farm.

***

Have a very literary Valentine’s Day!

***

Why are organic food prices so high? Glad you asked. A farmer fires back.

***

Should a woman feel sad about her abortion? Revolution takes a no apologies approach.

***

Tucson, Arizona, schools have banned books by Native American and Chicano authors and told teachers to stay away from discussions where “race, ethnicity and oppression are central themes.”

***

A TED Talk on the social history of nightclubs, why girls want to sleep with the lead singer in a band, and how the stock market can influence what is hot in popular music.

***

A brief history of the pawn shop.

***

As more people work where they live and live where they work, it’s time to rethink home design.

***

If you combine a controversial street artist with an Academy Award-winning actor, what do you get? Hanksy.

***

Salon’s re-emphasis on original journalism over aggregation pays off.

 

Image by aqsahu, licensed under Creative Commons. 

 

 

A diamond is a girls’ best friend—because that’s what the diamond industry has decided.

***

Ten ironic ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Example A: “Wait in the park, and when couples pass by in horse-drawn carriages, spatter them with glue, yelling, ‘No one cares where last year’s horse went, do they?!’”

***

Illegal baby names from around the world.

***

“You are an idiot and a disgrace.” The Believer writes about the flood of outrage that is the result of saying absolutely anything on the internet.

***

Be inspired by this story of an actress who was propositioned by a famous casting director. When she refused to sleep with him, he told her “You’re never going to get anywhere in this business. You should go home and marry a Jewish dentist.” (Hint: She got somewhere.)

***

Is godlessness is the last big taboo in the US?

***

French parenting is like French cooking: It comes in smaller portions.

***

Could cyber-gardening be the new urban-gardening?

***

Factory farming is creating a new breed of hellacious superbugs.

***

On the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birth, Slackbridge, Gradgrind, and Jarndyce still have something to say about contemporary society and politics.

***

Manufacturers have found a new way to appeal to eco-friendly consumers: Brown it.

Image by AMagill, licensed under Creative Commons. 

 

These magical long-exposure pictures of fireflies are like constellations descended into a forest thicket.

***

Who’s in the market for a car that gets 100 miles to the gallon? WIKISPEED sold their first one last month.

***

Meet an albino hummingbird.

***

“Never open a book with the weather” and other writing advice from Henry Miller, Margaret Atwood, George Orwell, Neil Gaiman, William Safire, and Elmore Leonard.

***

What? The grandsons of John Tyler, our tenth president, are still alive?

***

Marine archaeologists have found a sunken whaling ship captained by George Pollard Jr., the sea captain whose first ship—rammed and sunk by a sperm whale—provided inspiration for Moby-Dick.

***

From a long and fascinating book review of Our Fathers, Ourselves: “The bar on committed or ‘good-enough’ fatherhood has risen radically in recent years, and especially so with respect to girls.” 

***

“The bottom line is that to be on Facebook in any active, participatory sense is to risk annoying people and being annoyed,” writes Mo Perry in Metro. “Much like being alive.”

***

Check out this photo dispatch from the Tough Guy competition, a race in England self-described as “eight country miles filled with freezing mud and ‘barbed wire, cuts, scrapes, burns, dehydration, hypothermia, acrophobia, claustrophobia, electric shocks, sprains, twists, joint dislocation and broken bones.’”

***

Charles Bukowski’s poem “Bluebird” set to stunning video footage of California and its people.

Images courtesy of Cocolog. 

 

The three deadliest words in the world: “It’s a girl.”

***

Wolves and lynx and moose, palīgā! As Latvia’s forests fall, the country’s underappreciated wilderness and wildlife are threatened.

***

Use dancers instead of Powerpoint to augment presentations? We’re all for it.

***

Coronal mass ejection, the movie: Watch NOAA’s video of this week’s incredible solar flare.

***

At long last, the New Yorker weighs in on America’s prisoner epidemic.

***

When being a vegetarian gets in the way of family.

***

Does black history need more than a month?

***

In which an intrepid young man fixes his girlfriend’s grandparents’ Wi-Fi and is hailed as a conquering hero.

***

On the merits of eating penguins, when in the Antarctic. Apparently, you lure them by blowing a trumpet.

***

Should unengaged, everyday citizens be allowed to sell their votes?

***

The other black market: International adoptions can be ugly affairs, but some parents to be will stop at nothing for their would-be children.

Image by Sue Rostvold, licensed under Creative Commons. 

 

Why we love to watch people (or robots) doing the robot.

***

If you believe in kindness, you’ll be free. That’s the attitude blogger Dig This Chick had to take after a domain squatter bought up her blog domain and tried to sell it back to her.

***

Playboy has 383,049 followers on Twitter. Ms.needs your help to catch up. Follow @msmagazine and tell your friends to do the same!

***

What are the consequences, if any, of stopping reading?

***

Advice for indie bookstores: Amazon isn’t really your enemy, and poetry readers may be your best friends.

***

Why do some neighborhoods get overrun with chain stores, while others don’t?

***

“Sea Trees would be big, lush, tiered towers that rise up offshore, whether in a lake, a river, or the sea, and create floating preserves for plants and animals,” reports Fast Company. “Think of them as elaborate city parks (except humans aren’t allowed).”

***

When the First Lady comes to your restaurant, what’s a young cook to do?

***

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has moved the Doomsday Clock one minute closer to midnight.

***

The best pen pal ever: Sign up for Letters in the Mail and get letters, in the mail, from your favorite author.

***

Infographic: Get enough sleep or else you’ll be dumber, get fatter, die sooner, be meaner, and get lucky less often.

***

Fatherly advice from John Steinbeck to his son, on the beautiful complexities of love.

***

“Madame Tussauds is like a safari, only it’s celebrity you’re stalking, and about halfway through you begin to feel more hunted than hunter.” Prospect magazine uncovers the secret behind the success of wax museums.

***

How many of us have threatened to give up the rat race and live simply in a cabin in the woods? This guy actually did it.

Image by Victoria, licensed under Creative Commons. 

 

Ever wonder what the heck primary elections actually are and how they work. Truth is, it’s really complicated. Here’s a crash course. Careful, it gets wild after about 50 seconds. 

***

Question: What’s more beautiful than a Christmas tree full of sparkly ornaments? Answer: Christmas ornaments full of sparkly glitter—exploding.

***

Trash talk at the dinner table: Salt needs a new companion; pepper is lame. 

***

A mother writes about how she went into breastfeeding all wrong.

***

Recession inspiration story: A 40-year-old, out-of-work architect who moved back with his parents has now built a career as the creative force behind the Lego architecture kits you see everywhere, making $10,000 per commission. 

***

Skyhorse Publishing has announced an unusual program: It will pay cash to struggling book publishers for their backlist titles.

***

The best American Sign Language music videos, including White Stripes, “We’re Going to Be Friends”; Kanye West, “Good Morning”; and Paula Abdul, “Opposites Attract.”  

***

It’s a frog-eat-bat world. Cool footage from Smithsonian scientists studying fringe-lipped bats in Panama.

***

BrethalEyes, a new iPhone app, tells you if you’re sober enough to drive. By scanning your eye movement, it claims it can estimate your blood alcohol content. 

***

A musical airport floor, played by your and your suitcase 

***

Once you pop you just can’t stop: A look inside the big business of communion wafers.

***

Of all the thousands of novels written, can you guess the number of unique plots contained therein? If you guessed 1,462, you’d be right. 

***

Is your relationship with your drinking buddies platonic or Platonic?

Here’s a pretty distraction: a time-lapse video of Comet Lovejoy taken over South America’s Andes Mountains. As Kottke points out, it’s definitely worth watching through the last sequence.

***

“When the rallies happened in Tahrir Square,” wrote an Egyptian army officer in his personal journal, recently written about by The Guardian, “we would all receive a large bonus.”

***

Forget the Laundromat: these clothes need only sunshine to get clean.

***

Mario Kart can save your life.

***

We’ve been hearing a lot about the pointlessness of the Iowa caucus and its unsophisticated voters. One Iowa native blasts back. (Available in clean or saucy versions.)

***

Why are movie theaters losing their charm? Roger Ebert posits a few of their problems. Price is one issue, of which he says: “No matter what your opinion is about 3D, the charm of paying a hefty surcharge has worn off for the hypothetical family of four.”

***

A brief consideration of the meteoric rise of queer studies.

***

“When Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type a half-millennium ago,” writes Nicholas Carr, “he also gave us immovable text.” According to him, e-books make literature both editable and collaborative—what amounts to the most drastic change to the book in centuries—for better or worse.

***

There is something intrinsically different between people who know one or a handful of languages and those that know eleven. Have you ever met a hyperpolyglot?

***

How a 1930s photographer turned writers into literary celebrities.

***

More red tape: As of the first of the year, New Hampshire girls under age 18 have to notify a parent or guardian at least 48 hours before they have an abortion.

***

Bellingham Review’s first online issue is now available.

***

Newt Gingrich’s mission is no longer seeking the Republican presidential nomination; it’s destroying Mitt Romney.

 

Ever wondered what would be on the personal playlists of Holden Caulfield or Elizabeth Bennet, Nancy Drew or Harry Potter, Jay Gatsby or Humbert Humbert? Flavorwire presents its literary mixtape series.

 

Alexander Tsiaras visualizes conception to birth in the span of a few minutes. Truly stunning.

***

Monsanto’s patented pest-resistant corn may be losing its magic.

***

Don’t forget to make a digital New Year’s resolution. Here’s why you should switch your web-hosting service.

***

The 20 years since the fall of the Soviet Union, in pictures.

***

If you’re too afraid to crawl through a dark, cramped cave (hey, we don’t blame you), you can get spelunking experience from the comfort of a pre-fabricated tube.

***

Why one historian decided to stop lecturing on the Holocaust.

***

Abdelrahman Al Ahmar, on how he became a so-called terrorist: “Our homes were raided nightly, and we saw our friends, mothers, sisters being attacked. . . . We saw no end in sight, just more Israelis about to move into our neighborhood and make our lives hell.”

***

Making bike lanes out of litter to prove there is room to share the road.

***

In case you haven’t seen it yet, Mother Jones is serving up what they’re calling “Your Daily Newt,” delivering a moment from Newt Gingrich’s political career each day.

