Making the Cut. The forthcoming enormous Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism establishes critical theory as a basic component of the college-level study of literature and sets the canon, even after the publisher had the editors cut a number of figures from the book, complaining that its size would make it too expensive and unwieldy to market widely. But it is much more theory than literary criticism, the editors having concluded that it would be difficult to include examples of ‘close reading’ of texts with which a less-broadly-read audience might not be sufficiently familiar. One critic opines:

“Criticism
implies some engagement with writing, but there’s almost none of
that here. Norton anthologies have always been about
literature. This reflects a really unfortunate trend toward the
study of ideas about ideas about literature. It’s metacriticism,
really.” Chronicle of Higher Education [via Robot Wisdom]

“Scientists have confirmed that the first
genetically altered humans have been born and
are healthy.

Up to 30 such children have been born, 15 of
them as a result of one experimental
programme at a US laboratory.

But the technique has
been criticised as
unethical by some
scientists and would be
illegal in many
countries, including the
United Kingdom.” BBC The New York Times spin on the story is different, choosing to highlight the fact that these babies have genetic material from three different people.

Jay Belsky doesn’t play well with others: “Colleagues of the controversial child-care expert (featured prominently in coverage of last week’s study showing a link between increased aggression in children and time spent in day care) say he
hogs the limelight, has an agenda and makes alarmist claims
that the evidence doesn’t support.” Salon

China’s Execution, Inc.: “The People’s Republic Has Long Been Suspected of Selling
Organs From Prisoners. Now One New York Doctor Knows the
Rumors Are True.

In China, human rights groups say, citizens have been executed for nonviolent offenses like taking
bribes, credit card theft, small-scale tax evasion, and stealing truckloads of vegetables. Political
dissidents have also been sentenced to death. Chinese embassy officials did not respond to requests
for comment, but in the past the government has denied promoting the for-profit organ trade…

Executions in China have surged to 400 in April alone as the
Communist government conducts another of its periodic “strike hard” crackdowns on crime. During
the most recent campaign, in 1996, more than 4000 prisoners were killed…

Even in a normal year China executes more inmates than in all other nations combined, reports
Amnesty International. In 1999, the confirmed toll reached 1263, according to the organization,
which gathers its statistics from tallies published, for propaganda purposes, in government-run
newspapers.” Village Voice

A Guide to the Hall of Fame of Cartoonist Cranks. “Cranks are people who
get stuck on an issue and can’t shut up
about it. It always pops up, and always in
the wrong place. You could be discussing
the funny thing you just heard on the train
and within seconds you’re back to getting
that damned marriage penalty tax cut —
NOW. Cranks, they just can’t let it go. The
world irritates them so, what with its
dimwitted Presidents, half-baked legal
system, and all those noisy kids riding their
damn bikes on your lawn.” Suck

Review of the Field Guide to the Difficult Patient Interview by Platt and Gordon. JAMA

Lethality Without Guilt? ‘The U.S. military is trying to
go green, and not just with berets or fatigues.

In a multimillion dollar project, the Army has
come up with a new bullet said to be just as
deadly as the old lead-based one but cleaner for the Earth.

“We want to be good stewards of the environment,” said Army spokeswoman
Karen Baker.’ Fox News

‘Stem cells” can be harvested from postmortem brains and surgical specimens, up to twenty hours postmortem. Ethical conflicts about the use of fetal stem cells could be avoided if this proved a viable source of tissue to treat neurodegenerative diseases, for example. Nature

Chevron redubs ship named for Bush aide. “Leaving a wave of controversy in its wake, one of
the most visible reminders of the Bush
administration’s ties to big oil – the 129,000-ton
Chevron tanker Condoleezza Rice – has quietly
been renamed, Chevron officials acknowledged
yesterday.

… The giant vessel was part of the international fleet
of the San Francisco- based multinational oil firm,
christened several years ago in honor of Rice, a
longtime Chevron board member. Rice, a former
Stanford University provost, served on Chevron’s
board from 1991 until Jan. 15, when she
resigned after Bush named her his top national
security aide. ” SF Chronicle

The Execution Tapes: Radio Documentary by Sound Portraits. Controversial show aired on WNYC in New York, including recordings made in Georgia’s death house during state electrocutions; the first time the public gets to hear what happens during a state-sponsored killing. Read the transcripts or listen in Real Audio.

“My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub,” says Grover Norquist: ‘Field Marshal’ of the Bush Plan .

‘Stocky, bearded and owlish, Norquist, 45, is a thumb-in-the-eye radical rightist whose tactical sophistication and singularity of purpose has led observers
to compare him, with some drollery, to Lenin. A Harvard-educated intellectual and self-conscious student of the left, over the past decade Norquist has
eclipsed such older stalwarts as Ed Feulner of the Heritage Foundation, David Keene of the American Conservative Union and Paul Weyrich of the Free
Congress Foundation to emerge as the managing director of the hard-core right in Washington. But while firmly planted on the extreme end of the
political spectrum, Norquist has also built a solid working alliance with the Fortune 500 corporate elite and its K Street lobbyists. “What he’s managed to
do is to chain the ideological conservatives together with the business guys, who have money, and to put that money to work in the service of the
conservative movement,” says Roger Hickey of the Campaign for America’s Future, who’s repeatedly clashed with Norquist. “And he picks big issues.”
Besides taxes, Norquist is also the go-to guy on virtually all of the right’s favorite agenda items, from privatization of Social Security and Medicare to
school vouchers and deregulation.’ The Nation