The Crimson to use labor in 3d world. Thanks for this link and congratulations to NextDraft, which celebrates its 50th anniversary — its 50th issue, that is — today. The Harvard Crimson, which editorializes in favor of a “living wage” for campus workers, is turning to Cambodian typists paid around 40 cents an hour to typeset the 19th century editions of the Crimson as part of its project to create a free internet archive going back to its first edition published in 1873. A group of monks in India is handling the 20th century portion of the project. Boston Globe

Margarine linked to dramatic asthma rise: “Campaigns to reduce heart disease by promoting polyunsaturated

margarines and cooking oils could be partly responsible for the

recent dramatic increase in childhood asthma in the developed

world, say researchers in Australia.

They found that a diet high in polyunsaturated fats more than

doubles a child’s risk of asthma.” New Scientist

Scathing Reviews of Junkets. Even apart from Sony Pictures’ fabrication of critics’ and viewers’ comments, many film viewers have little use for reviews and especially ‘pull quotes’ splayed all over movie ads. Self-conscious film journalists face the daunting task of defending the merit of the industry-sponsored press junkets they go on; even Hollywood itself has turned a scathing eye on the practice recently, with the cynical America’s Sweethearts, which

“drips with cynicism about junkets:

The celebrities depicted in the movie, who are portrayed by Catherine

Zeta-Jones and John Cusack, lie straight-faced and unabashedly to the

press. The journalists, meanwhile, are presented as simpering and feckless,

the sniveling, unctuous lackeys of the harried studio publicity head, played

by Crystal.”

A group of filmgoers are now bringing suit for redress of the fraudulent nature of the favorable reviews that result. LA Times

The amazing disappearing book review section: “In the age of market research, newspaper editors have

decreed that their readers just don’t care about books.” Salon And as literacy dwindles in the post-industrial West, it’s been assumed that the great working class masses had little use for

literature and intellectual pursuits in ages past either. A new book by Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes, suggests that wasn’t the case. A century ago “the

working-class pursuit of education was not an accommodation to middle-class values, a capitulation to

bourgeois cultural hegemony. Instead, it represented the return of the repressed in a society where the

slogan ‘knowledge is power’ was passionately embraced by generations of working-class radicals who were

denied both.” The Telegraph (UK)

Uncle Joe loved a good joke A new Top Secret Soviet file has been uncovered, containing cartoons and

doodles done by senior Politburo staff made during their meetings with Stalin. “Not only did Soviet leaders

often doodle during their meetings, they also passed their drawings around the room for each other’s

comments. Stalin joined in the game too.” The Telegraph (UK)

The Tabloid Public Is Not the Majority. Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, writes in the New York Times op-ed page that a relatively small proportion of viewers with an appetite for tabloid journalism — e.g. the Chandra Levy saga — drive the TV news business into mindless infotainment.

Dissident or Don Quixote? “Challenging the HIV theory got virologist Peter H. Duesberg

all but excommunicated from the scientific orthodoxy.

Now he claims that science has got cancer all wrong.” Scientific American

The Irish Independent comments on the racially motivated violence in the North of England this summer, and finds “disturbing and depressing

overtones of the evolution of events in Northern Ireland over

the past three decades.”

Israeli daily Ha’aretz covers the controversy over Who Wants to Be a Millionaire Egyptian-style, where the Mufti of Egypt has ruled that the show is no longer to be broadcast because it offends Islamic anti-gambling principles.

First Tear Gas, Now Bullets: “While many activists feel galvanized by the repressive policing, others question whether the level of

street combat at recent events has gone too far. They fear the violence from small factions of

militants—greatly amplified by the media—plays to police efforts to demonize the movement, while

obscuring its pro-democracy aims.” The Village Voice

Northeast fireball likely a meteor. Anybody see this? CNN

Oregon Democratic Party Backs Court Impeachment: ‘The party’s central committee voted overwhelmingly to begin a campaign it hopes will take the

issue to the U.S. House of Representatives, which has the authority to impeach justices.

The resolution passed Sunday by the 66 Oregon party activists called for the “immediate

investigation of the behavior” of the five justices who voted to stop hand recounts of Florida ballots.’ Reuters

Some Features You May Need on Your Computer

Studies Link Video Games to Aggressive Behavior — “Violent video games may indeed increase aggressive behavior, two Iowa State psychologists conclude after

conducting a comprehensive review of the literature in this hotly debated field.”

Damaged Brains and the Death Penalty: “Almost without exception, Dr. Lewis has

found in evaluating dozens of death-row

inmates, they have damaged brains. Most

were also the victims of vicious batterings

and often sexual abuse as children. Psychotic symptoms, especially

paranoia, are common.

A professor of psychiatry at New York University, Dr. Lewis is among a

handful of researchers who are rethinking the etiology of violence. Her

studies focus on some of the most violent criminals; she has interviewed

150 to 200 murderers, sorting through their medical histories and, as

much as it can be done, their brains.” New York Times

Review: The Holocaust Encyclopedia ed. Walter Laqueur and Judith Tydor Baumel. “The

Nazi genocide of the Jews has been turned into a cheap

moral resource, called on to support just about any cause.” New Statesman

Becoming Literature

James Merrill died in 1995, aged 69, just

before his last book of new poems, A

Scattering of Salts, appeared. …..Since the

1970s he had been one of America’s

best-known serious poets: the formal agility

of his shorter poems had inspired legions of

imitators, and his book-length poem The

Changing Light at Sandover had acquired

a flock of interpreters. Even as Merrill’s

admirers (me, for example) treasured that

last book, new questions arose: When would there be a book of all

the poems? Were there post-Salts poems, and would we see them?

What would his work look like as a whole? Would important facts

about the man emerge? This monumental and timely Collected

answers the first three questions, while Alison Lurie’s brief, frustrating

memoir tries to answer the last. Both books remind us how, and how

often, the poems depict, and reflect on, Merrill’s life.

Boston Review

Monks to Lift Century-Old Curse — ‘Greek monks have agreed to lift a century-old curse on an island village to

“never sleep again” for bringing the wrath of the Ottoman empire on their monastery, the village’s

mayor said on Monday.’

Enzyme Could Lead to Medical Marijuana Alternative: “In findings that could one day offer an alternative to so-called

medical marijuana, scientists have discovered that blocking a particular enzyme in mice allows a

natural marijuana-like compound in the brain to trigger pain-numbing effects comparable to the

drug’s.

…These findings, (the investigator) said, hold out the possibility that a drug that blocks the FAAH enzyme in

humans will allow the natural anandamide system to work as a painkiller–but without making

patients inhale the toxic compounds in marijuana smoke or experience the drug’s mind-altering

effects.” Reuters via Yahoo!

Miniature Supernova Created in Lab: “A form of matter called Bose-Einstein condensate, which first was created in a laboratory in 1995,

has been tinkered with until it caused miniature explosions that resemble exploding stars called

supernovae, according to a new study.” Space.com

Bonn Climate Deal May Not Bring Down Emissions: “Backslapping

and cheers greeted Monday’s rescue of

the Kyoto accord on fighting global

warming but the pact, 10 years in the making, may not achieve its

stated goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions this decade.

According to calculations by the environmental lobby group

Greenpeace, the “loopholes” agreed to at the U.N. talks in Bonn

and at the original treaty discussions in Kyoto, Japan in 1997, may

mean emissions even go up instead of down.” Reuters

And: “the administration would be hard-pressed to

find a better alternative. While Kyoto is often maligned by the U.S. media —

the New York Times routinely calls it “flawed” — it is by many measures a

sweetheart deal for the U.S.” Tompaine.com