Pain & Gain
Pain & Gain by Pete Collins. They were local bodybuilders with a penchant for steroids, strippers, and quick cash. And they became expert in the use of a peculiar motivational tool: Torture. Read the rest. (Mark Wahlberg’s new movie is [...]
Redemption
Sunday night 60 Minutes had a great story about knuckleballer R.A. Dickey, now pitching for the Toronto Blue Jays. Related: More on Dickey from 60 Minutes Overtime here.
The Few
Beware the Few by John Arquilla. The terror bombing of the Boston Marathon is yet one more item in a bloody skein of evidence that has emerged over the past decade proving that war is now, more than ever, the [...]
Inventions
Don’t Change a Thing: 8 Inventions That Never Needed Updating by Therese Oneill. If someone presented you with an original 1868 Sholes and Glidden Type-Writer, and told you to write your senior thesis using it, you’d be in for a [...]
Coverage
Abortion, The Mainstream Media, And The Limits Of Shaming by Pete Spiliakos. We seem to be in a moment when the national mainstream media either has, or is about to prominently cover the Gosnell horrors. The week-long prolife campaign to [...]
Tour
Baseball Tour Combines Big-League Parks, U.S. History by Michael Liedtke. See here.
Decline
The Decline and Fall of the BBC by Jonathan Foreman. Admired around the world, and nowhere more than in the upper reaches of the American media, the British Broadcasting Corporation has long enjoyed the unstinting support of Britain’s metropolitan media [...]
Ruthie
CT reviews The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, a Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life by Rod Dreher.
The End
The WSJ reviews The End of Sex by Donna Freitas.
Clash
Chief’s Silicon Valley Stardom Quickly Clashed at J.C. Penney by Stephanie Clifford. Maybe it was the ice sculptures. Or the order to stock slim, European-style men’s suits. Or the swagger of a protégé of the mighty Steve Jobs. From the [...]
Defeat
Why the South Lost the Civil War by Carl Zebrowski. Ten Civil War historians provide some contrasting–and probably controversial–views on how and why the Confederate cause ultimately ended in defeat. Read more here.
Response
The Right Response to the Atlanta Cheating Scandal by Michael Petrilli. For those of us who support academic standards, testing and accountability as strategies to improve public education, the Atlanta cheating indictments are sobering. Here was a system where dozens [...]
Letter
An Open Letter to Division I College Presidents and Governing Boards: Fix Skewed Incentives in Your Sports Programs by Arne Duncan and C. Thomas McMillen. Many people mistakenly assume that most athletics departments with teams in Division I football and [...]
Homeschooling
FT reviews Homeschooling in America: Capturing and Assessing the Movement by Joseph Murphy, and The Year of Learning Dangerously: Adventures in Homeschooling by Quinn Cummings.
Vice
The Bad-Boy Brand by Lizzie Widdicombe. To really experience Vice, you need to visit the company’s international offices. In the early two-thousands, hoping to expand the magazine’s readership, Smith spent years travelling around Europe and opening new offices, convinced that, [...]
Cheated
Public-School Children Cheated by Perverse Performance Pay Incentives by Sol Stern. In December 2008 two reporters for The Atlanta Journal Constitution published a story raising questions about “statistically improbable” increases in student test scores at one of the city’s elementary [...]
Different
Marriage Looks Different Now by Ross Douthat. A more honest, less triumphalist case for gay marriage would be willing to concede that, yes, there might be some social costs to redefining marriage. It would simply argue that those costs are [...]
Today
Long Night at ‘Today’ by Joe Hagan. What had separated Today from its competitors in its decades as the No. 1 morning show was a natural-seeming chemistry between its anchors. The cast of Matt Lauer, Katie Couric, Al Roker, and [...]
Charity
Why the Rich Don’t Give to Charity by Ken Stern. The wealthiest Americans donate 1.3 percent of their income; the poorest, 3.2 percent. What’s up with that? More at Atlantic.
Wine Country
News regarding Livermore wine country. For those in the know, wine tasting in Livermore (both at the wineries and downtown) is the hottest thing going in the SF Bay Area! Related: Newest tasting room to open in Livermore. (The Cab [...]