Art and the government make such strange bedfellows, as the new head of the National Endowment for the Arts recently demonstrated. In an interview with The New York Times, Rocco Landesman — the Broadway producer appointed to the post by President Obama — rose to defend his ward against the constant criticism of NEA funding: “The arts are a little bit of a target. The subtext is that it is elitist, left wing, maybe even a little gay.” Clearly not a fan of subtexts, Landesman is a frank leader of the nation’s art budget, especially when it comes to which parts of the nation should get a piece of the NEA’s financial pie. “I don’t know if there’s a theater in Peoria, but I would bet that it’s not as good as [Chicago’s] Steppenwolf or the Goodman,” Landesman told the Times. “There is going to be some push-back from me about democratizing arts grants to the point where you really have to answer some questions about artistic merit.” You can imagine how that played in Peoria.

more from Jesse Smith at The Smart Set here.

Idaho features in a famous palindrome: O had I nine more hero-men in Idaho! A palindrome is a word or sentence that is entirely reversible. Palindromic words include: kayak, sees, toot, rotavator (the longest), gig, level, mum and refer. Palindromic sentences are difficult to create without the sentence becoming nonsensical or non-grammatical. Good examples include: Stressed? Desserts! and Madam, in Eden, I’m Adam. But my favourite (because it tells a whole story) is: A man, a plan, a canal: Panama! Panama was the birthplace of Senator John Sidney McCain III (b. 1936), the 2008 Presidential nominee of the Republican Party. He was born at the Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone at a time when the Panama Canal was under American control. His choice of running mate for the Vice Presidency is, of course, Sarah Palin. She is not a relative of Monty Python comedian and world-travelling programme-maker Michael Palin but they may share a common ancestry as the name allegedly originates in Pavilly, Normandy and has been recorded as far back as 1066. It is also a Latin word. The term ‘palindrome’ was coined by English writer Ben Jonson in the 1600s from the Latin dromos (meaning ‘direction’) and palin (meaning ‘back’ or ‘backwards’). Sarah Palin (b. 1964) is the current governor of Alaska and was…

more from Stevyn Colgan at the London Times here.

When she set out to write about the crow — the black sheep of the avian world — the naturalist Lyanda Lynn Haupt didn’t relish the task. “I never meant to watch crows especially,” she admits in her curiously personal and thought-provoking meditation, “Crow Planet.” “Whenever I ask someone about chickadees or robins or flickers or other common birds . . . the response is almost always lackluster, noncommittal or at best blandly cheerful.” Crows, however, sometimes elicit raves (“They are so intelligent! And beautiful!”), but far more often insults (“loud,” “poopy,” “evil,” “menacingly bold,” “harbingers of death”). Haupt knew the dark history that fed this distaste. During the plague years in medieval Europe, crows “scavenged the bodies lying uncovered in the streets.” In 1666, she writes, after the great fire of London, so many crows descended on the victims that Charles II ordered a campaign against them to calm a horrified populace. And yet, as she trained her binoculars on the familiar but spooky creatures in her yard, Haupt found aspects of the corvid family that argued for more respect.

more from Liesl Schillinger at the NYT here.

The year 1939, when Europe was going up in flames and America clung to the hope that it need not become part of a world at war, turned out to be a miracle moment for Los Angeles fiction, seeing the publication of “The Big Sleep” by Raymond Chandler, John Fante’s “Ask The Dust,” and “The Day of the Locust” by Nathanael West (the latter just reissued in a new edition, along with “Miss Lonelyhearts,” by New Directions, $11.95), three books that distilled distinctly and in very different ways the city that was being written about, and have continued to dictate how Los Angeles is perceived today. Chandler reconfigured the noir map in a style still to be bettered and Fante’s bildungsroman showed a young man struggling in a dark, sunlit world that he nonetheless contrived to possess, but West’s book is the most merciless of the three, reflecting the anger, disappointment and violence that bubble and simmer beneath the city’s welcoming and glassy surface. The idea of Los Angeles as a site for apocalypse was already prevalent in the 1930s (Myron Brinig’s forgotten “The Flutter of an Eyelid” concludes with the city shearing away from the coastal shelf and cascading into the Pacific,) but West crystallized it.

more from Richard Rayner at the LA Times here.