Image by kate*, licensed under Creative Commons.

 

How chewing gum makes you smarter.

***

Why are you laughing? Uncovering the cognitive science of humor.

***

Nostalgic for your old Walkman? The Audman will lovingly encase your iPhone in a retro case with buttons and everything. It also includes an app that makes your phone screen look like a cassette and lets you make mixtapes. Rad.

***

Reading in the powder room: Harmless or health violation?

***

Occupiers of our nation’s capital explains what it’s all about in The Declaration of Occupy D.C.  

***

An Afghan woman, imprisoned for the “moral crime” of being raped, will now be released from jail—if she agrees to atone by marrying her rapist.

***

A handy flow chart explaining how to buy an election.

***

Eight good reasons not to self-publish. (Number 6: “I don’t want to be Amazon’s bitch.”)

***

Dangerous sex back in the day: 27 vintage STD posters.

Image by Jason Spaceman, licensed under Creative Commons.  

Michelle Obama champions youth poet ambassador program.

***

What they expect when you’re expecting: tube tops silk-screened with the names of heavy metal bands and Daisy Duke jean shorts.

***

100 CEOs refuse to give any more campaign donations until lawmakers end partisan gridlock.  

***

11 Sounds that your kids have probably never heard.

***

In a quest to create the world’s largest work of art, Jim Denevan and a team of helpers inscribed circles on the frozen surface of the world’s largest lake. Unfortunately for them, that lake happened to be in Siberia.

***

Do you live in the “Twilight Belt” of America?

***

If you’re not much of a thrill seeker, perhaps you’d find this ambulatory roller coaster a little more fun.

***

Newsflash: College students not studying 20 hours a day, wondering why economy doesn’t want them.

***

Pick a number: The history of stigmata is controversial, inconsistent, and well-documented.

***

Monogamy is killing your sperm.

***

Be sure to check this out before your next international trip: A new handbook teaches rude hand gestures from around the world, from “flipping the bird” to “having the balls.”

***

The MIT Mood Meter tells you how you’re feeling as you walk by.

***

Lawrence Lessig tells Boston Review how we the people can get our lost republic back.

Image by Official U.S. Navy Imagery, licensed under Creative Commons.

Why did Congress reaffirm our bland, meaningless national motto?

***

If you’re having trouble finding the right words to say something colossally stupid, you can always lean on The Week’s “Bad Opinion Generator.”

***

Forget China: the $10 trillion global black market is the world’s fastest growing economy—and its future.

***

Amos Oz, the author of “Fanatics Attack” (Nov-Dec issue of Utne Reader) talks to The New Republic about the commingling of politics and literature.

***

What would New York—or, rather, Neu York—look like if Germany had won World War II?

***

The nighttime light of cities could be a new target in the search for extra-terrestrial life.

***

The literature of Occupy Wall Street includes visiting writers and a People’s Library.

***

On election day, Mississippians will vote on whether “personhood” starts at the moment of fertilization. If passed, the amendment will outlaw abortion as well as IUDs and other forms of birth control.

***

The 10 best illustrated children’s books of 2011.

***

Can’t wait for your next box of Thin Mints? “Girls Scouts Release Lip Balms to Torture Cookie Fans,” reports Jezebel.  

***

Linger on, your pale, laser-enhanced blue eyes. A new medical treatment can permanently turn brown eyes to blue.

***

A bicycle with records on its wheels lets you spin your favorite vinyl while you pedal.

***

Earl “Fatha” Hines—perhaps the greatest jazz pianist of all time—gives 11 priceless piano lessons in this video gem.

Image by janoma.cl, licensed under Creative Commons. 

 

Is our response to climate change a moral or an economic issue? Kathleen Dean Moore urges us to do the right thing regardless of the bottom line.

***

Clogs, boils, and death: 10 plagues for the new millennium.

***

Distinguish yourself—as exactly what, we’re not sure—with a wooden necktie.

***

Propublica questions Politico’s decision to publish a story on Herman Cain’s possible sexual harassment, writing that it “may be the biggest investigative scoop of the campaign season. But it would be hard to deduce that from the facts as published.”

***

Guernica puts together its first Iranian-American issue, and in light of guest editor Porochista Khakpour’s statement, “I wish no one had the concept Iranian-American,” the editors wonder, “could this magazine have made a worse choice?”

***

NaNoWri­Mo kicks off! Get writing….

***

Before you dust off your copy of A Christmas Carol for the annual read, check out the secret life of Charles Dickens.

***

Where in the world can you get an abortion, and for what reason?

***

Sometimes we need a nudge to change our behavior for the better—but it’s got to be just the right kind of nudge.

***

How to feed 7 billion people without destroying the planet.

***

In an illustrated edition of Food Rules, available November 1, Michael Pollan introduces the new food commandments. #7: Enjoy drinks that have been caffeinated by nature, not food science.

Image by The Value Web Photo Gallery, licensed under Creative Commons.  

 

There’s a story behind every old band T-shirt. What’s yours?

***

Can’t drink your coffee fast enough? Now there’s an inhaler to administer caffeine.

***

A forgotten pre-pop masterpiece: Andy Warhol illustrates “The Little Red Hen.” 

***

“Why,” asks Slate, “are our cars painted such boring colors?”

***

The perils of painting your toenails with your 3-year-old son.

***

Never stop rewriting! So says Maxine Hong Kingston, who gave a reading from her new memoir covered in post-its annotating changes for the paperback edition.

***

New Republican presidential campaign strategy: Trash talk even the good stuff that happened on your watch. Like this: “Romney attacks green jobs, ignoring the 64,000 created in his state.”

***

Lilith remembers the Jewish women who swam their way to independence and freedom during Hitler’s reign.

***

Has 2011 been the best-ever year for freedom of expression?

***

The Art of the Sentence: Douglas Bauer breaks down Willa Cather’s “He was an ugly fellow, Ivy Peters, and he liked being ugly” over at Tin House.

***

Two chefs, two cooking styles, and dinners that threatened to ruin a family.

***

The president's secret NYC train station.

***

Athletes and singers have coaches, but teachers and surgeons don’t. Should they? Atul Gawande investigates.

***

What passes for jaw-dropping beauty these days? We’d say you need not look further than Iceland’s midnight sun.

 

Image by bucklava, licensed under Creative Commons.  

Although not as famous as Dorothea Lange or Walker Evans, photographer Peter Sekaer may be the most relevant of the three today.

***

How old is your nation’s literature? Iceland’s sagas date back to the 12th century.

***

Do you love your body? If the answer is no, it’s time that you do.

***

Porn plays a role in the rise of women seeking labiaplasty.

***

Trying to convince your boss to give you a raise? You’ll be more effective if you pitch your case with neuroscientific language.

***

Here’s a little bit of celebrity schadenfreude: Brad Pitt being hit by 200 cars.

***

A minimal, secular nativity scene doubles as “an experiment to see if the characters are still recognizable even after they have been reduced to only their color and composition.” Seriously. Baby Jesus is a white block.

***

Photoblog In Focus collected the best images from around the world during the global “Day of Rage,” a series of protests in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street.

 

Up for debate: A magazine is an iPad that doesn’t work.

***

What would a $1 trillion budget cut look like? Leave the explanation to fiscal gladiator Ron Paul.

***

A missive from the aftermath of the digital Cowpocalypse.

***

What’s the cost of commuting to work every day by automobile? For you and your spouse, a paltry $125,000.

***

Finally, a website that lets you know when, exactly, Mercury is in retrograde.

***

Who says poetry doesn’t pay? A Canadian poet dedicates his poems to liquor companies and bars in a kind of literary product placement and is compensated with booze.

***

100 Abandoned Houses photo project. Beautiful and haunting.

Image of trailers for defense workers at Vultee Aircraft Plant, Nashville, Tennessee, by Peter Sekaer.  

 

“The Swiss have mountains, so they climb. Canadians have lakes, so they canoe. The Australians have canyons, so they go canyoneering, a hybrid form of madness halfway between mountaineering and caving in which you go down instead of up, often through wet tunnels and narrow passageways.”

***

A rival to the Booker Prize has been announced, sending the literary world into an uproar.

***

A black male feminist speaks out.

***

Finally, you can carry David Bowie in your wallet.

***

Afghanistan, Iraq, Ecuador, Antarctica, and more are the latest citizens of Google Maps’ growing empire of crowdsourced maps.

***

For all you typography junkies (you’re out there, right?), Kerntype offers a strangely addictive kerning game, in which you move the letters in words left or right to achieve even spacing and optimal readability.

***

One writer’s takeaway from South by Southwest Eco: We should care for the planet not because it makes economic sense, but because it’s the right thing to do.

***

Big Agriculture mounts a PR campaign to counter the side effects of Food Inc.

***

Let’s downsize Sprawlopolis by shifting property taxes to land dues.

***

Gibson Guitar hits a sour note with environmentalists as it cozies up to the Tea Party.

***

Murder City: The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime offers a world map detailing homicide rates around the world.

***

An upstart newspaper files dispatched from the edge of capitalism. Introducing, the Occupied Wall Street Journal.

***

How do you get people to attend a reading? Host a Literary Death Match.

***

The big business of televised food is bigger than you think. The ice in a beverage, for example, might be made of acrylic and cost $500 a cube.

***

The decline and fall of America’s decline and fall.

***

Puff, puff, pour? Leave it to the gourmands to add marijuana to upscale beers and wines.

***

This new medical device is like a super soaker for the burn unit: It coats a burn victim’s wound with their own skin cells, allegedly healing the injury in days instead of weeks.

***

Snarky t-shirt or serious chic? A design writer for imprint teases out the difficulties of choosing what to wear to a protest.

***

What if Facebook developed a web browser to challenge Google?

Image by spacecadet, licensed under Creative Commons.  

 

Before Indian summer is done, listen to the sound of crickets and katydids one last time. (And read a review of the book Cricket Radio here.)

***

Hypersensitivity is good, according to Psychology Today.

***

A dictatorial government recognizes—and attempts to restrict—the power of art. Check out the shift from avant-garde to realistic art in children’s books under Soviet rule.

