Meet the Renaissance Man: Benjamin Franklin
I had no idea how prolific a writer Ben Franlin was. Here you can read a short biography of one American Founding fathers and learn how to educate yourself to be a great writer.
Benjamin Franklin
Continue ReadingCan Mrs. Clinton Lose?
By PEGGY NOONAN (WSJ)
If Hillary Clinton loses, does she know how to lose? What will that be, if she loses? Will she just say, “I concede” and go on vacation at a friend’s house on an island, and then go back to the Senate and wait? Is it possible she could be so normal? Politicians lose battles, it’s part of what they do, win and lose. But she does not know how to lose. Can she lose with grace? But she does grace the way George W. Bush does nuance.She often talks about how tough she is. She has fought “the Republican attack machine” that has tried to “stop” her, “end” her, and she knows “how to fight them.” She is preoccupied to an unusual degree with toughness. A man so preoccupied would seem weak. But a woman obsessed with how tough she is just may be lethal.
Confessions of a Young Hillary Supporter
This is the second story I read today about the primary that is funny.
By Alex Joseph in Slate
I’m a young male Democrat, and I support ... Hillary Clinton. I may be the loneliest man at Georgetown University, where I’m practically a social pariah. Supporting Hillary on a college campus this year is like being a Yankees fan at a Red Sox game, a Barry Manilow lover at a Radiohead concert. At Georgetown, the Obama supporters—devotees? cultists?—are everywhere. He’s the best thing to happen to college since campuses went co-ed. Red, white, and blue O’s line the windows of dorm rooms. It won’t take long for someone to invent a drinking game where you count the words change and hope in the senator’s stirring stump speech. (That would be 16 shots of headache, if his speech after the South Carolina primary was any indication.)
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The New York Times Editorial Board for the first time has second thoughts
As an Obama supporter, I was disappointed to read that the NY Times endorsed Hillary Clinton. Now one of editorial writers has gone to an Obama rally in California and is preparing himself for the defeat of Hillary.
EDITORIAL OBSERVER
Michelle, Maria, Caroline and Oprah on the Hustings in California
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL Los Angeles
Forty-eight hours before the closest thing America has ever had to a national primary, four extraordinary women put on the best campaign rally I’ve seen in 20 years of covering presidential politics. The pitch-perfect event in U.C.L.A.‘s basketball arena started like every other Barack Obama event—chants of “yes we can” and signs pitching the power of hope. Mr. Obama campaigned on the East Coast Sunday, but by the time this rally ended, Michelle Obama, Caroline Kennedy, Oprah Winfrey and Maria Shriver had crystallized the challenge Senator Hillary Clinton will face if she wins the Democratic nomination. She will have to figure out how to preserve the energy and excitement that Mr. Obama has stirred in his supporters, especially in once-alienated young voters.
Continue ReadingThere is static above the dinner table many Democratic families
I did not realize just how deeply families across the country are divided over who should be the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. Fortunately the air will clear within a few weeks.
In Democratic Families, Politics Makes for Estranged Bedfellows
By JODI KANTOR
Maria Shriver woke up Sunday morning and decided to surprise the audience at a rally for Senator Barack Obama in Los Angeles, materializing alongside Oprah Winfrey and telling the crowd she was there because she sought “an America that’s about unity.” But not the family kind. Ms. Shriver is a member of the Kennedy clan, and in the past week, her relatives have split over the Democratic race, publicizing their preferences on opinion pages and at campaign events.
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Sarah Silverman “I’m F*cking Matt Damon”
To appreciate this funny episode on Jimmy Kimmel Live, you need to understand the running spat between Jimmy Kimmel and Matt Damon. Watch the first two episodes before you see Sarah Silverman sing her song “I’m F*cking Matt Damon.”
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Henry Hertzberg on the Clintons vs. Obama
During the four or five weeks leading up to February 5th—“Tsunami Tuesday,” when voters in states with half the nation’s population participate in a not quite national primary—the emotional texture of the Democratic side of the Presidential campaign changed profoundly. For most of Year One of this insanely elongated process, the Democratic Party had been a peaceable kingdom. Its voters were proud of and pleased with the array of choices before them: proud of its diversity, pleased with its unity.
The Smell of Romantic Attraction
Different languages have come up with a way to express that the smell of other people has a profound effect how attracted we are to them. English talks about the “chemistry” that two people have. In German, you literally say “I cannot smell you” (Ich kann dich nicht riechen) to express that you don’t like another person. The Economist reports on the latest developments in the science of smell and interpersonal attraction.
How to find a mate: The scent of a woman (and a man)
A new kind of dating agency relies on matching people by their body odour
ONE of life’s little mysteries is why particular people fancy each other—or, rather, why they do not when on paper they ought to. One answer is that human consciousness, and thus human thought, is dominated by vision. Beauty is said to be in the eye of the beholder, regardless of the other senses. However, as the multi-billion-dollar perfume industry attests, beauty is in the nose of the beholder, too.
How the Brain Makes Moral Judgments
STEVEN PINKER pulls together in the New York Times magazine evidence that suggests that the human brain is pre-wired for developing a moral instinct. The article is a bit long but well worth reading.
The Moral Instinct
Which of the following people would you say is the most admirable: Mother Teresa, Bill Gates or Norman Borlaug? And which do you think is the least admirable? For most people, it
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