“Anyone who thinks it’s a good sign that Lost is back has not spent enough time at the Web site of James Randi, a skeptical scholar of the pseudoscientific and the supernatural.

A fan recently posed this question online at randi.org: “Is a fascination and increased belief in the supernatural a sign of social decline?” The answer came as categorically as the words under the Magic 8-Ball: “Yes. Absolutely.”

By itself, Lost may not be a harbinger of the decline of Western civilization. But alongside Heroes, as well as Medium, Ghost Whisperer and Raines, a new NBC drama that begins in March and stars Jeff Goldblum as a detective who solves murders by appearing to commune with dead victims, the collapse looks pretty darn nigh.

Lost… is the most intriguing of all the series that traffic in the supernatural, mostly because it defies its own illogical reasoning…” (New York Times )

Koreans Share Their Secret for Chicken With a Crunch – New York Times: “Many Asian cooking traditions include deep-fried chicken, but the popular cult of crunchy, spicy, perfectly nongreasy chicken — the apotheosis of the Korean style — is a recent development.

In the New York area, Korean-style fried chicken places have just begun to appear, reproducing the delicate crust, addictive seasoning and moist meat Koreans are devoted to.” (New York Times )