***

It takes a village to save a drowning farm.

***

Gals, forget Lady Chatterly’s Lover. Order your copy of “Men of the Stacks,” a calendar of dreamy male librarians.

***

American politicians and scientists are afraid to tackle the big challenges—like space exploration, environmental degradation, and renewable energy—argues science fiction author Neal Stephenson.

***

The American Scholar, the quarterly publication that won the 2011 Utne Independent Press Award for Best Writing, is now on Tumblr.

***

The New York Review of Books asks, Is Texas Governor and presidential hopeful Rick Perry “another slicked up trashmouth”?

***

Booing a gay soldier? Cheering execution? Stop this now, says Susan Brooks at the Washington Post.

***

Reporting for Mother Jones, Mac McClelland wonders why an indicted warlord isn’t in the Hague if even she can find him.

***

Awesome Food (the Awesome Foundation’s food chapter) announces its very first $1,000 grant winner: Compost Mobile, a Miami home pick-up service for food scraps.

***

Do you want to speed up or slow down? Nissan and Swiss scientists are developing a car that can read your mind.

***

Open Minds wonder: Are they UFOs or biodegradable floating lanterns?

 

So you want to be a writer. Well, start reading.

***

God may or may not be dead, but churches have become collectible.

***

Farewell, free will?

***

Wow. Some gorgeous photos from Iceland.

***

Sebastian Junger tells The Guardian why he’s getting out of war reporting.

***

This year’s literary genius grant winners have been announced.

***

A Muslim woman describes wearing a hijab—and how she felt going bareheaded in public for the first time at age 28.

***

September 22 is the Day of the Girl. Some things you can do: Tell Facebook to take down “rape joke” pages, change the channel on sexist entertainment, and write a letter to the editor when you see negative portrayals of girls in magazines.

***

A new take on the drinking fountain combines beauty and interaction. “As you approach it, it gently bows down to pour water into your glass.” Cool video…

***

The Table Project (kind of like Facebook for Christians) draws more than 1,600 churches from around the country and of every denomination.

***

Civilization is beautiful. Watch this time-lapse video taken by the International Space Station one night as it orbited around the earth.

***

What does India’s lush Kaziranga National Park have that the rest of the country’s decimated reserves do not? Plenty of tigers, for starters. (The world’s highest ­density.) Fleets of endangered one-horned rhinos. (More than two-thirds of the remaining population.) And, since last year, a take-no-prisoners antipoaching policy that allows rangers to shoot on sight. Welcome to the future of conservation.

***

Germany takes the hands-off approach: Driverless cars hit the streets of Berlin . . . and were completely functional.

***

If President Obama had an LGBT Advisor, what would their job be like?

Image by xlibber, licensed under Creative Commons. 

“I hate all the fetishistic twaddle about books promoted by the chain stores and the book clubs, which make books seem as cozy and unthreatening as teacups,” writes Luc Sante in defense of his sprawling book collection, “instead of the often disputatious and sometimes frightening things they are.”

***

Please enjoy the most hilarious typo of all time.

***

A drought-caused famine in Somalia has starved to death more than 29,000 children in the past few months, making this no time to cut foreign aid, pleads U.S. Catholic.

***

You’ve heard that old saw: Religious disputes fill the world with violence and strife. But new research suggests that idea is just a veneer for less spiritual issues.

***

The Atlantic’s exhaustive look at the state of alternative medicine and the move towards more integrative clinics, “The Triumph of New-Age Medicine.”

***

The Queen of Conservativism supports equal rights for gays and lesbians. Wait, you thought we meant Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann? No, no, silly—we’re talking about Lady Gaga.

***

Vladimir Putin, the Action Man.

***

Fast Company brings good news to the world. Announcing: a windshield wiper for your bathroom mirror.

***

Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek has now been going boldly for 45 years.

***

A former examiner of Social Security disability applicants had forty minutes to determine a claimant’s fate.

***

10 buildings shaped like what they sell.

***

Near the tiny Caribbean island of Dominica, researchers learn more about the social world of the sperm whale, one of the planet’s most mysterious creatures. “Sperm whales have distinct dialects, complex relationships and a set of traditions passed down between generations—what scientists are calling a ‘multicultural civilization.’”  

***

Check out this video of a jacket that collects, stores, and purifies rainwater, and allows you to drink it with a built-in straw.  

***  

Write a poem for Bill Murray, win $1,000.  

 

Image by Saltygal, licensed under Creative Commons. 

Bookish Virgos belong in literary Boston, intense Scorpios are drawn to Minneapolis’s calming river, and private Aquarii crave suburbia. Find out the best places to live depending on your astrological sign, according to EcoSalon.

***

Are you freaking out a little about climate change? Come on, you can do better.   

***  

As Americans ditch fraternal organizations, the rest of the world is flocking to them.  

***

Learn how to pilot your bicycle in a decorous fashion.  

***

Docs say: please don’t use group health insurance to pay for your prettied-up labia.

***

A surgeon with a good bedside manner isn’t just more pleasant in the operating room. Surgeon civility also results in fewer post-operative deaths.

***

Don’t kick the bucket before watching the 50 Documentaries To See Before You Die.

***

An unregulated American fertilization industry is creating super fathers, some with as many as 150 children.

***

“The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy,” says Mike Lofgren, a former Republican party operative who resigned his post after a 30-year career out of disgust for the political process.

***

A little confused about how electoral politics work? Micahel Bérubé wants to explain the process: “[T]here seems to be some serious misunderstanding of the dynamics of national elections in the US.  So let me try to clear this up once and for all.”

***

Barry Duncan is quite possibly the world’s first master palindromist, and he refuses to cede control to the alphabet.

***

Here’s a list of the top ten things everyone should know about time. According to the author, most organisms have a lifespan of 1.5 billion heartbeats—which means you should hurry up and read.

***

Have you ever wondered what to listen to while eating eggplant parmigiana? The blog Turntable Kitchen offers pairings for food and music.

***

The Japanese branch of the Domino’s pizza chain has unveiled plans for the first pizzeria on the moon. For reals.  

Image by zeeweez, licensed under Creative Commons.  

A ruminative essay on the wonders of walking finds connections between “life, narrative, and bipedalism.” 

*** 

The Frisky discovers JC Penney selling a T-shirt for girls that reads: “I’m too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me.” (The shirt has since been pulled from shelves due to consumer outrage. The power of the people!) 

*** 

Doctors turn to driving cabs and waiting tables after immigration. An innovative program helped Somali doctors regain their licenses—until funding was eliminated. 

*** 

The issue isn’t if Michele Bachmann “judges” gays. The issue is her zealous advocacy of laws that strips individual rights based on her personal religious views of homosexuality. 

***  

Incisive, deep-thinking media critic Jack Shafer was recently laid off by Slate—but not before American Journalism Review captured him in a revealing profile. 

***  

Could Muammar Qaddafi be hiding in...New Jersey?

***

Here’s an odd couple: TheKama Sutra and The Adventures of Sherlock Homesare the most popular e-books downloaded from Project Gutenberg. 

*** 

Dorm room essentials now include a high-tech spitball gun, crazy synth guitar, and self-cooling beer pong table. 

***  

Have trouble remembering the difference between a macchiato and a mochaccino? Or an au lait and a latte? This handy infographic clears things up (sort of). 

*** 

An expectant mother braves the Russian hospital system and lives to tell the tale. 

*** 

Swiss comedian Ursus Wehrli turns tidiness into art.  

Image by o5com, licensed under Creative Commons.  

Talk about a traffic jam: Globally, there are now 1 billion cars on the road.

***

Lori Adorable offers women 8 ethical tips in her guide to feminist erotic modeling.

***

A travel guidebook writer achieves transcendence on a 30-hour van ride across Mongolia.

***

French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s indictment may have been dismissed, but the case still shed light on the sexual assaults suffered by hotel housekeepers.

***

Advice from the world’s oldest investment banker, the 105-year-old Irving Kahn: “There are a lot of opportunities out there, and one shouldn’t complain, unless you don’t have good health.”

***

Get ready for “The Missing Piece,” a forthcoming documentary which chronicles the 1911 theft of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa from the Louvre.

***

Eight movie clichés illustrated.

***

“It’s all too easy to divide the world into people like us and outsiders,” writes Tom Jacobs at Miller-McCune. “Newly published research points to a surprising factor that exacerbates this unfortunate tendency: Boredom.”

***

Apparently John Huntsman thinks the GOP presidential candidate should try to appeal to more than just 10 percent of the population. Interesting strategy, sir.

***

If Frida Kahlo’s most memorable physical features were her eyebrows, then her most forgotten was her weak spine, a condition which required her to wear plaster corsets for most of her life. They were, unsurprisingly, another sort of canvas for the idiosyncratic artist. Paris Review’s Leslie Jamison writes that Kahlo decorated her corsets “with pasted scraps of fabric and drawings of tigers, monkeys, plumed birds, a blood-red hammer and sickle, and streetcars like the one whose handrail rammed through her body when she was eighteen years old.”

***

Every year Beloit College releases a “Mindset List” that gives a snapshot of the “cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college” on a given year. The list for the class of 2015 includes factoids like “Ferris Bueller and Sloane Peterson could be their parents,” “Life has always been like a box of chocolates,” and “Women have always been kissing women on television.”

***

Even after decades of study, neuroscientists find the brain a mysterious thing. The posterior cingulate cortex—sometimes called “the dark energy of the brain”—uses more calories than any other part of the brain (which burns 20% of the calories you eat), but scientists have no idea what it does.

***

Popular Science explains how to make crop circles and offers up a gallery of the phenomenon.

A woman in the bike lane is the cycling equivalent of the canary in the coal mine. If your city maintains healthy, safe cycling habitat, female riders will come out in full force.

***

That date who announced himself as polyamorous may have seemed full of it, but bigger love is legit.

***

As if you didn’t envy expats enough, Scotland plans to build a “city of literature” hub to house the Edinburgh International Book Festival and to stage world-class literary events.

***

The Atlantic comments on the never ending campaign to ban Slaughterhouse Five. “It’s as if the novel’s theme of history repeating itself manifests in the controversies the Kurt Vonnegut book has caused over the years,” writes the magazine’s Betsy Morais.

