The 1847 Lecture that Predicted Human-Induced Climate Change

When we think of the birth of the conservation movement in the 19th century, the names that usually spring to mind are the likes of John Muir and Henry David Thoreau, men who wrote about the need to protect wilderness areas in an age when the notion of mankind’s “manifest destiny” was all the rage. But a far less remembered American—a contemporary of Muir and Thoreau—can claim to be the person who first publicised the now largely unchallenged idea that humans can negatively influence the environment that supports them.

Source: The Guardian
Published: Jun 20, 2011
Length: 7 minutes (1,886 words)

The Rise and Inglorious Fall of Myspace

In February 2009, with the threat of Facebook’s growing popularity looming over their company, Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, the co-founders of Myspace, appeared on The Charlie Rose Show. DeWolfe explained that Myspace was more than a social network; it was a portal where people discovered new friends and music and movies—it was practically where young people lived. “We have the largest music catalog in the world,” DeWolfe said. Anderson predicted that by 2015, Myspace would have up to 400 million users. DeWolfe said the site’s worth was “in the billions.” Rose mentioned how Murdoch had bought Myspace’s parent company, Intermix, for $580 million. “Are you happy you made the deal?” asked Rose. “Um …,” said DeWolfe.

Source: Businessweek
Published: Jun 22, 2011
Length: 16 minutes (4,119 words)

Diane Ravitch, the Anti-Rhee

In the month of April, Diane Ravitch, the 72-year-old preeminent historian of American education, sent 1,747 tweets, an average of about 58 messages per day, many between the hours of 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. On May 20 alone, Ravitch tweeted 99 times to her 13,000 followers. Linking to the news of a D.C. Public Schools investigation into test tampering under former chancellor Michelle Rhee, she asked: “How can teachers be evaluated by student test scores, when the scores are so often manipulated and inaccurate?”

Published: Jun 22, 2011
Length: 15 minutes (3,901 words)

Death Be Not Chic

Our culture doesn’t ignore death. In modern films and on television dramas, it’s everywhere: on fictive battlefields and in outer space; in the ER and the forensics lab; in the dire diagnoses of some crusty, limping doctor on a Fox network drama and ballooning from the plumped-up lips of brilliant babe doctors on Grey’s Anatomy. But here is the insurmountable problem: Their kind of death is not death. Or to put it another way: The death you see on the screen will not be the death you have.

Source: Obit Magazine
Published: Jun 9, 2011
Length: 7 minutes (1,981 words)

My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

Last year I read about four students who walked from Miami to Washington to lobby for the Dream Act, a nearly decade-old immigration bill that would provide a path to legal permanent residency for young people who have been educated in this country. At the risk of deportation — the Obama administration has deported almost 800,000 people in the last two years — they are speaking out. Their courage has inspired me.

Published: Jun 22, 2011
Length: 18 minutes (4,604 words)

Portrait Of The Bagel As A Young Man

The boss—sitting behind an impossibly cluttered desk, in an impossibly cluttered room, with the sound of the bagel factory in full swing upstairs, churning away with the noise of a ship’s engine—looked down at the resume and chewed thoughtfully on his lower lip. Then he abruptly looked up with the penetrating, profound, and fired up expression of a prosecutor who is about to ask the question on which the whole case would turn. He said: “If someone buys three dozen bagels, and they get a free bagel for every dozen, how many would you give them?”

Published: Mar 29, 2004
Length: 32 minutes (8,012 words)

Phil Campbell? Phil Campbell. Welcome to Phil Campbell.

In 1995, Might Magazine published an essay by Phil Campbell about the first convention of people named Phil Campbell, which took place in Phil Campbell, Alabama. This past April the small town was hit by deadly tornadoes. Since then, people named Phil Campbell from around the world have come to Phil Campbell to help rebuild the town. Today we’re featuring Phil Campbell’s original article about the convention. If you’d like to contribute to the relief efforts for Phil Campbell, Alabama, please visit http://www.imwithphil.com.

Source: McSweeney’s
Published: Dec 1, 1995
Length: 15 minutes (3,820 words)

Climate of Denial

“President Obama has thus far failed to use the bully pulpit to make the case for bold action on climate change. After successfully passing his green stimulus package, he did nothing to defend it when Congress decimated its funding. After the House passed cap and trade, he did little to make passage in the Senate a priority. Senate advocates — including one Republican — felt abandoned when the president made concessions to oil and coal companies without asking for anything in return. He has also called for a massive expansion of oil drilling in the United States, apparently in an effort to defuse criticism from those who argue speciously that ‘drill, baby, drill’ is the answer to our growing dependence on foreign oil.”

Author: Al Gore
Source: Rolling Stone
Published: Jun 22, 2011
Length: 28 minutes (7,058 words)

‘86.74 Is Going to Stand for a Long Time’

No athlete has ever mastered that equation better than Yuriy Sedykh, who refers to his elegant throwing motion simply as “the dance.” But his physical gifts are far from the only reason his record is so untouchable. Sedykh entered his prime just as the Soviet sports machine was at its peak, creating an environment in which even hammer-throw success was considered essential to national pride. The machine provided him with advantages that today’s hammer throwers can only dream of: generous financial support and state-of-the-art coaching. It also blessed him with that one key factor that few aspiring record-breakers can live without. A nemesis.

Source: ESPN
Published: Jun 21, 2011
Length: 12 minutes (3,074 words)

Meltdown

“That scum!” Boris Yeltsin fumed. “It’s a coup. We can’t let them get away with it.” It was the morning of Aug. 19, 1991, and the Russian president was standing at the door of his dacha in Arkhangelskoe, a compound of small country houses outside Moscow where the top Russian government officials lived. I had raced over from my own house nearby, after a friend called from Moscow, frantic and nearly hysterical, insisting that I turn on the radio. There had been a coup; Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had been removed from power.

Source: Foreign Policy
Published: Jun 20, 2011
Length: 10 minutes (2,569 words)