December 2011
30 posts
How Ready Are We for Bioterrorism? →
Wil S. Hylton:
Whatever you think U.S. biodefense policy should be, it is difficult to imagine that it would not benefit from clear, central leadership. Kenneth Bernard, the biodefense czar in both the Clinton and Bush administrations, told me, “The only way that you can get all of those people in the room is to call them into the White House, and to have a coordinating group under a single...
Inside the mind of the octopus →
Sy Montgomery:
Scientists are currently debating whether we and octopuses evolved eyes separately, or whether a common ancestor had the makings of the eye. But intelligence is another matter. “The same thing that got them their smarts isn’t the same thing that got us our smarts,” says Mather, “because our two ancestors didn’t have any smarts.” Half a billion years ago, the brainiest thing on the...
Dog Story →
Adam Gopnik:
The experts, Bradshaw especially, tell us that Butterscotch sits by the door all afternoon because she has been unconsciously trained to associate Olivia’s after-school homecoming with the delivery of treats. But what would be so different if we said that she sits by the door because she is waiting patiently for Olivia, has a keen inner sense of what time she’ll be home, and misses...
On the Movie Set of Director Ilya Khrzhanovsky's... →
Michael Idov:
“Are you going to augment the city with CGI later?” I ask, just to ask something.
Khrzhanovsky jumps in place and winces. “See, if one of the guards heard you, he would fine me a thousand hryvnias [about $125],” he says. “Because you’re my guest. It doesn’t matter that I am the boss. I get frisked like everyone else. You can’t use...
What decisions in American history did not appear... →
Paul Frank:
Answering this question has caused me to examine our American body politic. We could have worked harder at finding a commonly respectful solution to this conflict and we didn’t. If there is a takeaway for me from this, it is that we need to find ways to function that respects each others convictions and core values. Too often our response is to press our legislators to impose...
“[I]f a character I had written for myself wanted to go on while the camera was...”
– Albert Brooks Talks DRIVE, TAXI DRIVER, the Defending Your Life Blu-ray and More
In moderation, loudness can be a good way to provide emphasis during a story or piece of dialogue. But when characters indiscriminately yell at each other for long stretches, I feel bludgeoned and become fatigued. The...
The Green Bay Packers Have the Best Owners in... →
Karl Taro Greenfeld:
The Green Bay Packers are a historical, cultural, and geographical anomaly, a publicly traded corporation in a league that doesn’t allow them, an immensely profitable company whose shareholders are forbidden by the corporate bylaws to receive a penny of that profit, a franchise that has flourished despite being in the smallest market in the NFL—with a population of 102,000,...
David Foster Wallace’s syllabus: Is there any... →
Katie Roiphe:
Wallace doesn’t accept the silent social contract between students and professors: He takes apart and analyzes and makes explicit, in a way that is almost painful, all of the tiny conventional unspoken agreements usually made between professors and their students.
…
Wallace refuses the habitual patterns and usual fictions that govern a classroom. His syllabus warns: “If...
American Everyman →
Walter Kirn:
Like a multibillionaire Jack Benny, the thrifty Buffett just can’t stop worrying. He can’t stop finding the bad news in the good. Because we know how well he’s done and how well he’ll do, his nervousness is amusing and disarming. And by avoiding emotion in his expression at moments when others in his position would be euphoric, he also caricatures his...
In Search of Bolivian Dark Chocolate →
Rowan Jacobsen:
Somebody handed me a beer and a bowl of fried piranha, and a crew of locals grabbed our hammocks and packs to set us up for the night in a simple pavilion in the middle of the settlement, their church. When I tried to hang my own hammock, it seemed to upset everybody.
“People here relate differently,” Volker explained. “It’s still the old patron system....
