Blog Headlines of the Week
- Antidepressants in the water are making shrimp suicidal
- Parents Television Council F*cking Pissed About Repeal Of FCC Indecency Ban
Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes
- How facts backfire (“Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.”) (via The Morning News)
- The Tyranny of the New (“We are sold books the same way we are sold cell phones, as if the latest models deserve the most attention.”) (via MobyLives)
Peeves and Provocations
- I kinda doubt that getting a manga book at the local library is what causes a teenager to have “lost his mind.” (via Disinformation)
- Another entry for the nearly endless list of reasons I eschew organized religion: “I plan to use my young fundamentalist Christian warriors to undermine the mission of every group that disagrees with me on the existence of God. …I do not seek robust debate. I seek power over the godless heathen dissident.” (And just to add a little snark, here’s a summary of what the Bible really teaches us.)
Bookish Linkage
- The first of 10 safe deposit boxes in which documents belonging to Franz Kafka were hidden for 40 years was opened Monday in Israel. A court has said the contents cannot be publicly revealed, at least for the time being, but hopefully this isn’t a literary Al Capone’s Vault.
- I noticed FiveBooks a couple weeks ago but see its RSS feed is now active. Each day on the site “an eminent writer, thinker, commentator, politician, academic chooses five books on their specialist subject.”
- Literary one-hit wonders. (via The Millions)
- Intelligent Life looks at steampunk.
- The art of slow reading.
- Or, as John Olson calls it, extreme reading. (via Ready When You Are, C.B.)
Nonbookish Linkage
- The WaPo‘s Gene Weingarten delves into what the interwebz have done to newsrooms and newspapers compared to back in the day.
- What caffeine actually does to your brain.
The world needs an enema.
Mason Cooley, City Aphorisms, Eighth Selection