***

Do you remember the guy who threw a pie in Rupert Murdoch’s face? Well, he went to prison . . . and now he’s blogging from there.

***

Touche! Earth Island Journal’s Jason Mark picks up his pitchfork to valiantly defend organic farming after its recent takedown by Scientific American.  

***

Welcome to a modern palace of poetry.  

***

A generous invitation from Bill McKibben: Come to Washington to get arrested and help stop climate change.  

***

Why does the Leaning Tower of Pisa lean?  

*** 

Frenchman Karl Marc has inked the world’s first augmented reality tattoo.

***

If you haven’t seen this slow-motion video of an owl, than you’ve never seen beauty.

***

“Is the SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crimes?” asks Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi. “A whistleblower claims that over the past two decades, the agency has destroyed records of thousands of investigations, whitewashing the files of some of the nation’s worst financial criminals.”

***

“In coordinated raids Monday at locations in Delaware, South Dakota, and California,” begins one of The Onion’smost prescient pieces of satire, “federal agents apprehended dozens of executives at Visa Inc., a sham corporation accused of perpetrating the largest credit card scam in U.S. history.”

***

Across the world, slums are home to a billion people. The rich elite want the shanty towns cleared, but residents are surprisingly determined not to leave, reports New Statesman.

***

What books influenced your favorite author? The Strand bookstore in New York presents curated lists of the most beloved books of authors and artists like Gary Shteyngart, John Waters, Jennifer Egan, and more.

***

Feel safer at the club: Scientists have developed a sensor that can be dipped into your cocktail to detect the presence of date rape drugs.

***

There is no such thing as vegan. Unless you stop using sugar, shampoo, crayons, antifreeze, and fireworks.

For those who strive for inner peace but don’t take themselves too seriously: A list of 20 thoughts to think while pretending to meditate.

***

What does a real life superhero look like? Photographer Peter Tangen will show you.

***

Is the story of finding Osama bin Laden a cover for the real story?

***

Before the EPA was a “Job-Killer,” Michele Bachmann thought it could bring “long-term benefits to…the economy.”

***

A smart young woman launches an activist website to help her parents’ native country, Yemen, in its grassroots battle to oust 33-year-dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh.

***

A 417 million-year-old oil deposit is drawing the oil industry to North Dakota, “the only state in the country that had more residents in 1930 than it does today,” Governing reports.

***

How fast fashion takes a toll on the earth.

***

High school girls earn ‘A’s for asexuality.

***

It’s no surprise that Kanye West and Jay-Z would make a collaborative album about how awesome they are. But, Grantland asks, is it any good?

***

Not to harsh your buzz, but Tom Wolfe’s book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is no longer the authoritative work of art on Ken Kesey’s psychedelic school bus ride.

***

From banjo to violin to blues guitar, street performers offer a primer on the art of busking.

***

Forget the book of love. Meet the kindly author who wrote the Book of Raunch.

***

With lots of enticing buttons, flashy animations, pop-ups, and hyperlinks, the Internet can be a pretty distracting place. How is anyone supposed to get any writing done? Answer: Head to QuietWrite, the web’s private writer’s nook.

Image by Drab Makyo, licensed under Creative Commons. 

Like us, you’re probably no Einstein. The question is, “Why Aren’t We Smarter?”   

***

Religious, Republican—and in support of Planned Parenthood and abortion insurance. 

***

The art world has a history of dismissing the role of gay culture. It’s time to make reparations. 

***

Focusing on The Sopranos, Mad Men, The Wire,and Breaking Bad, Chuck Klosterman argues in Grantland that the rise in morality-based programming has birthed the “four best television shows of the past 10 years.”

***

The War on Terror will never end: Now, the haboobs are invading Arizona.

***

How ugly do we look after exercising? Photographer Sascha Goldberger got to work and found the answer. As it turns out, the answer is “reaaaaaaaaal ugly.”

***

Because you were dying to know, American Scientist published an article about how putting a circular pizza in a square pizza box works. Trust us, it’s more complicated that it sounds.

***

Rural America now accounts for just 16 percent of the nation’s population, the lowest ever.

***

Taking a cue from Meg Wolitzer’s latest novel, The Uncoupling, women from the small Colombian port village of Barbacoas are withholding sex from the menfolk until the government repairs some crucial roads in and out of the town.

***

Something new on the green fashion front: A German designer makes clothing from sour milk.

***

Do you have a stack of books waiting to be read? Be like Bill Gates and plan a reading retreat.

***

The Onion renders the marriage debate hilarious in a parody starring Pope Benedict XVI and his new gay friends Tony and Craig.

***

The ambiguously gay SpongeBob riles FOX once again--this time for spreading global warming propaganda.

***

Go to hell, you say? Well, here’s the top 10 weirdest ways a person might burn.

***

If your aunt was Virginia Woolf, this might be what she would say about your poetry. Take a look at an original note from Aunt Virginia to her nephew, Thoby.

***

Three-minute showers will green your morning routine. Are you up to the challenge?

***

Working just enough to get by while enjoying the good things in life: Welcome to the medium chill.

***

Did you hear about the married lesbian couple who saved 40 teens in the Norway massacre? Not in the mainstream media, you didn’t.

***

Rebecca Solnit writes about “the care and feeding of hope.”

***

A fascinating story about a disastrous hydrogen balloon mission to the North Pole in 1897 (with photos).

***

Welcome to the Sex Plex.

Image by maisonwb, licensed under Creative Commons. 

A plain writing convert bids fond farewell to polysyllabic prose.

***

Previously unpublished Yeats play, Love and Death, is now available online.

***

Step aside, Golem. Make way for real life Jewish strongman Zisha Breitbart in Superman’s creation myth.

***

George Saunders dissects the curse of the creative writer: the impulse to convert every involuntarily thrilling moment in one’s life into story fodder—and then complicate it with irony or tragedy.

***

Fourteen urban art installations that you don't want to miss.

***

Listen to Junot Diaz and Talib Kweli read work from the 2010 PEN Prison Writing Contest.

***

In their family-themed July/August issue, Dwell offers 13 ideas for building natural playscapes.

***

Ms. compares Republicans to pirates with their handling of the debt ceiling debate.

***

“All mammals except camels and kangaroos eat their placentas, which made me think ancient humans probably did, too.” Meatpaper offers musings on eating human placenta, plus a recipe.

***

Reason compiled a number of dispatches from the Food Truck Wars.

***

The skinniest house in the world is so thin it’s not technical legal.

***

New research from the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior shows that it is much easier to predict whether or not your husband/girlfriend/it’s complicated will sleep around than previously thought.

***

When Texas Governor Rick Perry cancelled subscriptions to Utne Reader, Mother Jones, and The Progressive.

***

What’s more refreshing than to sit back in your favorite chair, sip some coffee, and read a harsh polemic against the banking industry?

***

Mongolia: Frozen wasteland or frontier of luxury?

Would you like to take a ride on the euthanasia coaster?

Slavoj Žižek, “philosophy’s answer to Bob Dylan,” chats with the Guardian about WikiLeaks, Lady Gaga, and a new communist society.

Obvious news, finally quantified: Two sociologists have analyzed 42 years of Rolling Stone covers and determined that women are increasingly presented as sex objects.

In the modern homestead, the woman’s role is a lot like her role in yesteryear’s homestead.

Would a medium-sized bargain be better politically for Obama than the grand bargain he was hoping for?

Even if you think your child has the next Great American Novel in them, they may need a few pointers to actually become a writer.

Gay rights improved by French fries. RIP, Wallace McCain (d. May 13, 2011).

Fun mashup: Sesame Street rock the Sure Shot.

At Denmark’s Roskilde festival, design firm UiWE tested a chic, communal urinal for women.

Star anise, sun-dried tomatoes, and cake sprinkles. Check out these amazing hyper-close-ups of common foods.

A recent Wall Street Journal editorial said that WikiLeaks and News Of The World hacking are “largely the same story.” You can’t make it up.

Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. are getting lambasted for the phone-hacking scandal. Call it eye-for-an-eye, but the hacker collective called LulzSec now has The Sun and News of the World in their crosshairs. As LulzSec’s twitter account says, “expect the lulz to flow in coming days.”

And the most misleading headline of the week award goes to…“Michele Bachmann’s Migraines: Joan Didion Weighs In”.

Paul Ford, writing for New York, mourns the end of endings brought about by social media.

A sad tale about the state of things at Ireland’s National Library.

Christopher Walken reads The Three Little Pigs. (Just for fun.)

Have changed attitudes toward getting hammered left us with a bland literary landscape?

Renegade artists take over bus shelter ads in Madrid. Long live civil disobedience!

Downsized drama is over. The Germ Project brings back big, complex, messy theater.

This college lecture has been brought to you by the Koch brothers.

If you missed the recent episode of Frontline about the Kill/Capture campaign in Afghanistan, watch it now.

In defense of treating books badly.

Image by iluvcocacola, licensed under Creative Commons. 

You know those packets of silica gel found in boxes of new shoes and beef jerky that you’re not supposed to eat? One writer set out to discover what happens if you actually do eat them and ended at a surprising answer.

Choose your drugs wisely, counsels Sam Harris.

Getting his PhD in literature was a terrible mistake until Richard Russo realized it was turning him into a creative writer (and, as it turned out, a Pulitzer Prize–winner).

Character is supposed to be destiny, says Adam Kirsch, but as the 10-year mark approaches, post-9/11 fiction writers contend with a narrative arc that renders both meaningless.

Stephen Colbert jumps into the fracking fracas.

White Jewish guy stars in African movie. (laughter)

Tricycle magazine offers a list of books that brought people to Buddhism. 

Boston Review weighs in on the European backlash against multiculturalism.

A little hometown pride: Women bikers thrive in Minneapolis.

This horoscope reveals just how evil you are.

Are book recommendations too personal, or not personal enough?

“The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” is a stunning children’s book for iPad created by a former Pixar employee.

When new gadgets come out, older technologies become obsolete, right? Not dial-up Internet, ham radio, or telegrams—they’re still around and thriving.

Social critic Barbara Ehrenreich imagines the robot wars of the future at TomDispatch.

