In terms of their academic pursuits, the cardinals who will choose the next pope are a pretty monolithic bunch. That nugget of insight is courtesy of Anthony Judge, who has created an interesting chart on his website Laetus in Praesens. In it, he lists all of the current cardinals who are eligible to vote, and the discipline or disciplines they focused on during their years of higher education. The information is from Wikipedia, so it may not be entirely accurate; Judge labels details that haven’t been verified. The first thing that strikes you is that, in Judge’s words, “very few ... Read More
Happy Anniversary, Dude: The Big Lebowski Turns 15
March 6, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
Wednesday marks the 15th anniversary of the release of The Big Lebowski, Joel and Ethan Cohen’s brilliant, semi-absurdist comedy about a slacker in early-1990s Los Angeles (Jeff Bridges, in one of his most memorable characterizations). There has been a lot of scholarly analysis picking apart this intricate, often-puzzling film, much of which we summarized here. But in his anniversary-timed appreciation in New York magazine, Josh Gondelman points out a telling detail that had, up until now, escaped our notice: A commonly cited but still unbelievable bit of Lebowski trivia is that the Dude ... Read More
Super Bowl: Are American Sports Fans the Classy Ones?
January 30, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lPMMsTimTg This weekend's Super Bowl promises to offer excess, violence and, if history is a guide, not much of a game. But what it won't show is hundreds or thousands of fans screaming racial insults at the players. What is it that makes US sports events relatively (if by no means perfectly) classy, compared to much of the world's big-time sports? A vague glance at Europe, even recently, is pretty shocking. We've seen Formula 1 spectators in blackface. We've seen Olympic basketball players doing Mickey Rooney doing I.Y. Yunioshi. A favorite at soccer ... Read More
P.S.
December 27, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Some leftover holiday morsels: Why we still talk about Wittgenstein (Hint: It’s not just his brains). To end the concussion crisis, we need to figure out how to stop “rotational acceleration” of the brain--something no helmet on the market can do. So why won't helmet companies adopt a radical new solution? A society's sense of duty to provide care for its infirm pre-dates ObamaCare, MediCare, and maybe even Hippocrates… Hamnesty for Justin Bieber's hamster! What does the Church of Scientology do to investigative reporters who bust open the church's inner workings? They ... Read More
We’re Shooting More Animals!
December 21, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
This just in: hunting is hot again. After years of decline, the number of Americans taking to the woods to kill critters jumped by over one million between 2006 and 2011, to a total of 13.7 million, according to a new report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The number of folks fishing surged too, from 30 million to 33.1 million. How to explain this? Maybe recession-battered families are trying to save money by killing their own dinners - but if so, it doesn't seem like a very good investment, considering that the survey found the average hunter spent $2,465 on gear, travel and ... Read More
The Rich Vote Different, Too
November 6, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Lining up at schools and churches to cast a vote is strictly for the 99 per cent. In Los Angeles' exclusive Bel Air and Brentwood neighborhoods, as Curbed LA first noticed, well-heeled voters will be treated to free valet parking and hors d'oeuvres at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel. It's a "luxury voting experience"! So what do we call the experience of the folks in the storm-battered Rockaways who are voting in polling places with no heat or light? ... Read More
Social Sciences Fact Check: Romney’s Debate Dig at Spain
October 4, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Here's a quick fact-check on Mitt Romney's mid-debate comment last night, that the US doesn't want to go down the same economic road as faltering Spain: Specifically, he was talking about government expenditures equalling 42% of GNP, which the Republican candidate claimed to be similar in the European case and in the US under Obama. True? Yes. Not in the way Romney implied, however: that US economic policy was a copy of a failed policy in Spain. This chart by USgovernmentspending.com, which tracks a broad range of such statistics, shows current US government spending roughly ... Read More
Journalists: Why Do We Even Bother?
September 24, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Why am I even writing this? Odds are that you, dear reader, don't believe a word journalists like myself have to say. A new Gallup poll finds that "Americans' distrust in the media hit a new high this year, with 60% saying they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly." Republicans are the most skeptical, with only 26 per cent expressing some degree of trust in the media. Independents aren't far behind. A slim majority of Democrats do generally trust the media, but even their numbers are falling. Not a good sign for the health of our ... Read More
Should India Build a Beachfront Nuclear Power Plant?
September 18, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Last week, somewhere between two and eight thousand people revived protests against a beachfront nuclear power station, scheduled to open over the next few weeks, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The same area suffered vast destruction in the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. Opponents of the project worry the facility is vulnerable to the same risks that led to last year's Fukushima nuclear disaster. The protest shows some signs of spreading. Police arrested 250 opponents of the project who were traveling to the scene from a neighboring state, in one recent case . Anti-nuke protests ... Read More
