Saturday Poem: What Kind of Times Are These
There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphilland the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadowsnear a meetinghouse abandoned by the persecutedwho disappeared into those
Presidential Debates Have Outlived Their Usefulness
John McWhorter writes in Persuasion: Donald Trump is incapable of meaningful participation in such an event. Only in the sense that “match” can apply to both chess and mud wrestling
Continue readingPresidential Debates Have Outlived Their Usefulness
Points to Ponder
Talking Points from an editorial in Dawn: –Pakistan is in a debt trap.–It must borrow more to pay back its existing debt–domestic and external loans both.–The country’s debt stock has
You Are What (Your Microbes) Eat
Veronique Greenwood in Harvard Magazine: IN THE LATE 2000s, Rachel Carmody was spending a lot of time counting calories. An anthropology graduate student at Harvard, she was studying whether cooking changed the
Thirty Years of Talking About Pablo Escobar
Juan Gabriel Vásquez in El Pais: Pablo Escobar, the most infamous drug trafficker in history, was shot dead on the rooftops of Medellín. He had escaped 16 months earlier from La
The Average American Is a Millionaire
Jeremy Horpedahl in The City Journal: The Federal Reserve’s latest Survey of Consumer Finances contains several revelations about the state of the American economy. First, it found that the average American household’s net worth
Rivers in Alaska are Turning Orange. The Reason Surprised Even Scientists.
By Fabiana Chaparro, CNN: The finding surprised researchers from the National Park Service, the University of California at Davis and the US Geological Survey, who conducted tests at 75 locations
Continue readingRivers in Alaska are Turning Orange. The Reason Surprised Even Scientists.
Friday Poem: ‘Enigmas’ by Pablo Neruda
You asked me what the lobster is weaving there with his…. golden feet?I reply, the ocean knows this.You say, what is the ascidia waiting for in its transparent bell?…. What
The Institute of Illegal Images
Erik Davis at The Paris Review: The Institute of Illegal Images (III) is housed in a dilapidated shotgun Victorian in San Francisco’s Mission District, which also happens to be the
Mounting Research Shows That COVID-19 Leaves its Mark on the Brain, Including With Significant Drops in IQ Scores
Ziyad Al-Aly in The Conversation: From the very early days of the pandemic, brain fog emerged as a significant health condition that many experience after COVID-19. Brain fog is a colloquial term that
The Mysteries and Quirks of Human Memory
Erica Goode in Undark: AUTHORS DON’T GET to choose what’s going on in the world when their books are published. More than a few luckless writers ended up with a publication
How the World Made the West
Steven Poole at The Guardian: “Western civilisation” would not exist without its Islamic, African, Indian and Chinese influences. To understand why, Quinn takes us back in time, beginning at the