January 2012
The Last Bestiary
When all animals have died even the ones in books
grow frightened, their eyes like wormholes. Their spines
not so much broken, but the hide abraded and peeling. The gutters
filled with debris, plucked feathers, old yellow tape.
No one was there to hear their last song.
And in between the last pages were two old brown leaves
speaking in a language only other brown leaves would...
ESPN - Wright Thompson: Test of Time →
After the torture of eight disconnected hours, the plane lands at Heathrow. We’re still rolling when I turn on both phones, hitting refresh on my email, burning at the twirling wheel. Effing phone and its thinking. The messages finally arrive but won’t load. I curse all the way to passport control trying not to run into people as I scan emails and texts. Immigration officer No....
MUI Against Free Condoms for Sex Workers in Fight... →
The South Tangerang Branch of the Indonesia Ulema Council spoke out on Tuesday against a move by health authorities to distribute free condoms to sex workers to help halt the spread of HIV/AIDS in the city close to Jakarta. “Distributing contraception means legalizing the existence of female sex workers in South Tangerang,” said Abdul Rozak, secretary of the South Tangerang branch of the...
The Politics of Planned Parenthood and Women’s... →
The fury over Planned Parenthood is two political passions—opposition to abortion and opposition to government programs for the poor—acting as one. So far, it has nearly led to the shutdown of the federal government, required Republican Presidential nominees to swear their fealty to the pro-life lobby, tied up legislatures and courts in more than half a dozen states, launched a...
Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen in “Portlandia”... →
A smugly enamored couple sit in a restaurant, their hands clasped as they fret over the menu. The chicken, for instance: can the waitress tell them a little bit about its provenance? Of course she can, because this is the kind of cool restaurant in Portland, Oregon, where patrons regularly seek elaborate assurances about the virtuousness of their food. The waitress informs the couple that the...
The Cleveland, Texas Gang Rape of an... →
Three teenagers were clustered around the cell phone, heads almost touching as they peered at the video. “Eww…that’s nasty.” A surge of excitement, of almost electric disgust, passed between them. It was Monday after the long Thanksgiving weekend. The Texas morning was warm and overcast, the air spongy. In the cafeteria of Cleveland High School, the students jockeyed with...
December 2011
The U.S. Military’s “Third-Country Nationals” :... →
On the morning of October 10, 2007, the [Fijian] beauticians boarded their flight to the Emirates. They carried duffelbags full of cosmetics, family photographs, Bibles, floral sarongs, and chambas, traditional silky Fijian tops worn with patterned skirts. More than half of the women left husbands and children behind. In the rush to depart, none of them examined the fine print on their travel...
Trinity | The Awl →
On July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb test took place in the Tularosa Basin of the Jornada del Muerto desert near Socorro, New Mexico. Just three weeks later, Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be bombed: the only time nuclear weapons have ever been used in war. The test was code-named Trinity, and it forced a radical shift in the way that human beings came to regard their place on earth; from...
Led by the child who simply knew - The Boston... →
Jonas and Wyatt Maines were born identical twins, but from the start each had a distinct personality.
Jonas was all boy. He loved Spiderman, action figures, pirates, and swords.
Wyatt favored pink tutus and beads. At 4, he insisted on a Barbie birthday cake and had a thing for mermaids. On Halloween, Jonas was Buzz Lightyear. Wyatt wanted to be a princess; his mother compromised on a prince...
Could Conjoined Twins Share a Mind? - NYTimes.com →
Suddenly the girls sat up again, with renewed energy, and Krista reached for a cup with a straw in the corner of the crib. “I am drinking really, really, really, really fast,” she announced and started to power-slurp her juice, her face screwed up with the effort. Tatiana was, as always, sitting beside her but not looking at her, and suddenly her eyes went wide. She put her hand right below...
Now That Books Mean Nothing - The Morning News →
It’s not easy or appropriate to tell people who love you and who are trying to help you that what they are doing is not helping, that books are not what you want or need, that what you want and need right now are flowers, letters—notes, even—stupid movies, something that might help you feel pretty, emails that contain funny anecdotes from the outside world. That what you want is quiet company,...
monsterpussy asked: What was your fave fiction/non-fiction you read this year?
Books I read in 2011
katewalton:
Emily Gould - And the Heart Says Whatever David Mitchell - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet Dambisa Moyo - Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way for Africa Geoffrey Robinson - If You Leave Us Here, We Will Die: How Genocide Was Stopped in East Timor Jean Hatzfield - The Antelope’s Strategy: Living in Rwanda After the Genocide Granta - The Granta Book of...
