How to seem smarter — ‘The goal behind this painless four-step plan is to seem smarter without having to read any books, listen to classical music, or depend on crutches like word-of-the-day toilet paper. By making a few minor modifications to your behavior, you will give the impression to those around you that you are smarter–not only smarter than you were before, but, more importantly, smarter than they are.’ ReadyMade

Leon Wieseltier on Cornel West: All and Nothing at All

Since there is no crisis in America more urgent than the crisis of race, and since there is no intellectual in America more celebrated for his consideration of the crisis of race, I turned to West, and read his books. They are almost completely worthless. The man who wrote them is a good man, an enemy of enmity; but he is, as he writes again and again, for “a better world.” Who is not? And who, at this late date in the history of the attempt to better the world generally, and to better the world of what West calls “America’s chocolate cities” specifically, can still use this expression without irony, or without an anxiety about the degradation of idealism?

West’s work is noisy, tedious, slippery (in The American Evasion of Philosophy, “evasion” is a term of praise, a description of an accomplishment), sectarian, humorless, pedantic and self-endeared. His judgment of ideas is eccentric. The New Republic

“Slow Wave is a collective dream diary authored by different people from around the world, and drawn as a comic strip by Jesse Reklaw. A new strip is uploaded every week on the first minute of Saturday in San Francisco; 3 AM Friday in New York; 6 AM Saturday in Paris, France; and 3 PM Saturday in Sydney, Australia…

Submit your dreams.”

Human Rights Watch World Report 2002 (Human Rights Developments in 2001)

Director Calls Bush ‘An Embarrassment’ — ‘Veteran filmmaker Robert Altman is venting about President George W. Bush again.

Altman, who’s been showered with critics’ accolades and a Golden Globe of late with the comedy murder mystery “Gosford Park,” first announced before the 2000 presidential election that he would leave the country if Bush were elected president.

He said a Republican victory “would be a catastrophe for the whole world,” taking issue with Bush’s plans to cut taxes and raise military spending.

Now in an interview the The London Times, Altman became enraged when speaking of Bush and the American government.’ The Boston Channel

“States must tighten their procedures for issuing driver’s licenses. That was clear after Sept. 11, when it became known that several of the hijackers had obtained licenses by using false identities.

But how far should the tightening go? Should these essential state identification cards become national IDs?” Christian Science Monitor

National ID in development : “…(T)he public’s willingness to trade some privacy for the promise of increased security seems to be slipping. A USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll released last week says just more than half of all adults would support a national identification card that includes fingerprint information. Two months ago, several polls indicated that more than two-thirds of all adults would support a national ID card.” USA Today [… a paper that’s not good for much, but when even it reports that Americans are disappointing conservative expectations it’s worth noting… -FmH]

Mickey Kaus: What Black Hawk Down leaves out; that Somalia raid really was more a debacle than a victory. Slate [No surprise unless you’re getting all your history from Hollywood… -FmH]

‘More people in America watch ‘Friends’ than have friends.’

“Leading American sociologist Robert Putnam made this semi-serious claim in a talk he gave recently to a large audience at the Brisbane Convention Centre.

Professor Putnam cites public health research which shows that people who are socially isolated are as much at risk of death as people who smoke.

Robert Putnam is the author of the term ‘social capital’, which refers to community bonds and interpersonal connections. These, he argues, are just as

important for the public good as economic wellbeing.

His bestselling book Bowling Alone: The Decline and Revival of American Community described how on many measures social capital has declined dramatically since the 1970s. Putnam analysed factors such as membership of voluntary organisations, how often people went on picnics, and levels of

philanthropy, and found sharp declines on all fronts.” abc.net.au

How a woman ‘nose’ who to mate

Women are designed to sniff out men with body odour similar to their fathers.

Researchers believe the discovery is an example of the way nature ensures the right individuals mate through subtle smell signals.

The research from the University of Chicago shows odours relate to the immune system genes a woman inherits from her father.

Ananova