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.  

At its best, the Believer delivers essays and dialogues about fascinations you didn't know you had. I've walked through war zones and across four states and still I was surprised I made it to the end of a lengthy correspondence about walking. It helped that the correspondents—writers Will Self and Geoff Nicholson—were several kinds of hilarious. Forgive me, but what stuck with me and what I want to share with you now was Nicholson's list of similarities between walking and sex, which he created with the idea of "sexing up" his book The Lost Art of Walking. Here are his ruminations on the subject:

Essential similarities: They're both basic, simple, repetitive activities that just about everybody does, and yet they're both capable of great sophistication and elaboration. They can both be sources of fantastic pleasure, but there are times when they can both feel like hard work. They're both things that some people like to do alone, that some like to do with just one other person, and that others like to do in groups of various sizes. And some people like to wear special clothing while they're doing it. And then, essential differences: One: although I'm sure you can catch various diseases while you're walking, they're different from the sort you can catch while having sex. Two: whereas walking is the kind of activity that can be happily and legally undertaken in public with a dog...At that point I abandoned my ruminations; this seemed too flippant even by my standards.

Walk on...

Source: Believer 

The kids at Bear Creek Elementary in Boulder, Colorado, are some of the most hardcore green commuters in the land. Seventy percent of the students there walk or bike to school, we learned on the website Commute by Bike—an achievement that earned the school the 2008 James Oberstar Award for excellence in the federal Safe Routes program.

Only 25 percent of the students walked or biked when the program began two years ago, which shows that a little encouragement can go a long way. A little wackiness doesn’t hurt, either. Principal Kent Cruger has helped inspire students by arriving at school on wheeled transport including a foot-powered scooter, a skateboard, and a unicycle. And the school’s “Walking Schoolbus” program promotes walking routes with names that are anything but pedestrian, like Darley Dart, Vassar Vroom, and Sooper Shuttle.

“We are trying to create a new culture of daily car-free habits in this young generation,” says Vivian Kennedy, a parent volunteer at Bear Creek, according to the National Center for Safe Routes to School. “A parent’s perception is a dominant factor in molding a child’s thinking, [but ] it’s now a matter of honor and pride for the students.”

In other words, it’s cool.

Sources: Commute by Bike, Safe Routes, Safe Routes Bear Creek Case Study, James L. Oberstar Award

Image by Dan Burden, courtesy of the  Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center .