Aceh Police Chief Lauds Re-education as Punks... →
[The Police Chief] justified the head-shavings and dunkings in water — images that spread like wildfire across the Internet — as a misperceived “tradition” practiced by police cadets, and added that the detainees were “just happy because it has been a long time since they have had a bath.” “Trash does not fit the Islamic law. Muslims do prayer and are meant to be pure, be clean.” Iskandar ...
Hard Core - The Atlantic →
Internet porn now “plays a role in how many Americans perceive and become educated about sex.” How this influence actually works is speculative— no one can ever really know what other people do in their bedrooms or why. Some experts postulate a sort of monkey-see, monkey-do explanation, whereby both men and women are conforming to behaviors they witness on their browser media players. But in...
Michael Paterniti Goes Behind the Scenes at Al... →
If Doha makes a somewhat sleepy home for a network that broadcasts to 250 million homes in 120 countries—and one that now aggressively competes against the big global news-gathering operations—the broadcast center outwardly betrays nothing of the frisson that goes into making news, either. The Al Jazeera compound floats squat and pale behind high fences near what’s called the...
The Age of Mechanical Reproduction - The Morning... →
Three years of waiting. Everywhere around us there are waves of bouncing sons, bounties of daughters, stroller wheels creaking under the cheerful load. Facebook updates, email messages, and Christmas cards arrive with pictures of tots, their faces smeared with avocado or cake frosting. Babies on rugs, babies in hats. Invitations to baby showers with cursive script and cartoon storks. Over a...
The gray area of gay refugees: Global Post →
The two tender, soft-spoken Ugandans shared a circle of good friends back in their hometown of Kampala. They were close with their families and they started a restaurant together. Life was good.
That was before everything went wrong. They were disowned by their families. Their restaurant was burned down. Their car was stoned and set ablaze.
And so they fled Uganda and came here, thousands...
Riot rumours: how misinformation spread on Twitter... →
Amazing data analysis broken down by rumours and timelines, complete with interactive graphics and charts.
ii-ne-kore: tjanpi and the desert →
We went out bush with the local aboriginal women. Beautiful colours. In the car, the toyota, back full of women going to dig for roots. Musical language, blended with the earth. Sound of the wind and wild camels meandering. ‘yu-wah’.
Driving around delivering meals to the oldies in the community with Mr Mervin and Elsie. Old matresses and camp fires out front of the cement block...
West Memphis Three Story | GQ December 2011:... →
There was no physical evidence connecting any of the three to the killings. At the time of the arrests, the police had only Jessie’s rambling statement and the general consensus that Damien was a weirdo. So in order to paper over the lack of reputable facts in their case, the police and prosecutors created a motive: satanic worship.
This was not as preposterous in 1993 as it is in...
Hard-Core Porn Obsession by Shalom Auslander GQ... →
Threesomes, fishnets, dirty talk—those are the vanilla sorts of fantasies we admit to. Then there’s the truly filthy porn we actually watch when we’re alone. Shalom Auslander discovers that everyone has his guiltiest pleasure.
The New Full-Frontal: Has Pubic Hair in America... →
Today, it’s all but commonplace for women to go to extreme measures to get bald, pre-pubescent nether regions: Indiana University researchers Debby Herbenick and Vanessa Schick found in a recent study that nearly 60 percent of American women between 18 and 24 are sometimes or always completely bare down there, while almost half of women in the U.S. between 25 and 29 reported similar...
Dissent Magazine - Dangerous Worlds: Teaching Film... →
All these months I’ve tried to imagine this situation. Who am I, here, and who are they? What voice will I have? Will I understand their voices? I interrogated several of the teaching assistants who had already offered classes at the prison. One warned me that my being a woman is a distinct disadvantage. They will associate me, he thinks, with naggy high-school teachers. From this...
A Single Man: One Chinese Bachelor's Search for... →
Chen Hongchang stepped into the thumping private room at the karaoke club. Through the haze of cigarette smoke, he saw them. The women.
Dressed in tight shirts and slinky dresses, they nursed glasses of beer and wailed to Chinese pop songs. As he approached, they smiled, an exciting sight for any guy on the prowl but a particularly thrilling one for Chen. Back home in Gao Po, his rural...
WatchHillary Clinton:
Today, I want to talk about the work we have left to do to protect one group of people whose human rights are still denied in too many parts of the world today. In many ways, they are an invisible minority. They are arrested, beaten, terrorized, even executed. Many are treated with contempt and violence by their fellow citizens while authorities empowered to protect...
The Muff March against 'designer vagina' surgery |... →
“Keep your mitts off our muffs!” “I love my vagina!” “You’ve put my chuff in a huff!” These are some of the slogans of the Muff March taking place along London’s Harley Street Saturday morning. Its aim? To raise awareness of the increase in gynaecological cosmetic surgery – both on the NHS and in private clinics. The march, which has more than ...
