Airport security in America is a sham—“security theater” designed to make travelers feel better and catch stupid terrorists. Smart ones can get through security with fake boarding passes and all manner of prohibited items—as our correspondent did with ease. If I were a terrorist, and I’m not, but if I were a terrorist—a frosty, tough-like-Chuck-Norris [...]
Archive for December, 2009
The Things He Carried
Posted in Other on December 28, 2009 | Comments Off
The Big Zero
Posted in Economy and business, Editorials and opinion on December 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Maybe we knew, at some unconscious, instinctive level, that it would be an era best forgotten. Whatever the reason, we got through the first decade of the new millennium without ever agreeing on what to call it. The aughts? The naughties? Whatever. (Yes, I know that strictly speaking the millennium didn’t begin until 2001. Do [...]
The God Gene
Posted in Religion on December 28, 2009 | Comments Off
How is a church like a can opener? Among the pleasures of using evolutionary logic to think about matters nonbiological, one is getting to ask questions like that. The evolutionary take on a cultural fact like religion or warfare can cut through the fog of judgment and show how a social institution solves some mechanical [...]
The Body Electric
Posted in Other on December 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Two years ago, in his book “Rocketeers,” Michael Belfiore celebrated the pioneers of the budding private space industry. Now he has returned to explore a frontier closer to home. The heroes of his new book, “The Department of Mad Scientists,” work for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as Darpa, a secretive arm [...]
More Carbon Dioxide May Create a Racket in the Seas
Posted in Energy and Environment on December 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Here is another consequence of rising carbon dioxide emissions: the oceans are getting louder. It has long been known that chemical compounds in seawater, including boric acid, absorb sound, as energy from sound waves stimulates certain reactions. As the oceans grow more acidic, a result of increasing absorption of atmospheric CO2, the seawater chemistry changes, [...]
Add Venom to Arsenal of Dinosaurs on the Hunt
Posted in Natural sciences on December 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Some dinosaurs, it is known, were ferocious creatures — using claws, jaws, teeth, horns or even tails to subdue their prey. But did some use poison, too? A group of paleontologists has found evidence to suggest that at least one dinosaur, the birdlike raptor Sinornithosaurus, was venomous. It probably used its poison to stun small [...]
Today in History – December 28
Posted in This day in history, tagged December 28 on December 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Today is Monday, Dec. 28, the 362nd day of 2009. There are 3 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History On Dec. 28, 1832, John C. Calhoun became the first vice president of the United States to resign, stepping down because of differences with President Andrew Jackson. On this date In 1065, the [...]
Picturing the Past 10 Years
Posted in Other on December 28, 2009 | Comments Off
___________ Full article and photo: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/12/27/opinion/28opchart.html
Andre Brink’s top 10 novels
Posted in Literature on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Andre Brink’s books include An Instant in the Wind and Rumours of Rain, both of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His new novel, The Other Side of Silence, about colonial Africa in the early 20th century, is published by Secker. 1. Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust Still the most remarkable demonstration [...]
Stella Duffy’s top 10 tart noir books
Posted in Literature on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
“Tart noir, the loose conglomerate of like-minded women writers, is now an anthology. For this collection Lauren Henderson and I commissioned original stories from 20 women writers, half US-based and half in the UK. We asked the authors to ‘push themselves’ – to go for something nastier or sexier or funnier or darker. We wanted [...]
Mike Gayle’s top 10 male confessionals
Posted in Literature on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Mike Gayle’s books include My Legendary Girlfriend, Mr Commitment and Turning Thirty. His latest, Dinner for Two, is the tale of a music journalist turned agony uncle with a ticking biological clock. 1. Unreliable Memoirs by Clive James OK, so it’s not strictly a novel but, as Mr James puts it, Unreliable Memoirs isn’t exactly [...]
Hallgrímur Helgason’s top 10 books
Posted in Literature on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Hallgrímur Helgason is the author of 101 Reykjavik, a comic tale of slacker culture in the Icelandic capital. The book was recently made into a film with a soundtrack by Damon Albarn. 1. Independent People by Halldor Kiljan Laxness The greatest Icelandic novel and surely one of the best books of the 20th century, this [...]
Randal Keynes’s favourite books about evolution
Posted in Literature on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Randal Keynes is Darwin’s great-great-grandson. He is also the author of Annie’s Box, an exploration of family life in the Darwin household and the effect on Darwin of the death of his ten-year-old daughter Annie. On Evolution – The Development of the Theory of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin, edited by Thomas Glick and David [...]
Jeffrey Moore’s top 10 campus novels
Posted in Literature on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Jeffrey Moore is the author of Red-Rose Chain, a tale of a romantic Yorkshireman who teaches Shakespeare with forged credentials at a Montreal university. Red-Rose Chain won the Commonwealth Best First Book Award in 2000. 1. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis Going out on a limb here, I know. With its themes of “orgiastic boredom” [...]
Philip Bobbitt’s top 10 books on international affairs
Posted in Literature on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Philip Bobbitt is a former senior official of the US government and holds a chair in constitutional law at the University of Texas. His latest book is The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History. 1. The Iliad by Homer It implicitly asserts that no particular people, era or group is intrinsically [...]