Scott McLemee reads the anthropologist Karen Ho’s ethnography of bankers, traders and analysts, the tribe of elites who shape our world in the image of ‘Wall Street’s bulimic culture of expediency'.

From The National:

Long before talk about globalisation became inescapable, we used to hear prophesies of an emerging “global village.” This, as Marshall McLuhan assured everyone four decades ago, would be brought into being by the mass media, with their power to convey images and sound over long distances. The dominant culture of the previous five centuries had been organised, down to its very cells, by print. People got their information and their sense of the world through reading, silently and separately. Now this order of things had begun to dissolve. Audiovisual immediacy would turn the world into one big open-air marketplace. The existential terror of isolated individuals would soon be replaced by a new pattern of experience, post-literate and neo-tribal… something closer in spirit, perhaps, to lively cosmopolitan folk dancing.

To be sure, the bourgeois western individual is not exactly feeling on top of the world these days, especially when contemplating his or her retirement package; and the world does seem smaller. But its unification has not been quite so utopian as once predicted, and its pace has been set by a medium of communication that McLuhan largely ignored: namely, money.

The public square looks a lot less like Woodstock than it does a scene of generalised fear and trembling, with Detroit capitalists and Chinese peasants sharing in the dread. The pace and direction of economic change is attributed to the market. But the financial world has its own distinctive and powerful social norms, now described and analysed in Karen Ho’s Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street.

More here.

Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair:

Here is the most chilling way I can find of stating the matter. Until recently, “waterboarding” was something that Americans did to other Americans. It was inflicted, and endured, by those members of the Special Forces who underwent the advanced form of training known as sere (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape). In these harsh exercises, brave men and women were introduced to the sorts of barbarism that they might expect to meet at the hands of a lawless foe who disregarded the Geneva Conventions. But it was something that Americans were being trained to resist, not to inflict.

More here.

A Slow Poem

I place my finger with great care
on the sleeping magnificent body of my beloved.
The room is quiet and huge, the air still, so still
I hear dustmotes falling like leaves on the counterpane.

I stop my breathing and she fills me up
with swell of breath, the rise and fall of tides
so quiet and silver there, I am carried up and out of touch;

and she is far below me, curled into me,
her skin sufficient boundary, her dreams and trouble stilled.
Her troubles become diamond in my chest, I tip and balance

here beneath the ceiling, full of airy, thoughtful love, then fall
as slowly as leaves falling on a field,
until I settle there beside her, breathing her breath.

by Theo Dorgan

from What This Earth Cost Us
Publisher: Dedalus, Dublin, 2008

From The New York Times:

I’m aware of one — one — reader who doesn’t care for Lorrie Moore, and even that one seems a little apologetic about it. “Too . . . punny,” my friend explains, resorting to a pun as though hypnotized by the very tendency that sets off his resistance. For others, Moore may be, exactly, the most irresistible contemporary Ameri­can writer: brainy, humane, unpretentious and warm; seemingly effortlessly lyrical; Lily-Tomlin-funny. Most of all, Moore is capable of enlisting not just our sympathies but our sorrows. Her last book, the 1998 story collection “Birds of America,” included the unforgettable baby-with-­cancer story “People Like That Are the Only People Here,” a breathtakingly dark overture to a decade’s silence — as if the Beatles had exited on “A Day in the Life.” For many readers, the fact that Moore has now relieved an 11-year publishing hiatus is reason enough to start Google-mapping a route to the nearest surviving bookstore.

More here.

