The New Republic: The Weight of the World
As Richard Simmons prances up the steps of the Cannon House Office Building, he bypasses the assembled congressmen and their aides stationed at a podium and marches straight toward the swarm of news cameras at the far end of the veranda. With a sudden, two-armed wave that could, it seems plausible, lead to a backbend, Simmons wails out “Hi everybody, how are we feeling today?” Footloose’s “Let’s Hear it for the Boy” begins to blare from an unseen loudspeaker. The crowd of mostly congressional interns and Hill staffers in various states of smile-plastered bemusement cheer into their cell phones, which they use to alternately take pictures and text. Richard Simmons striding through a crowd of Washington suits in a bright red tank-top-and-tiny-shorts... read more...
The Nation: Open Gates
Before Henry Lewis Gates took the podium under the big white tent at the Marthas Vineyard Book Festival on August 1, a woman turned to her companion and at an elevated decibel announced, "I don't care for the way he brought race into it." Thirty minutes later, the "it," the "incident," the "arrest" was utterly pardoned and everyone was smitten and nobody kvetched. On Officer Crowley, his "newest friend," he quipped; "I offered to get his kids into Harvard...if he doesn't arrest me ever again." The crowd, needless to say, went wild. After chronicling his family's Caucasian heritage -- he descended from a gratuitously fruitful Irish king -- Gates declared; "Affirmative action cannot be race-based. It must be class-based. Poverty in this country is,” [beat, hand raised in air] “color blind." His book, "In Search of Our Roots," sold out within minutes.
GQ: The Men Who Stare at Nothingness: Meditation Training in the US Military
In 2009, the U.S. Department of Defense gave $2 million to Dr. Amishi Jha and her team of neuroscientists at the University of Pennsylvania to see if meditation can help soldiers stay sane and focused in warzones. Their latest published research is promising, signifying the kind of breakthrough that could transform the way American servicemen perform, react, and live through war. And given that all data everywhere conceivable shows that war veterans suffer from PTSD and suicidal depression at inexcusable rates, this research, Dr. Jha and the U.S. military hope, could potentially abate those terrible statistics. GQ recently spoke with Dr. Jha to parse out the science of breathing deeply, and the implications of an ultimately chill-er military. read more...
GQ: The Most Dangerous Accountant in America: An Interview with Bernie Madoff's Whistleblower
For the first time in years, Harry Markopolos isn't carrying a loaded gun. He's not bolting his office door and flinching when the phone rings. Now, after a decade of dismissal and paranoia, everybody knows what Harry knew: Bernie Madoff was defrauding investors out of tens of billions of dollars through a Ponzi scheme while nobody in the federal government batted an eyelash. With the release and best-sellerdom of his new book No One Would Listen, Harry Markoplolos talked with GQ about the criminal insanity of Bernie Madoff, the ineptitude of lawyers, and the need to overthrow America's financial regulatory system as we know it... read more...
Salon.com: Yasmin: Hopelessly Mixed Messages
When it was first FDA approved in the early 1960s, the birth control pill, like most popularly ingested substances of the era, carried a relatively high risk of stopping your heart. It was called Enovid and the problem was its extreme concentration of estrogen. Concerned, researchers and the pharmaceutical companies who pay them set out to formulate a new, low-estrogen contraceptive chemical, and in 2000, Yasmin was born.
The Huffington Post: Kids Say The Darndest Things At Anti-Tax Tea Parties
Q: Why are you here?
Mother: To oppose Obama's trillion dollar budget. To cut the pork.
Samuel: For the pork.
Q: How do you feel about pork spending?
Samuel: I like pork.
Mother: No you don't. We don't like excess spending.
Samuel: I do. I like pork.
Mother: To oppose Obama's trillion dollar budget. To cut the pork.
Samuel: For the pork.
Q: How do you feel about pork spending?
Samuel: I like pork.
Mother: No you don't. We don't like excess spending.
Samuel: I do. I like pork.
The College Hill Independent: Scenes Of The Inauguration: A Report From The Front Line
Between Louisiana and First St. on inauguration morning, there are people in overcoats packed like chickens in a factory farm. The evening news that night and for the next several cycles will refer to the events in the five square blocks surrounding the Purple Gate access point to the Capitol lawn as a “nightmare,” a “fiasco.” The talking heads will term it all “Purplegate.” They’ll refer to one waiting area as a “tunnel of doom,” which it was. There are the people, tired and furious, who will not be admitted, despite proper documentation, to the Capitol Lawn [...]
