Football with Headscarves

Love this photo from an article about public charter schools in Minneapolis:

We’ve applied to a new charter school in town for Celie and Iris next year (not that we’re sure we’d send them if they got in, yet).  I doubt it will be full of Somali or Hmong immigrants, however.

An 8-year-old and an Uzi

It kind of surprises me that this story emerges from outside Boston, MA:

December 5, 2008
Police Chief Among 4 Indicted in Boy’s Death at Gun Show
By KATIE ZEZIMA
BOSTON — A Massachusetts police chief, two Connecticut men and a gun club were indicted Thursday in the case of an 8-year-old boy killed by a submachine gun he [...]

Last Days of David Foster Wallace

Excerpt from Rolling Stone article: The Lost Years & Last Days of David Foster Wallace.
Last night I had some time to kill and went to Borders, ended up reading this whole long article about D.F. Wallace.  It’s very sad — he’d suffered from chronic depression, including hospitalizations, since high school or so.  The suicide itself [...]

Kudos to Paul Krugman

I was psyched to learn that Paul Krugman has won the Nobel Prize.  Reading his NY Times columns, it’s sometimes been easy to forget that he’s not just a pundit/commentator but a world-class economist.  He must have a swelled head now.  He and Al Gore can have private little “I Won a Nobel Prize on [...]

How Much Sleep Do You Really Need?

Most-emailed article on the Time Magazine site (as of a few days ago):
How Much Sleep Do You Really Need?
As a longtime imsomniac who is always trying to get more sleep, I am a bit skeptical of these claims:
Studies show that people who sleep between 6.5 hr. and 7.5 hr. a night, as they report, live [...]

Half-dressed man cavorting with a farm animal

This story is so odd.
Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, granted a 48-hour stay in the obscenity trial of a Hollywood adult filmmaker after the prosecutor requested time to explore “a potential conflict of interest concerning the court having a . . . sexually explicit website with similar material [...]

The Mutant Brooklyn Real Estate Bubble

Loved this New York Magazine article (by Adam Sternbergh) about Brooklyn real estate class warfare. Amazing that a reporter managed to conjure a cover story from the comments section of a local real estate blog, but the crazy thing is, I can almost picture the movie version.
The What is a troll who haunts Brownstoner.com, [...]

Paul Pierce, Willis Reed, and epic sports analogy

Celtics star Paul Pierce falls to the ground in pain in the first game of the NBA finals, clutching his knee. He’s taken off the court in a wheelchair, and fans fear the worst. Less than two minutes later, he returns, quickly hits two three-pointers, and leads his team to victory.

Metaphor and analogy [...]

Local news story of the week

Local news story of the week:

Police: Funny fudge made with lavender, not pot
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) — Indiana University police say brownies a girl gave to dorm workers didn’t contain marijuana at all. The leafy substance mixed in was lavender.
IU Police Capt. Jerry Minger said the 13-year-old girl came forward after the case was publicized to [...]

Panicked Republicans

Panicked Republicans, such a harmonious, euphonious phrase, I enjoy just repeating it to myself…
Here’s Josh Marshall on why the Republicans are feeling panicked about the loss of an open seat in a heavily Republican district in Mississippi:

And here’s the Adam Nagourney article:
Scott Reed, a former chief of staff to the Republican [...]