Amos Barshad in New York Magazine:

Arriving in theaters today is Rob Zombie's Halloween II, the tenth entry in the unkillable horror series. But just as durable as the franchise is its masked, teenager-murdering antagonist, Michael Myers, who, through the years, has suffered eight hilarious deaths (Myers was absent for Halloween III, for some reason), including ones by shooting, fire, beating by Paul Rudd, and Bustah Rhymes–administered electrocution. So before you hit the theater tonight to see how they kill him a ninth time, please enjoy this video recapping his eight offings so far. Click to watch!

Sabrina Tavernise in the New York Times:

KARACHI, Pakistan — Taliban fighters have long used this city of 17 million as a place to regroup, smuggle weapons and even work seasonal jobs. But recently they have discovered another way to make fast money: organized crime.

The police here say the Taliban, working with criminal groups, are using Mafia-style networks to kidnap, rob banks and extort, generating millions of dollars for the militant insurgency in northwestern Pakistan.

“There is overwhelming evidence that it’s an organized policy,” said Dost Ali Baloch, assistant inspector general of the Karachi police.

Jihadi-linked crime has surfaced in other Pakistani cities, like Lahore. But Karachi, the central nervous system of Pakistan’s economy, and home to its richest businessmen, is the hub. It has been free of the bombings that have tormented Pakistan’s other major cities this year, and some officials believe that is the result of a calculated strategy.

“This is where they come to hide, where they raise their finances,” said a counterterrorism official in Karachi. “They don’t want to disturb that.”

More here.

Influential clerics have begun to comment on the role of the Supreme Leader and its limitations. Anonymous clerics have reportedly gone even further, calling the Supreme Leader a dictator and calling for his removal — a stern warning to the regime that despite show trials, forced confessions, and continued street violence, support for protesters has strengthened among grand ayatollahs and other influential Shia clerics.

Bendix Anderson at Tehran Bureau:

Grand Ayatollahs in Support of Protesters (in order by most recent statement)

Though an exact list is hard to come by, experts agree that there are only a few dozen Grand Ayatollahs now living. Of those, only about two thirds live in Iran. Shia clerics earn the title of Grand Ayatollah through years of study, publishing papers and books on theological subjects, and gathering thousands or even hundreds of thousands of followers. Literally translated, grand ayatollah, or marja taqlid, means “source of emulation.”

Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri gave the regime a choice in an August 26 letter posted on his Facebook page: reinstate the rights of the people, compensate for damages, release innocent prisoners, and end show trials, or simply announce that Iran is neither a Republic nor an Islamic government. On August 18 he republished an opinion written six years ago against the use of forced confessions. In an August 4 letter he said: “With great surprise and deep sorrow, our dear and agonized nation these days is witnessing the broadcasting of the immoral, unethical and illegal forced confessions of their imprisoned loved ones,” according to his own translation. In a July 29 letter he asked whether the regime had failed to the learn to lessons of the failures of “the Shah and other despotic regimes.” He met with Grand Ayatollah Mousavi Ardabili and Grand Ayatollah Zanjani July 27 to discuss current events. He protested the attacks on Mahdi Karroubi and Abdollah Nouri outside of Friday Prayers in a July 21 letter posted on his website. A pro-Ahmadinijad website claimed July 13 that Montazeri suffers “severe memory disorders” and asks who has written statements attributed to the Grand Ayatollah. Montazeri responded by posting a photograph of a statement in his own handwriting on his website. On July 12, Montazeri wrote a fatwa calling the regime “un-Islamic.” He went on to say: “Injustice is the intentional opposition to the teachings of religion, the foundations of reasonableness, and rationality, and the national accords and consensus that have become the laws of the land. The ruler who opposes these is no longer qualified to rule.” He posted a July 8 statement to: “Protest the improper performance of official repression.” He has also called for three days of mourning for the death of Neda Agha-Soltan and other protesters. He has also said that, “No one in their right mind” could believe the election results,” in a statement issued June 16. Montazeri’s support for this June’s protesters is important but hardly surprising. Once the hand-picked successor to former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, Montazeri lost favor after protesting the executions of political prisoners in the late 1980s and spent years under house arrest in the holy city of Qom after criticizing the current Supreme Leader.

