Monday Medley

What we read while blood doping with Lennay Kekua…

• So Deadspin broke the biggest sports story of 2013, by outing the nonexistence of Mani Te’o's girlfriend. The story got weirder and weirder as Te’o's complicity came under scrutiny, though he denies being anything but a victim.

• In other sports revelations, Lance Armstrong finally admitted using PEDs and blood doping. His interview with Oprah only made people angrier, though, as he failed to show contrition for destroying lives for sake of his lie.

• Even more sad sports news, as baseball lost two legends: Earl Weaver (of the famously profane “Manager’s Corner”) and Stan “The Man” Musial. Joe Posnanski, who profiled Musial a few years ago, remembered The Man, whose statistics are still amazing.

• Robert F. Chew, who played Proposition Joe on The Wire, also passed away last week.

• Tom Junod with a fascinating look at injuries in the NFL.

• It’s been over a week since the death of Aaron Swartz, but people are still seeing the case as an example of prosecutorial overreach and outright abuse of power. The career of Carmen Ortiz is being examined, as well as the powers generally given to prosecutors.

• Facebook introduced a search tool.

• David Remnick with a frightening look at the religious right in Israel.

• On student debt.

Monday Medley

What we read while Chicago public school students didn’t…

• What’s it liking living under Romneycare in Massachusetts? Speaking of Mitt Romney, how did he end up with $102 million in an IRA? And does any of this election’s ephemera really matter in the long run?

• Aleksandar Hemon goes behind the scenes with the Wachowskis for the making of Cloud Atlas.

• Nate Silver on predicting the weather.

• Comedian Chris Gethard earnestly tackles the topic of suicide.

• A primer to the Chicago teachers strike. Corey Robin tries to explain the backlash to teachers unions, and Digby says why firing “bad” teachers isn’t as simple as it sounds.

• Matt Stoller wonders when Bill Clinton became a liberal hero.

• Three new SNL cast members–all from Chicago–made their debut Saturday night.

• A response to Philip Roth’s letter to Wikipedia.

• Every stupid political conversation on Facebook.

• We will never get old of the Mike Francesa waking up GIF.

Monday Medley

What we read while demanding Indonesia refund our concert tickets…

• So that whole Facebook IPO thing turned out to be a real disaster, huh? With lawsuits and everything. Meanwhile, can Google beat Facebook at social networking?

• A GQ roundtable of TV’s most respected showrunners.

• Former Chief Justice Rehnquist tried to publish a novel. Former Chief Justice Burger wasn’t fond of female journalists. While you’re at it, read some other very interesting historical tidbits about Supreme Court justices at Kyle Graham’s new blog.

• In honor of Bob Dylan’s birthday, a collection of old Times articles about him.

• President Obama wants to extend his limitless power to use drones, but perhaps local governments can restrict drone surveillance. In other drone-related news, yet another article detailing the bipartisan consensus on foreign policy.

• Grantland breaks down Marc Maron’s WTF podcast.

• An elaborate marriage proposal.

• What has happened to the public intellectual in America?

• Slate defends Dharun Ravi’s sentence in the Tyler Clementi case.

• Phil Hartman died 14 years ago today. Our tribute.

Monday Medley

What we read while trying to find Ann Romney a job…

• The Trayvon Martin case took another turn last week, as George Zimmerman was arrested and charged with second degree murder. Meanwhile, a teacher in Michigan was fired for teaching the issue. And a little background on “Stand Your Ground” laws.

• Jonathan Franzen bashes the comma-then construction.

• Deadspin’s Drew Magary veers away from sports to detail the premature birth of his child.

• The Department of Justice sued Apple and several e-book publishers for price fixing in violation of federal Antitrust laws: here is a review of some key excerpts from the complaint. Amazon, of course, is thrilled.

• The Atlantic got more headlines with its cover story on Facebook and loneliness — “How Facebook and Twitter Are Saving and/or Wrecking the World” are easily marketable these days — we enjoyed their profile of video game innovator Jonathan Blow a tad more.

• Do drones make it too easy for America to wage war? There are already more wars than most Americans can keep track of…

• How liberals have turned their backs on Bradley Manning.

• Will Wilkinson and Bryan Caplan debate whether political/ideological labels are IQ-draining. Meanwhile, Will Wilkinson is (gradually) changing his career.

• Ashley Judd offers a scathing indictment of the media’s dissection of her face.

• Now that Rick Santorum has dropped out, making Mitt Romney’s nomination all but official, it’s time for the really important question about the 2012 election: Does it even matter?

• Ever want to live in an Ikea? How about a town owned and developed by Ikea?

• Matt Taibbi is no fan of President Obama’s JOBS Act.

• When even “good” schools fail to prepare students for college.

• When people cared about fonts.

• Has the NYPD turned on Commissioner Ray Kelly?

• A real love story…

• These animals aren’t mad, just disappointed.

Monday Medley

What we read while accidentally scoring a game-winning touchdown…

• Ken Jennings broke down the 10 best Super Bowls for trivia fans.