The women who rioted | UK news | guardian.co.uk →
After the initial excitement had passed, one 16-year-old, who rioted in Clapham Junction and received looted goods, said she regretted the impact on the local community. “It’s stupid because now everyone’s thinking why did we actually do it? Like, you didn’t really benefit from it; if anything we’re just thinking what did we do to where we live? You’re...
Netherlands apologises for 1947 Rawagede massacre... →
The Netherlands has apologised after six decades for a notorious massacre of up to 430 men and boys during Indonesia’s bitter struggle for independence.
Tjeerd de Zwaan, the Dutch ambassador to Indonesia, made the announcement in front hundreds of villagers in Rawagede, the scene of the killings on 9 December 1947 of hundreds of boys and young men by Dutch troops.
Arabic and Hebrew: The Politics of Literary... →
Between the 12th and the 14th centuries, translations from Arabic into Hebrew and vice versa were frequent. Jewish poets and philosophers in Arab countries such as Maimonides, wrote first in Arabic; then translated their books into Hebrew. The 16th century North African diplomat and author known as Leo Africanus wrote a dictionary of medical terms in Arabic, Hebrew and Latin.
Today, the...
Paris Review - The Art of Nonfiction No. 3, John... →
INTERVIEWER
Do you worry about outlets diminishing for writers?
MCPHEE
I’m really concerned about it. And nobody knows where it’s going—particularly in terms of the relationship of the Internet to the print media. But writing isn’t going to go away. There’s a big shake-up—the thing that comes to mind is that it’s like in a basketball game or a lacrosse game when the ball changes...
Paris Review - The Monk's Tale, William Dalrymple →
I am sad, of course, that I have been separated from my country, and my family, and that even now, in old age, I am not back home. I am sad that there has been so much violence and suffering in my life. I am now seventy-four. I am still in exile, and Tibet is still not free. I still hope, and who knows? Even the Chinese do not believe in communism anymore, so maybe in time the dharma will spread...
Reading the Riots | UK news | The Guardian →
So I think this will be my reading for about the next month, at least.
Huffington Post: JD Samson: I Love My Job, But It... →
This summer I tried to rent an apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The process sent me into an emotional crisis and awakened me into a whole new realization of our economy, the music industry at large and, more specifically, what it means to be a queer artist in 2011.
I spent days trolling around Williamsburg, looking at shitty apartments with cockroaches lining the doorways, fighting...
A year of beautiful books | The Guardian →
It is surely no coincidence that it is to this period, the age of the private presses, that so much of the current renaissance in book design refers. The Designer Collection at Virago Modern Classics, the new Penguin English Library and Persephone’s much-admired endpapers all quote, to various degrees, the aesthetics of the inter-war period. That doesn’t mean, however, that...
Teaching Good Sex - NYTimes.com →
Friends’ Central, a Quaker prep school that prides itself on both its academic rigor and its ethic of social responsibility, is tucked away in the bucolic hills of suburban Philadelphia. Vernacchio joined the school’s English department in 1998, and when, three years later, he asked to start Sexuality and Society, administrators were delighted. “He teaches at the very highest level,” said David...
October 2011
My Jakarta: Fadilla Mutiarawati, A Volunteer for... →
Sometimes Fadilla Mutiarawati has to climb a tree to conduct class or spend the morning herding cattle alongside her pupils before herding them up for roll call. Sometimes her students ditch school and take off into the jungle to hunt squirrels with slingshots. Fadilla volunteers for Sokola, a grassroots organization that provides alternative education to indigenous and marginalized...
On loving, and losing, little creatures —... →
He’s just a cat. The ambiguity of this decision, the question of when “it’s time,” the fact that there’s never an obvious or easy answer isn’t nearly as heavy with a cat as with a person. But on Sunday night it felt pretty heavy.
I carried him in my arms to the vet. He hated his carrier, and I wasn’t going to make him spend his last few hours in it. He was an indoor cat, and his eyes were...
“Nigeria needs a revolution in its rulers’ approach to governance but it...”
– Nigeria won’t progress while corruption is ‘just the way it is’ | Remi Adekoya | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
I’m not too familiar with Nigeria, but I can certainly imagine that this may well be the case. It definitely is in one country I’ve had a bit of experience...
Malcolm Fraser: 'we have lost our way' →
Eckersley: If you were a young aspiring politician today, which party would you join?
Fraser: I wouldn’t want to join either of them as presently constructed.
If you haven’t done so yet, I strongly encourage you all to read this interview with Malcolm Fraser, covering everything from asylum seekers to the media. It’s brilliant.
Eckersley: How do you psychoanalyse the two...