Image by Bradmcmahon, licensed under Creative Commons.

 

How much is a pound of cigarette butts worth? A San Diego-based environmentalist will give you $3 for them.

***

Androgynous fashion model Andrej Pejic walks the runway in men’s and women’s fashions for Brazilian designer Lino Villaventura. Which look do you favor?

***

Has a businessman from Denver committed the biggest green scam in history? 

***

Want some fresh toxins with that strawberry shortcake? Methyl iodide on California strawberry fields gives you one more reason to go locavore and organic this summer.

*** 

Before you head to the beach this weekend, check out Guernica’s list of 10 States Where You Should Think Twice Before Jumping in the Water.

***

How fewer smokers led to a public health problem in Arizona.

***

These 27 maps show the cartographic history of Africa.

***

If “I love that book” is your only pickup line, then e-readers have effectively destroyed your love life.

***

Strange bedfellows: The intellectual libertarians at Reason released Canadian singer-songwriter Lindy’s video for “No-Knock Raid,” which graphically shows the accidental violence typical of unannounced drug raids. Cannabis Culture follows up with an interview parsing Lindy’s politics. While you’re at it, check out rapper Pharaohe Monch’s short film for “Clap (One Day),” which dramatizes a no-knock raid gone tragically wrong.   

***

Fast Company takes a deeper look at Matt Damon and Water.org: "Our vision is clean water and sanitation for everyone, in our lifetime…So we better get to work."

***

What would you do if you were stuck overnight at Dallas-Fort Worth airport?

Image by indi.ca, licensed under Creative Commons.  

“Officials Say The Darnedest Things” blogs quotes from politicians with just enough context to make you roll your eyes.

***

The Atlantic Wire counts four reasons why Obama is probably hand-wringing over his reelection chances.

***

Horacio Castellanos Moya on what it’s like to be a writer in exile.

***

“The discussion page for the article on ‘Toilet Paper Orientation’ is 2x longer than that for the Iraq War.” That nugget comes from a wastefully informative infographic that presents everything you never needed to know about the different ways to hang your toilet paper. Let us ask, Over or under?

***

Bookforum ponders what the Bestseller List would look like if authors could only make the list once in their careers.

***

GOOD magazine examines The Eternal Shame of Your First Online Handle. Was yours worse than “Fink Ployd” or “principalrichardbelding”?

***

Jorge may have earned a PhD in the United States, but he’s still an illegal immigrant with a bleak job outlook.

***

It’s Poop Week at the birding and conservation blog 10,000 Birds. Boy, is it ever. 

***

What are you doing this summer? Please come to Washington and help stop a massive oil pipeline, say Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, Wendell Berry and other green leaders.

***

Fukushima who? Nuclear power supporters get back to business as usual.

 

Animators bring poetry to life at the Billy Collins Action Poetry project.

***

Bikes are the hot prop in retail displays. 

***

Say what you want about Sarah Palin’s vocabulary, but your assumptions about her use of language are about to be refudiated: Mama Grizzly’s recently released e-mail correspondence proves she’s a remarkably lucid prose writer.

***

Summer is here, and so are daring girls on longboards.

***

Peter Jackson shares the first images from his Lord of the Rings prequels, the two-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Hobbit.

***

How’s that CSA box coming along? Good gives us 10 ways to reduce food waste.

***

Have you ever wondered what happened to the baby on the cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind album or the twins on Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dreams? Wonder no more.

***

It’s gettin’ real in the Whole Foods parking lot. 

***

The third “Everything is a Remix” video has been released, and this time it tackles creativity and technological innovation.

***

A notable headline from Miller-McCune: “’Gaydar’ accuracy varies with women’s fertility cycle.”

***

The Byliner is a new online aggregator for long-form writing.

***

The planet’s health and human health are inextricably linked, says a pioneering doctor.

Image: Screenshot from Billy Collins Action Poetry. 

Leaked: Target Corporation’s anti-union employee training video, “Think Before You Sign.”

***

Media Matters has compiled a long history of Fox News’ race-baiting and racially charged commentary.

***

Eight delightful essays about positively awful travel experiences.

***

A collaborative, online sketch with 1 million illustrators (you could be one of them).

***

Your inner narcissist may wonder, “Does anything matter?” Well, some things do, and ethicist Peter Singer explains why.

***

The jury has made its decision, reports ArtInfo, pole-dancing is not art.

***

Fathers-to-be, kick back and pour a shot. Heck, it’s your “dadelor party.”

***

Bucking the trends to downsize (or close altogether), the independent L.A. used bookseller the Last Bookstore just upgraded to a 10,000-square-foot downtown retail space. Recognize the bookshelves? They scavenged them from a defunct Borders megastore.

***

Just when you thought companies had exhausted all advertising platforms, Gilette carves an ad on a strand of hair.

***

Wired goes deeper into the comparison of basketball to jazz, explaining the mental labor that goes into inventing “beauty in real time.”

A new Tumblr blog compiles headlines that read like they were lifted from the front page of the satiric newspaper The Onion—except they weren’t.

***

Pressure drop: A 9-year-old came up with an ingenious idea for everyday water conservation.

***

Is “I would have loved to piss on your shoes” the best exit-interview line ever? Slate collects the best kiss-off notes from fired or resigned journalists.

***

Did you walk through Central Park in 2005 and experience artist Christo’s epic installation The Gates? See what he’s up to now at the Arkansas River . . .

***

The Art Newspaper asks, “Do street art gallery shows encourage graffiti?”

***

A travel writer discovers that the only way to fit in in Berlin is to get naked.

***

Hackers have developed a taste for a caffeine-packed tea drink—and of course they’re sharing it via open source.

***

Raise the gas tax, many greens have been saying for years. Now even General Motors’ CEO agrees.

***

The unhealthy ties between doctors and Big Pharma in the form of an infographic.

***

From Reason: “Three arrested for attempting to feed the homeless in Orlando; face up to 60 days in jail.”

***

Sarcasm boosts creativity? Yeah, right.

***

Listen to 62 CDs-worth of electroacoustic music for free.

***

A slow-motion landslide is dismantling a small town in New York square-foot by square-foot.

***

Social critic and provocateur Barbara Ehrenreich on our complicated relationship with animals, enigmatically titled, “Man is Not Cat Food”.

Our current issue has a number of stories on narcissism. Well, in that spirit comes the Museum of Me, “a new Facebook app from Intel that turns your life into a virtual gallery exhibition.” Look at me! Look at me!

***

What makes a new product a successful sell for the Lady Gaga Generation? Remember rule number one: “Everyone is Awesome.”

***

A petition to end the war on drugs in the next 24 hours.

***

Biblical prophecy and Michelle Bachmann.  Mother Jones dissects the politician’s relationship with Olive Tree Ministries, an evangelical Christian organization with an eye on the end times.

***

In case you hadn’t heard, populist playwright David Mamet is now a born again conservative. Kurt Loder chronicles the conversion in the current issue of Reason.

*** 

Do the Kennedys stop media portrayals of their family that they find objectionable? That’s the claim from Richard Bradley in Boston Magazine.

***

Yet another logical article about taxing the rich instead of cutting necessary programs. This one from Mark Engler at YES! Magazine.

***

How some species stick around despite drastic changes to their environment.

***

The lineup for TEDGlobal 2011, which starts in Edinburgh on July 11, is set. Among the over 75 artists, inventors, theorists, and activists slated to appear live and via international webcast are anti-extremism activist Maajid Nawaz, rational optimist Matt Ridley, and Debunker Ben Goldacre.

***

I scream, you scream, we all scream for amphibious ice cream.

*** 

A trip around the solar system, in pictures.

***

Randa Jarrar, who has written previously for Utne Reader, guest-edited the fiction section for Guernica Magazine this month.

***

Fans of HBO’s Treme—which chronicles life in New Orleans post-Katrina and if jam packed with native musicians and superstar cameos playing bounce, jazz, funk, and bluegrass—should check out this weekly water-cooler conversation, which tells you who is playing what.

 ***

If you’re looking for some summer reading, you’re in luck (or not): Glenn Beck is launching his own publishing imprint with Simon & Schuster called Mercury Ink. The imprint will feature fiction and nonfiction books that reflect Beck’s interests.

***

The Atlantic is doing just fine without blogger Andrew Sullivan, thank you. When the blogger extraordinaire left for The Daily Beastearlier this year, there was concern that the mag’s revitalizing online growth would take a hit. Instead, the site hit 10 million uniques in May.

*** 

What happens when a violent criminal enrolls in a Ph.D. program for “homicide studies”? He becomes an academically-trained serial killer.

***

Did you ever wish you had a twin? Mental Floss presents some of the charms and quirks of unusually close twins.

*** 

Molly Jong-Fast—whose mother, Erica Jong, is famous for writing about women and sexual liberation—wrote an essay for Salon about living a (relatively) prude life. 

Oyster mushrooms have a taste for dirty disposable diapers. Would you have a taste for the resulting fungi? 

***

Ever sassy and sardonic, The Hairpin offers a list of online dating’s pros and cons.

***

“I’ve got nothing to hide” ultimately makes a poor pro-surveillance argument. Here’s how to go up against it.

***

You provide the punchline: Tim Pawlenty gives a speech to a libertarian think tank . . .

***

The Atlantic wishes a happy birthday to one of its co-founders, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

***

Super Granny.

***

Discover magazine found that the phrase “blind as a bat” was more appropriate than we originally thought. “By making clicks with their tongue and listening to the rebounding echoes,” some blind people can learn to “‘see’ the world in sound, in the same way that dolphins and bats can.”

***

NASA turns focus to deep space.

***

These pajamas will watch you sleep.

***

Are the posters in your city as cool as the posters in Amsterdam? These come from a poster initiative by Jarr Geerligs, “professional dreamer and realizer.”

***

All human civilizations have collapsed. Start preparing now for ours.

***

Why don’t more African-Americans visit national parks? James Mills hits the road to find out.

***

The future of egalitarian parenting: male lactation.

***

Big Ag is trying to outlaw farm photos taken by whistleblowing meddlers. But the Farmarazzi can’t be kept down.

***

A hospital in Slovakia prescribes music therapy for newborn babies when they’re separated from their mothers.