More here.

Dave Zirin and Sherry Wolf in The Nation:

World-class South African athlete Caster Semenya, age 18, won the 800 meters in the International Association of Athletics Federations World Championships on August 19. But her victory was all the more remarkable in that she was forced to run amid a controversy that reveals the twisted way international track and field views gender.

The sports world has been buzzing for some time over the rumor that Semenya may be a man, or more specifically, not “entirely female.” According to the newspaper The Age, her “physique and powerful style have sparked speculation in recent months that she may not be entirely female.” From all accounts an arduous process of “gender testing” on Semenya has already begun. The idea that an 18-year-old who has just experienced the greatest athletic victory of her life is being subjecting to this very public humiliation is shameful to say the least.

Her own coach Michael Seme contributed to the disgrace when he said, “We understand that people will ask questions because she looks like a man. It's a natural reaction and it's only human to be curious. People probably have the right to ask such questions if they are in doubt. But I can give you the telephone numbers of her roommates in Berlin. They have already seen her naked in the showers and she has nothing to hide.”

More here.

In the continuing controversy surrounding the president's U.S. citizenship, a new fringe group informally known as “Afterbirthers” demanded Monday the authentication of Barack Obama's placenta from his time inside his mother's womb. “All we are asking is that the president produce a sample of his fetal membranes and vessels—preferably along with a photo of the crowning and delivery—and this will all be over,” said former presidential candidate and Afterbirthers spokesman Alan Keyes, later adding that his organization would be willing to settle for a half-liter of maternal cord plasma.

More here.

People are drinking again in public in Baghdad for the first time since 2003; at a newly opened nightclub only ten minutes’ drive from Sadr City, the owner smiled broadly. “No more Jeish al-Mehdi,” he said. When I asked if all this was really attributable to the containment wall, one of my friends chimed in, smiling now too, “It is like zoo.” On the other side of the wall, however, the shop owners of Sadr City are not so happy. “Your business dies because of these stones,” one shop owner told me. We were standing on the eastern edge of the Sadr City, near where another wall had been built, running almost the entire length of the district. “The Americans . . . the Americans . . . This is their plan, not Iraqis. They directed the Iraqi government to do this—to hurt Sadr City and especially the Sadr movement. The neighborhood is already suffocating. And they put these stones to suffocate it more?” As we talked, an old woman squeezed through an opening in the barrier just large enough for a single person. After her came another, a man carrying a canister of cooking gas who tossed his purchase over the wall to a helpful bystander before squeezing through the crack and continuing on his way. “Is this Iraq?” the shop owner asked.

more from David Enders at VQR here.

Every time we speak of certain cities, we are saying something about Venice. When CNN.com asked its readers for their thoughts on the reconstruction of New Orleans, one Mississippi resident responded, “New Orleans has always had a European feel to it. Why not enhance this by making it like Venice, Italy? Leave the areas that didn’t flood as they are and make the rest like Venice with canals for roads and the houses and properties on concrete ‘islands.'” This was not one individual’s fantasy. Elsewhere, numbers of Americans confirmed the idea. “Rebuild New Orleans as a water-street city,” wrote a blogger. “It’s the natural way to solve all its problems,” a post that received a significant number of affirmative comments: “Good idea …”; “I really like this idea”; “It’s interesting that you’ve posted this idea, because I was thinking the exact same thing today”; “I think that this is a beautiful idea as long as someone finds a new home for all of the alligators.” As the hurricane was a “natural” disaster, Venice would be the “natural” outcome. Where did this sort of thinking come from? Bombay, which in early August suffered the worst floods in its history—at least a thousand dead, and twenty million displaced or homeless—never aroused a whisper of Venice. Its charming colonial architecture aside, to most observers, Bombay is already a disaster, not merely one waiting to happen.

more from Nikil Saval at n+1 here.