Andrew Dalby on lost and threatened languages
Posted in Literature on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Andrew Dalby is a linguist and historian; the languages in his repertoire include Sanskrit, Pali, French, Latin, Greek, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, German, and Burmese. His latest book, Language in Danger, considers the consequences of the current language crisis, in which a language is dying every two weeks. 1. The Indus Valley script Written on clay [...]
Tom Cox’s top 10 coming-of-age books
Posted in Literature on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Tom Cox is a journalist and music critic. His first book, Nice Jumper, is a coming-of-age memoir about adolescent boys, golf and Nottingham. 1. Goodbye Columbus by Philip Roth Philip Roth can be soft and vivid as well as ranting and impenetrable, and here’s the proof: 97 pages that tell you everything you need to [...]
Christina Koning’s top 10 comic novels
Posted in Literature on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Christina Koning’s latest novel, Fabulous Time, is a comedy of manners set in the English summer of 1967. Her previous book, Undiscovered Country, won the Encore Prize and was longlisted for the Orange Prize. “The Golden Age of the English comic novel was (arguably) from the 1920s to 1950s, and most of the novels I’ve [...]
China Miéville’s top 10 weird fiction books
Posted in Literature on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
China Miéville is the author of King Rat and Perdido Street Station, which won the Arthur C Clarke Award 2001 and the British Fantasy Award 2001. His latest novel, The Scar, is a seaborne fantasy. “I don’t think you can distinguish science fiction, fantasy and horror with any rigour, as the writers around the magazine [...]
Maggie O’Farrell’s top 10 chillers
Posted in Literature on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Maggie O’Farrell’s debut novel, After You’d Gone, won the Betty Trask award. Her follow-up, My Lover’s Lover, plays with the supernatural: it is an unnerving story of obsession and the strange connection we have with our partners’ past lovers. 1. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg A strangely lucid [...]
Sarah Waters’s top 10 Victorian novels
Posted in Literature on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Sarah Waters is the author of three thrillers set in Victorian London. Her latest, Fingersmith, is on the Orange prize longlist, and has been described as a modern Woman in White. 1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë Marred only by the fact that Charlotte clearly liked Mr Rochester too much; but we can forgive her [...]
Eoin Colfer’s top 10 children’s books
Posted in Literature on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl has been hailed as the best thing since JK Rowling; he describes it as “Die Hard with fairies”. The story of a 12-year-old criminal mastermind who kidnaps a leprechaun, it provoked a fierce bidding war and secured a £500,000 advance. 1. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain A classic tale of the [...]
Peter Taylor’s top 10 books on the Troubles
Posted in Literature on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Peter Taylor, a journalist and documentary filmmaker, has covered the Irish conflict for 30 years. In his trilogy about the Troubles, he explores events from the points of view of the republicans, the loyalists, and now the British. Brits: The War Against the IRA charts the covert operations against the IRA and the road to [...]
Technology Predictions Are Mostly Bunk
Posted in Computers, Editorials and opinion, Other on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Bill Gates, 1981: ‘No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer.’ ‘Tis the season for predictions, so “Information Age” bravely goes out on this limb: Most technology predictions for 2010 won’t come true. The more we learn about how innovation happens, the less straight the lines of advance look. [...]
Definin’ the Blues
Posted in Arts and Entertainment, Language on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
What were they singing about? When I was 12 years old, I found a Count Basie album in my father’s record collection that contained a 1941 performance of “Goin’ to Chicago Blues” by Jimmy Rushing and the Basie band. That was the record that made me fall in love with the blues—though it goes without [...]
Today in History – December 27
Posted in This day in history, tagged December 27 on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Today is Sunday, Dec. 27, the 361st day of 2009. There are four days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History On Dec. 27, 1968, Apollo 8 and its three astronauts made a safe, nighttime splashdown in the Pacific. On this date In 1512, Ferdinand II issued the Laws of Burgos to “regulate the [...]
The Case Against the New Year
Posted in Living, Poetry on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Midnight revelry amounts to sheer malarkey; in praise of a sober morning celebration A 19th century scene of a Japanese New Year’s festival. The islands of the Kingdom of Tonga, the only surviving monarchy in the Pacific, are tropical, but not quite a paradise. The largest people in the world live there, and they eat [...]
A Christmas Trilogy
Posted in Arts and Entertainment on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Berlioz’s intimate, inventive ‘L’Enfance du Christ’ From Handel’s “Messiah” to Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” most everyone has his favorite seasonal music. Mine is Hector Berlioz’s trilogy, “L’Enfance du Christ” (The Infancy of Christ), a surprisingly intimate score from a composer best known for such blockbusters as the “Symphonie Fantastique” and the towering Requiem. “L’Enfance du [...]
The Nine-Day Reign
Posted in History on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
An odd blip in British royal history hinted at big changes to come Thanks to Philippa Gregory’s novels and Hollywood costume dramas, many of us have a vague sense of the troubles that surrounded Henry VIII’s succession. Too many wives and only one son put the kingdom’s future in doubt. We may vaguely remember that [...]
‘He Just Does What He Thinks Is Right’
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics on December 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Cannon to the left of him, cannon to the right of him, cannon in front of him volley and thunder. That’s our president’s position on the political battlefield now, taking it from all sides. And the odd thing, the unique thing in terms of modern political history, is that no one really defends him, no [...]