***

A high-schooler debunks the misleading physics of My Little Pony.

Does it sometimes feel like your shower curtain is out to get you? The folks at Mental Floss explain the science behind the “shower curtain effect.” 

***

Gliese 581d, the newly discovered planet that is capable of sustaining life, is about to get an earful.  Two years ago, an Australian magazine collected messages from the people of planet Earth for their new galactic neighbors and began transmitting them. Erik K. Velan wants the aliens to know: “Apologies in advance for most of these messages. They are an example of our primitive humor.”

***

Are you in the market for a new car? Check out the classic Italian concept cars being auctioned off near the shores of Lake Como this month.

***

Richard Dawkins, atheist provocateur, has written a children’s book.

***

Who was the hippest cat in Montana? The Unabomber, of course.

***

Everyone—especially the atheists—is getting pumped for the apocalypse on Saturday.

***

Why aren’t we building “emotionally connected” cities?

***

This week’s jaw-dropper from Atlantic Wire: “Shell, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, BP America and Chevron Corp—the “Big Five” oil companies—reported a cumulative total earning of $36 billion in the first quarter of this year. As Huffington Post writer Erich Pica points out that's “more than $200,000 every minute.”

***

The New Republic : “The international community has never rushed to denounce repression, wherever it has taken place.”

***

Drivers and bus riders inhale lots of pollution during their commutes. Bikers huff even more—but they suffer fewer ill effects.

***

Do farms, golf courses and swimming pools belong in the desert?

In a project called National Jukebox, the Library of Congress is making thousands of recordings from 1901 to 1925 available online. Here are nine of the best. 

***

The Navy Seals’ codename for Osama Bin Laden was “Geronimo,” and American Indians are understandably upset.

***

Mother Jones chronicles 33 years of Newt Gingrich’s extreme rhetoric.

***

National Post has published two excerpts from Jonathan Kay’s Among the Truthers, a book on the paranoid culture of conspiracy theorists. The first excerpt examines the long influence of The Protocols of Zion, and the second shows the internet as an echo chamber effect for crackpots.

***

Noam Chomsky weighs in on Osama bin Laden’s death.

***

Facebook’s smear campaign against Google…and apparently they did it because they were worried about privacy issues. Now that’s rich.

***

It looks like Superman is pro-immigration, saying, “That’s the idea that America was founded on, but it’s not just for the people born here, it’s for everyone.”

***

Ever wished you could watch a lightning storm in slow motion? Well, here’s your chance.

***

If you like cliffhangers, check out this vertigo-inducing Al Jazeera report on a perilous mountain trucking route in Pakistan.

***

In Dallas, an expensive attempt to re-engineer river rapids has gone horribly wrong.

Check out this automated Japanese book xylophone.

***

Girl Scout cookies seem innocent enough, but they could be destroying irreplaceable rainforests.

***

Trippy, dude: Researchers are looking into the possible benefits of psychedelic drugs again.

***

Why is a 16-year-old suing the United States of America?

***

Are you afraid of natural disasters? If so—according to a new infographic that breaks down risk-by-region—you should move to Corvallis, Oregon.

***

The Daily Beast compiled a decade’s worth of bin Laden-based longform journalism.

***

A gallery shows the 150 or so covers of Vladimir Nabokov’s classic novel Lolita.

***

What’s like a spork, but badass? This thing.

***

Chainsaw Samaritans help homeowners dig out after the South’s devastating tornados in a poetic, moving short for the Oxford American’s SoLost video series.

***

Welcome to Disney World’s internship program, where flipping burgers isn’t food service, it’s magic.

With this cool interactive map, you can trace 23 historic journeys, from Amelia Earhart’s attempt to fly around the world to Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test trip.

***

Do you have writer’s block? Go back to bed, and take your laptop with you.

***

In the shadow of the lunacy surrounding Obama’s birth certificate, Superman and DC Comics have an announcement of their own regarding the Man of Steel’s citizenship.

***

Clothes make the dictator.

***

Should travel writers be held liable for the things stupid tourists do?

***

The Breakthrough Institute has made a cottage industry of criticizing the green movement. David Roberts at Grist rakes “the bad boys of environmentalism” over the coals.

*** 

Bicycle wine rack.

***

As the world looks on adoringly at the proceedings of the royal wedding, Charlie Harvey at New Internationalist looks thinks the police force “has been turned into an organ of the monarchy’s PR people.”  

***

The attacks of September 11, 2001 are, like the 1960s, becoming a cultural litmus test 

***

Some studies have argued that it takes 10,000 hours to perfect any skill. Dan McLaughlin is up for the challenge, learning golf from the green up—practicing six hours a day, six days a week. It will take him six years.

***

Ever wonder how to make a magazine? This is sort of how it goes.

***

The oral history of the pressurized spacesuit.

Sex advice columnist Dan Savage has become one of the country’s foremost ethicists. Just don’t ask Sen. Rick Santorum what he thinks of this.

***

We couldn’t have summed this up any better than Good: “Liberal Brains Bigger in Areas of Complexity; Conservative Brains Bigger in Areas of Fear.”

***

What makes us care? E.O. Wilson’s thinking on the subject has gotten the eminent biologist in hot water again.

***

Bolivia is poised to pass shockingly eco-friendly legislation: The Law of Mother Earth. According to Good, the law “makes humans equal to all other living things and establishes 11 new rights for nature, including the right to life, the right to pure water and clean air, and the right to not have cellular structure genetically modified.”

***

Guess which former South African president and champion of democracy is on Twitter now? Could it be Nelson Mandela? Well, almost.

***

Have you bought that new 3D TV yet? Well, in a couple decades I’m sure they’ll be chuckling at the commercials for those the same way you’ll chuckle at this commercial from such a simple time.

***

Isa Leshko, featured by Photo District News, is obsessed by subjects that age naturally. Very naturally.

***

You’ve heard of Tang. What about space tea?

***

In this French Tropicana ad, the power of oranges is harnessed to light up a neon billboard.

***

American suburbs are rapidly turning into slums. Is your metro area at risk?

***

What it’s like to be inside an empire heading down faster and blinder than anyone expected or is prepared to deal with. 

***

Rock stars need love, too—from their kitties.

***

If you like homemade soup and want your garden’s soil tested, stop for lunch at Philadelphia’s public-art-project-cum-bistro Soil Kitchen.

***

One more reason to fear the sea: Jellyfish that are 50 meters long.

Sure, we love our laptops and iPads, but they’ll never have the romance of a typewriter. Check out this gallery of authors and their beloved machines.

***

A cultural history of the river baptism.

***

It was announced yesterday that later this year, Glenn Beck will end his show on Fox. Sojourners—one of Beck’s progressive targets over the years because of their radical idea that Christians could be and should be committed to social justice—has rounded up a number of their responses to the blubbering, bullying Beck.

***

Save NPR! But please put PBS out of its misery.

***

Looking to explore uncharted waters? Travel 36,201 feet under the sea in billionaire Richard Branson’s deep-sea submarine.

***

The autism-vaccine debate is not over yet.

***

Fast Company points to a fascinating series of infographics detailing how America describes itself in dating profiles. (Teaser: Looking for naughty fun? You might consider moving to West Viginia or New Mexico.)

Defying the illegitimate authority of his crypto-fascist homeowners’ association, a punk dad issues an uncompromising manifesto.

***

A couple of Miami Beach buddies score some good weed—and some international arms contracts.

***

A diet change, instead of Ritalin, might be just the prescription for many ADHD cases.

***

Glimpse the elusive waterbirds of Manhattan.

***

“[O]ne day, while screening some episodes of HBO’s The Wire, it hit me: [Charles] Dickens was back and his name is David Simon.” Bill Moyers interviews David Simon at Guernica.

***

Tax-free online sales are taking their toll in Washington state, the home of Amazon.

***

Visit the Los Angeles you’ll never know: a city devoid of cars.

***

Who hasn’t celebrated a major victory by firing guns into the air, a la Yosemite Sam? Slateexamines what happens to the bullets after you’ve emptied your clip (and whether or not they can kill you).

***

Rupert Murdoch acquires New Internationalist. (Make sure to check the date that this one was posted.)

Last week, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) reintroduced a bill that would end funding for abstinence-only-before-marriage sex education.

***

Scientists have developed a fork that makes music when you eat off it. Called the EaTheremin, it emits a different tone depending on what kind of food you’re eating.

***

Could the newly invented “flipback” book—a lightweight reincarnation of the printed book—be the end to e-readers?

***

Living in L.A. has its dangers—including the risk of near-fatal snakebite.

***

You can’t escape industrial pollution, even on Mount Everest.

***

Quinoa is good for you—and its surging popularity is bad for many Bolivians.

***

We shouldn’t fret over meltdowns, Seth Godin reassures us. Remember, coal production kills 4,000 times as many people as nuclear power. Tom Engelhardt, meanwhile, is not so easily reassured. And the interactive graphics whizzes at the Wall Street Journal show what your local nuclear evacuation zone looks like.

***

The celebrity hairdo, sans célébrités.

***

Photographer Chris Jordan found out what happens when plastic meets the G.I. tracts of North Pacific birds: adorable, cinematic tragedy.

***

Have you read Think Quarterly, Google’s new free magazine?

***

Robert Reich on the Republicans’ big lies about jobs.

Former military interrogator Matthew Alexander urges Rep. Peter King of New York to stop demonizing a group of people who’ve made sacrifices for the U.S. at home and abroad.

***

Now that the shootings in Tucson are yesterday’s news, states and the federal government can continue slashing their mental health budgets without a peep from the mainstream media.

***

With an NFL lockout looming, radical sports scribe Dave Zirin explains why true sports fans, labor activists, and progressives should stand proudly with the NFL players.

***

The cerebral environmental writing of Loren Eiseley is too often overlooked, say his fans. Read one admirer’s tribute to the unsung eco-lit pioneer.

***

Banksy meets Angry Birds in a brilliant design mashup: Angry Birdsky.

***

Losers: Presidents Hosni Mubarak and Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. Winners: rappers, ravers, and metalheads.

***

Cartoonist Mark Fiore weighs in on the aggregation of aggregators in the Huffington Post-AOL merger, and what it means for what we used to call journalism.