In the summer of 2007, Mahmood Mamdani found himself at a meeting of activists and politicians, listening to sentiments that had by then become quite common among a certain class of politically active Americans. The speakers were calling on the United Nations to send peacekeepers to Darfur. Fed up with the inability of African Union troops–who were already on the ground in western Sudan–to stop the ongoing bloodshed, they insisted that U.N. forces could do better. The United Nations, explained one politician, echoing a view you could have heard on any number of college campuses at the time, would grant “mercy” to the people of Darfur. Mamdani was appalled at what he was hearing. “The naivete of these assumptions was breathtaking,” he fumes in his new book, as he recalls the meeting. And it was not just this gathering that irked him. Other activists of his acquaintance were going even further. One friend was hoping that Americans would “impose a no-fly zone and … hit selected targets.” Meanwhile a “highly respected activist” had even raised the possibility of the United States sending its own ground troops to Sudan, or mustering troops from other countries for the humanitarian mission. Could Americans solve the problems of Darfur? an incredulous Mamdani asked. “Not really,” the activist replied.

more from Richard Just at TNR here.

North

Slow as sperm whales
we glide through the gloom
which is white
here on the heath

It holds fast to its own
conceding only
one post at a time

For an instant they flash
on the side of the road
like the little girl’s matches
in the fairytale
lighting us
until we return
to the hole in the ice
to breathe

by Gerður Kristný

Translation: Victoria Cribb
From: Höggstaður
Publisher: Mál og menning, Reykjavik, 2007

Fahad Rafique Dogar in Pakistan's The News (via Five Rupees, via Yes and No):

This is with reference to Dr A Q Khan’s column “Science of computers — part I” which appeared in your pages on Aug 19.

1. Dr Khan writes: “The computer is an essential part of 21st century life. Computer science is a fast-moving subject that gives rise to a range of interesting and often challenging problems. The implementation of today’s complex computer systems requires the skills of a knowledgeable and versatile computer scientist. Artificial intelligence — the study of intelligent behaviour — is having an increasing reference on computer system design. Distributed systems, networks and the internet are now central to the study of computing, presenting both technical and social challenges.”

Now compare this to the first paragraph of Undergraduate Prospectus 2009, University of Sussex(www.sussex.ac.uk/units/publications/ugrad2009/subjects/computing):

“Computing is an essential part of 21st-century life, and is an exceptionally fast-moving subject that gives rise to a range of interesting and challenging problems. The implementation of today’s complex computing systems, networks and multimedia systems requires the skills of knowledgeable and versatile computer scientists. Computer networks and the internet are now central to the study of computing and information technology, presenting both technical and social challenges. Artificial intelligence (AI) — the study of intelligent behaviour — is having an increasing influence on computer system design.”

More here.

From Salon:

In popular culture, female friendships often fall into two extreme camps: There are the giggling, cocktail-swilling BFFs of “Sex and the City” and the backstabbing bitches of “Gossip Girl” and “The Hills.” In real life, female friendship is a much trickier beast, filled with slippery contradiction and embarrassed envy, territory that Lucinda Rosenfeld stakes out in her new comic novel, “I'm So Happy for You.”

The book tracks the relationship between Wendy and Daphne, two college friends stumbling through their 30s in New York. But when Daphne — once the lonelyheart prone to making melodramatic late-night phone calls and falling for the wrong men — finds sudden bliss, Wendy finds herself mired in the kind of jealousy and self-pity that can get you blacklisted from the ya-ya sisterhood of the traveling pants.

More here.

From Scientific American:

Medical research can have big rewards—both in gratifying discoveries and in potentially turning them into profitable treatments. To achieve the former, researchers work hard. Very hard. To obtain the latter, they can start companies or sign commercial funding agreements—well before testing is over. So, do patients undergoing clinical trials for new treatments have a right to know about these monetary interests?

Legally, no. And no empirical data has tied researchers' financial interests in a study to negative outcomes for patients. In the past several years, however, more findings suggest that, ethically, patients should be informed prior to participating in a trial.

More here.