***

Have you ever seen a rapper take on greenwashing and eco-consumerism? Enter Sims, with his new video for “One Dimensional Man.” 

***

A fabulous archive of the BBC's interviews with great writers. The general BBC archive itself is chockful of terrific stuff.

***

Finally, the masters of heavy metal pay tribute to Old Blue Eyes.

***

One of the most touching photo projects in recent years: KayLynn Devaney's The Day-to-Day Life of Albert Hastings.

*** 

What's an “Intellectual clutch bag,” you ask? This.

***

On Libya:

The press has had a hard time figuring out what’s happening on the ground in Libya, but The Atlantic’s InFocus photo blog can give you a glimpse.

If McCain had been elected president, would we be invading Libya right now?

Gaddafi, Qaddafi, Kadafi, Qadhafi, Qazzafi, Qadhdhafi, or Qaththafi. How do you spell that guy’s name anyways?

An addictive dashboard developed by Al Jazeera tracks tweets from protestors in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, and Bahrain.

And, in case you missed it on our Tumblr: the sad clown Gaddafi.

A year ago, big magazine publishers heralded the arrival of the iPad as a boon to their mostly uninspired, unimaginative industry. As usual, they were thinking inside the box. Here are six reasons why iPad mags are failing fast—but could still succeed.

***

Conservative love to claim Christ as their very own C.E.O. The New Statesman reminds readers that the Savior was more likely a socialist (GoBama!), and dissects his five most revolutionary lessons.  

***

Ms. Magazine puts Nancy Pelosi on the cover of its Winter issue, then explains why mainstream magazines like Time and Newsweekdon’t have the guts to do the same.  

***

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is the silent sort in court—but loquacious when being paid to speak at elite conservative retreats. 

***

Need a vacation from the never-ending winter? Who says you can’t drink white wine before Memorial Day?

***

Now you can nurture your inner lit nerd and Nintendo geek at the same time with this addictive vintage Great Gatsby video game. You’re Nick Carraway searching for Gatsby and his hidden bags of gold. (Watch out for Wilfred the butler.)

***

Wonderful and terrifying: Irina Werning's Back to the Future project.

***

If someone told you there was a cemetery where prisoners have buried more than 850,000 paupers and the unclaimed, where would you think it was?

***

The literature of failure: five novels.

***

Franz Masereel's landmark 1925 graphic novel, The City, online.

***

Filmmakers, pay attention: This is what 11 pairs of eyeballs watching a movie looks like.  

Why are the letters 'z' and 'y' so popular in drug names? BMJ investigates.

*** 

A bit of scientific humor from the wags at The Journal of Irreproducible Results: Candidate for a Pullet Surprise.

***

Readings from Flyover Country.

***

Oh yeah, baby, rend those garments. Two authors argue that the Bible can be sexy.

***

By sending you this link, we’re violating the first two rules of Geek Fight Club: Don’t talk about Geek Fight Club.

***

Mark Dowie (written about at Utne here, here, and here) has a new podcast at Guernica. In the first installment he talks to Todd Gitlin, who argues that the relationship between America and Israel is steeped in the belief that both nations were “chosen” by God.

*** 

Never one to mince words, Robert Reich tells us why the Republicans attack on “job-killing regulations” is dumb.

***

Brooklyn artist Olek is turning the craft of crochet into a renegade art form. She’s on a mission to cover the world with yarn, from people to bicycles to Wall Street’s Charging Bull.

***

Will technology help save the world or ultimately abolish our freedom?

***

Farewell, Open Left, and thanks for being a hotbed of whip-smart progressive commentary and debate since 2007.

Ethical coffee drinkers unite! This fair trade coffee status report just might make you a better person. 

*** 

America’s Adopt-a-Highway program has inspired more people than you might think, from the writers of Seinfeld to the KKK. 

*** 

In a haunting photo essay, Darcy Padilla chronicles the life of a woman who lived for 18 years with AIDS.

*** 

The most resolute fiscal conservatives call themselves deficit hawks. Maybe adamant environmentalists should rebrand themselves as “climate hawks.” 

*** 

If you’ve ever read Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel Oryx & Crake, her description of ChickieNobs—chicken breasts grown on building-sized, genetically modified hens—probably stuck with you. Well, it looks like we’ve caught up with the future, folks. Good reports on the burgeoning market for “beaker bacon, petri pork, and cultured chicken.” 

*** 

Now that we’ve conquered every last patch of land, let’s colonize the sea! 

*** 

Bike bloggers don’t get much bigger than BikeSnobNYC, but there’s a reason he’s got a new book and a column in Bicycling magazine: Dude is consistently funnier than hell and spares few targets with his alley-cat humor.

Want to know what challenges the Internet will face in the near future? Check out the list of the top five over the next five years, according to the judges of the annual Webby Awards.   

*** 

Does it even make sense to own a house? Well, yes . . . in some places. 

*** 

Can the excess heat from a crematorium be put to better use? Of course, one town in England says: Heat the community swimming pool with it. Always thinking on the bright side, Good asks, “What better way to cap off a life well-lived than by literally keeping your neighbors warm?” 

*** 

Need help feeling patriotic? Look up! Bald eagles are on the move. 

*** 

If your New Year’s resolution involves being more creative, get inspired by some everyday artists who have vowed to make something new each day. Author and creativity guru Noah Scalin made a skull a day for an entire year. 

*** 

Obsessive, stalkerish fun: Portroids. 

*** 

Midwest 45s serves up a motherload of obscure soul, funk, and gospel grease from the heartland. 

*** 

Had your fill of the rat race? Why not buy yourself a firetower? Or a desert island? Or maybe you've always dreamed of owning a used bookstore on wheels; here's your opportunity. 

*** 

They bury elephants, don't they? Take a tour of the final resting places for a bunch of displaced pachyderms. 

*** 

While Christians and the “new atheists” go head to head in the culture wars, they’re missing a larger phenomenon: the animistic beliefs that pervade much of the developing world.  

*** 

China is showing signs of greening up its act, but a legacy of pollution haunts some areas. A powerful 40-minute video report from Yale Environment 360 tells the story of Chinese villagers who band together to fight back against factories that are polluting their town, and government officials who are allowing it.

Source: The Huffington Post, Good, Fast Company, Ready Made, Yale Environment 360, The Chronicle of Higher Education 

On the heels of Utne’s Work Package in our latest issue, Boston Review has a forum on the possibilities for full employment in today’s economy.

...

Who says that wind power needs to come from turbines? Introducing: fibro-wind arrays.

...

In what may be the most important piece of news this week, Paul the Psychic Octopus’ soccer-predicting legacy will not be forgotten.

...

From Guernica: Detroitism: What does “ruin porn” tell us about the motor city?

...

A visual number crunching of the state of modern-day marriage. There’s nothing like graphs and pretty pictures to get the point across.

...

The New Republic’s art critic on the state of photojournalism. 

 

Every week we share links to stories, articles, and other interesting things we’ve come across online for you to enjoy over the weekend. It’s the utne.com crockpot; we add the ingredients for a great online meal. Enjoy! 

 

Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei has been closely watched by the Chinese authorities for years. Now they’ve taken it a step further by razing his studio in Shanghai into rubble. The title of the new documentary about Ai: Never Sorry. 

As of Wednesday, there was snow on the ground in 49 of the 50 U.S. states. Get a very, very close-up view of what this looks like. 

Feeling salty about that paycut? Maybe you should be working for free. 

One more way to rescue the newspaper industry: certify journalists to carry handguns. 

A series of quick interviews with contemporary photographers, mostly documentary and portrait, Mull It Over reveals the artists’ thoughts behind their work.

Novelist Edwidge Danticat on Democracy Now!: “Haitians are very resilient, but it doesn’t mean they can suffer more than other people.”

Sarah Palin’s infamous target map gets a brilliant, darkly satirical treatment from Seattle alt weekly The Stranger on its cover this week. 

Every week we share links to stories, articles, and other interesting things we’ve come across online for you to enjoy over the weekend. It’s the utne.com crockpot; we add the ingredients for a great online meal. This time, it's a holiday meal! Enjoy! 

We knew there was something trippy about the jolly old elf, but have you heard about the roots of the Santa Claus myth in Russian psychedelic shamanism? Christmas will never be the same. 

Is that an intoxicated reindeer on your sweater? The Wall Street Journal gets festive with a trend-piece on ugly Christmas sweater parties.

It’s time for the yearly deluge of Top 10 lists. And, per usual, the hype around new artists, albums, and films (which are at best above average) is often as ludicrous as it is historically barren. A Blog Supreme’s list of 5 jazz reissues that put 2010 to shame helps keep things in proper perspective.

Get the whole family holding hands around the computer and sing "The 12 Days of WikiLeaks."

While you’re standing in line waiting to purchase that new iPad for Uncle Albert, consider this: Apple computer, citing its “developer guidelines,” has banned a WikiLeaks application from its online store. (Hat tip to Tech blogger Shelly Palmer.)

Speaking of WikiLeaks, the Center for Public Integrity once again ignores the media hype to actually do some reporting and concludes many of the memos expose the
“U.S. government’s penchant to make even trivial details classified secrets.”
 

“The most significant change to food safety regulation in 75 years” is how one expert describes the new U.S. food safety bill, whose landmark passage this week was downplayed amid flashier news and pre-holiday hubbub. President Obama is expected to sign it into law soon after the new year.

Pat Robertson is in favor of decriminalizing marijuana. What’s next, treating gays like real people?

Senior editor Brad Zellar reads a twisted Christmas story. (Content may not be suitable for some viewers.)

Image by ~Merete, licensed under Creative Commons.  

Every week we share links to stories, articles, and other interesting things we’ve come across online for you to enjoy over the weekend. It’s the utne.com crockpot; we add the ingredients for a great online meal. Enjoy!  

Maybe we’ve been living under a rock—you know, too caught up in our alternative media over here—but what the hell is going on with Randy Quaid?

A frog dissection made with LEGOs. Seriously.

The animated environmental video short The Story of Stuff went so very, very viral that it launched a cottage industry for filmmaker Annie Leonard. Her latest is The Story of Electronics, about “designed for the dump” consumer tech products.

Artsy folks will love counting down the days until Christmas with this advent calendar on Tumblr.

Also worth checking out: 3rd of May, another Tumblr that will feature an artwork every day, all year long.

Yes, your local community college may have a wind-power technician training program, but don’t be fooled: America is fast falling behind other countries in the push for green jobs.

Lapham’s Quarterly has a really fun chart of gangs in New York from 1840 to 1910.

As we approach the solstice, gray moods and scant sunlight pervade—which makes it a perfect time to wallow in gloomy literature for dreary days.

 

Every week we share links to stories, articles, and other interesting things we’ve come across online for you to enjoy over the weekend. It’s the utne.com crockpot; we add the ingredients for a great online meal. Enjoy!  

Want to get away? Far away? Feel like disappearing for a time, even if only vicariously? Hermitary is a one-stop resource for your inner hermit. One of the most consistently wondrous sites on the internet.

You can also escape by checking out issue three of Porter Fox’s travel mag Nowhere.

Ernie Button takes cool photos of breakfast cereal. His project is called Cerealism, and Cheerios and Lucky Charms have never looked so beautiful.

Over at The Oxford American, Kevin Brockmeier presents his personal selection of Ten Great Novels of the Apocalypse. Is there anything one might conclude from Brockmeier’s list? Yes: the end of the world is not likely to be pleasant.

Europeans were thrilled when we elected Barack Obama. Now they’re just confused.

Jen Jackson considers her well-kept trailer home in Moab, Utah, a “27-foot bit of silver-plated paradise”—but it’s made her an outlaw.

If government spending is a pie, the military is very, very hungry.

GOOD asks , is it possible that the new TSA security procedures are a bigger deal online than they are in real life?

Obsidian Wings analyzes George W. Bush’s official portrait, concluding that W’s break from tradition suggests that “he wants to present himself is as a faux President.”

As the U.S. ends its combat mission in Iraq, it builds up its construction projects in the region. Nick Turse, writing for Guernica, explains why President Obama’s “end of our combat mission” announcement could be another “mission accomplished” moment.

MIT chooses Facebook over poetry…and one student is pissed. (Thanks, Harriet.)

If Obama won’t defend big government, Jonathan Cohn at The New Republic will.

Flavorpill takes on The Guardian’s claim that essential books have disappeared from our culture, citing The Road, Infinite Jest, White Teeth, and more.

The mad scientist at The Burger Lab investigates the case of the McDonald’s hamburger that refused to die, and we’ll be damned if that burger doesn’t look as good at twelve as it did the day it was born!

Ever wonder what Elvira, August Kleinzahler, Mos Def, or the dudes from the Black Keys might buy on a trip to the record store? The site’s kind of cheesy, but Amoeba Music’s “What’s in Your Bag?” feature is terrific fun.

Steve McCurry, the legendary travel and war photographer, has a blog, and it’s full of his typically lovely and harrowing images.

Lit nerds represent! An abecedarium of book titles.

Out of Print Clothing: Wear your Favorite Book!

Can you still call it a library if there are no books?

Bet you never heard of Maggot Monets. The Scientist reports that a Southeastern Louisiana University researcher uses art made by maggots to attract students to the field of forensic entomology.

 

 

Every week we share links to stories, articles, and other interesting things we’ve come across online for you to enjoy over the weekend. It’s the utne.com crockpot; we add the ingredients for a great online meal. Enjoy!  

Fun! Get your own miniature copy of Patrick Somerville’s “The Universe in Miniature in Miniature” from featherproof books.

Do you know what a mosquito heart looks like? How about a rat’s retina? There are some truly amazing photos from the winner’s of this year’s Nikon Small World Competition that will blow your mind.

Conservationists have found a new species of monkey that sneezes when it rains, due to its upturned nostrils. These monkeys apparently sit with their heads between their knees when it rains. Awwwwwww.

Check out The Free Verse Project: Picture a Poem.

Conservatives for public transit? We know it sounds as dissonant as liberals for Sarah Palin, but Grist has a provocative interview with the head of a conservative pro-transit group who says better mass transportation—especially rail—is a matter of national security, wise government spending, and racial norms. (Yes, he touches that third rail.)

The New York Observer educated us about Longreads, an aggregator that brings long-form journalism back to into the lives of commuters who read on mobile devices and use applications like Instapaper. Nate Freeman explains: “Each piece on the Longreads site indicates the number of words and, using the average reading speed, the approximate amount of time it will take to read. For instance, the Vanity Fair piece that went up today about House Republican leader John Boehner contains 4220 words, and will take 17 minutes to read. Sounds like our daily commute on the F train! Perfect!”

Cover Spy secretly tracks down what people are reading in public.

What if they held a meeting to discuss the extinction of many animal species, and no one paid much attention? That unfortunately is what’s happening at the current Convention on Biological Diversity in Japan, which is not registering high on the U.S. mass media radar but whose agenda ought to matter to anyone concerned with the fate of species—our own included. Mongabay has a nice rundown of a massive new study being released at the conference, while E publishes a pithy commentary on what’s at stake, and Boing Boingexplains the meeting using Star Wars references for the sci-geek crowd.

Bill Nye (you know, the science guy) is the recipient of the 2010 Humanist of the Year Award, and The Humanist has adapted parts of his awesome acceptance speech.

This Magazine explores the consequences of Canada slamming the door on Mexico’s drug-war refugees.

Every week we share links to stories, articles, and other interesting things we’ve come across online for you to enjoy over the weekend. It’s the utne.com crockpot; we add the ingredients for a great online meal. Enjoy!  

The Walrus has composed a photo essay documenting the lives of a small community of Mennonites residing in Manitoba, Bolivia. The colony of 2,000 recently suffered a shattering scandal when it was discovered that a gang of men had drugged and raped between 60 and 140 women in the community.

We’ve been enjoying Peter Terzian’s crisp, personal, decidedly nontrendy writing at the music blog Earworms, where he posts YouTube clips of favorite musicians from the ’70s through today along with engaging mini-essays. Terzian’s tastes run toward pop, folk, and rock but still range pretty widely, from Joni Mitchell to Led Zeppelin to Belle & Sebastian.

A new army of female rockers is showing the guys how to wield an ax.

Newsweek has a fun roundup of clips of embarrassing voicemails left by public figures (think Brett Favre, Alec Baldwin, etc.) have left on answering machines.

Read about the Frozen Zoo, a project that collects and preserves the genetic material of rare and endangered animals.  

Novelist and short story writer Lorrie Moore rhapsodizes about The Wire in The New York Review of Books.

Two from Fast Company: As the influence of Lance Armstrong’s Livestong organization continues to grow and the allegations continue to swirl around the man, one writer asks, “Is Livestrong's greatest asset also its greatest risk?”  And, a profile of the rapper and—thanks to Coca-Cola—pop star K’naan, exploring his journey from playing with grenades as a child to writing the song at the center of Coke’s World Cup campaign.

On the sixth-month anniversary of the Gulf oil spill, environmentalist and essayist Terry Tempest Williams offers a very different portrait of the region and its people than you might hear on your nightly news (if you hear anything anymore) in her comprehensive essay, “The Gulf Between Us,” for Orion.

Every week we share links to stories, articles, and other interesting things we’ve come across online for you to enjoy over the weekend. It’s the utne.com crockpot; we add the ingredients for a great online meal. Enjoy!  

We’re voracious readers, but when we tire of words we soothe our eyeballs by scrolling through the latest entries at the amazing visual blog This Isn’t Happiness.

Good discusses designing buildings that promote activity and combat obesity.

It’s harvest time, and we love to read about the bounteous scene at small farms across the country at The Blog Barn run by Local Harvest. Writing about subjects from pecans to pumpkins, alpaca babies to bunny wool, small producers across the country share vivid vignettes from the barn and the field.

Indie group Belle & Sebastian wants to write a song about you.

Jason Fried on why you can’t work at work. If you haven’t seen this already, it’s a must-view for anyone who works in an office.

Every week we share links to stories, articles, and other interesting things we’ve come across online for you to enjoy over the weekend. It’s the utne.com crockpot; we add the ingredients for a great online meal. Enjoy!  

Finally, a beer bottle designed to promote your musical tendencies.

A Last.fm internvisually depicts how music taste differs between genders.

Check out the 10 most expensive books in the world.

Look! You can buy uranium online! Who knew?

Grain Edit is a beautiful website that highlights work from contemporary designers and illustrators whose styles are influenced by the aesthetic of the 1950s-70s.

A man philosophizes on the various aspects of his neighborhood White Castle.

A Virus Comix illustration depicts the different paths of Gertraud Junge and Sophie Scholl, two young women of similar age, during the Holocaust.

Fans of contemporary fine-art photography will enjoy Conscientious, a website featuring interviews with photographers and links to interesting photo projects from around the world.

Despite the availability of cheap labor in China, Sabiq Rahim of ClimateWire says that manufacturing jobs in the electric car industry have nowhere to go but America.

Slate chronicles the tragedy at the Virginia Quarterly Review that ended in its managing editor's suicide.

Every week we share links to stories, articles, and other interesting things we’ve come across online for you to enjoy over the weekend. It’s the utne.com crockpot; we add the ingredients for a great online meal. Enjoy! 

Michael H. Miller  hangs out with New Yorker poetry editor Paul Muldoonin the New York Observer.(Thanks,harriet.)

An  unlikely place for sustainable urbanism. . . Waco, Texas. (Yes, that Waco, Texas.)

An artist experiments with  interactive art, including wooden mirrors.  

Newslite reports on vending machines that can  print a book before your very eyesin mere seconds.

There’s a response to Rachel Laudan’s piece “In Praise of Fast Food” (from our Sept.-Oct. issue) over at Dissertation on Dirt.

Technology Review’s latest issue features its annual list of 35 innovators under the age of 35.

Filmmaker Gary Hustwit (Helvetica, Objectified) is at work on Urbanized, the third film in his design trilogy.

Paste has an update on David Foster Wallace’s final book.

Bill Murray: From comedian to indie movie star, a Flavorpill  gallery shows his many faces.  

In a new photoessay, the New York Times captured the geometric beauty of suburban sprawl in the American Southwest.