• In preparation for Facebook’s upcoming IPO (which will make millionaires out of some unexpected people), Mark Zuckerberg wrote a letter declaring the company’s mission statement. But what does Facebook actually sell?

• Two excellent but sad magazine pieces on suicide amongst gay teens: Rolling Stone tells the story of one small town’s “war” on gay teens, while Ian Parker of The New Yorker dispels a lot of the myths surrounding the tragic suicide of Tyler Clementi in this in-depth story. The lesson: Suicide is more complicated than most people think.

• Frank Rich analyzes Mitt Romney’s strange emptiness (though this story certainly makes him seem human, and even admirable). Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich hates Muslims.

• This week in Tales of the American Police State…

• Bryan Caplan’s opening statement on how deserving the poor are…

• What’s the deal with Lana Del Rey? Why does everyone hate her (except for Whitney Cummings)? Is she terrible, underrated, or just boringly mediocre? If she’s making Pitchfork angry, she’s probably a force for good…

• Some interesting, if expected, findingson male-female attractiveness differentials.

Monday Medley

What we read while Oprah commenced Phase Two…

• Bob Dylan celebrated his 70th birthday last week, and John S wasn’t the only one to mark the occasion. The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, and American Songwriter were among those to rank his best songs. Time also included a list of his worst. The Independent listed 70 reasons why Dylan is the most important figure in all of pop culture. All Things Considered even examined Dylan’s role in legal writings.

• On the more depressing side of the music front, Gil Scott-Heron, the “godfather of rap,” died. Known mostly for “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” (and now, for young folk, for being sampled by Kanye West) Heron was a prolific artist of all sorts despite problems with drug addiction noted in Alec Wilkinson’s profile of him last year.

• Jeffrey Toobin tries to pinpoint Fred Wilpon’s role in Bernie Madoff’s theft and manages to get Wilpon to criticize all of his star players in the process. Tom Verducci, on the other hand, manages to get Wilpon to discuss how much he’s going to cut the team’s payroll. Across town, Jorge Posada’s recent antics don’t change his place among the greatest catchers ever (something John S highlighted last year). And David Cone talks about his love of advanced statistics.
• Tyler Cowen continues to be the man of hour, getting a glowing profile in this week’s Business Week.
• Do conjoined twins share a mind? There is video demonstrating that they do. While the conjoined twins’ parents were faced with a challenge, another set of parents created their own challenge by choosing to raise their child genderless.

• Stop blaming Facebook for your online behavior… and start spelling your status updates correctly.

• Wright Thompson tries to get to the bottom of Harvey Updyke, the man who may or may not (well, he almost certainly did) have poisoned the Toomer’s Corner oak trees at Auburn. L. Jon Wertheim takes a look into the sordid legacy of Tiki Barber, including the best Anne Frank reference since Arrested Development went off the air.

• How accurately does Parks and Recreation portray small-town politics, and (in the comments section of aforelinked article), does it matter? Parks and Recreation star Amy Poehler gives Harvard’s 2011 Class Day Speech mentioning that Boston College (her alma mater) is the Harvard of Boston.

• Lester Freamon as Othello and Jimmy McNulty as Iago? Sign us up, even if it does require a Transatlantic flight.

Malcolm Gladwell, Egypt, and Social Media

With all that is going on in Egypt and all over the rest of the Arab world, Malcolm Gladwell is focusing on the most important thing: He’s making sure nobody gives Twitter and Facebook too much credit for this, since we all know that social media is useless when it comes to affecting social change:

“But surely the least interesting fact about them is that some of the protesters may (or may not) have at one point or another employed some of the tools of the new media to communicate with one another. Please. People protested and brought down governments before Facebook was invented. They did it before the Internet came along. Barely anyone in East Germany in the nineteen-eighties had a phone—and they ended up with hundreds of thousands of people in central Leipzig and brought down a regime that we all thought would last another hundred years—and in the French Revolution the crowd in the streets spoke to one another with that strange, today largely unknown instrument known as the human voice.”

Is there something weaker than straw? I am honestly flabbergasted that someone as bright as Gladwell wrote these words. NOBODY IS CLAIMING THAT SOCIAL MEDIA INVENTED SOCIAL PROTESTS. STOP ARGUING WITH A CLAIM NOBODY ON THE PLANET HAS EVER ONCE MADE. This is like saying, “People got from one place to another before cars. Our ancestors who crossed the Bering Straight had nothing but their own two feet! So who gives a shit about a cars?”

Monday Medley

What we read while calling Klondike 5-3226…

• New York Magazine had a strong week, assessing our current libertarian moment, the Columbia (University) drug circle, and, of course, eats. Reason, mentioned multiple times in the libertarian moment article, comments on it. Reason also directs us to an exchange between Judge Alex Kozinski and libertarian writer (and descendant) David Friedman on jury nullification.

• In keeping with our tagline, a heartfelt look at Homer in “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire,” which reminds us of Tim’s exploration of The Simpsons‘ Season One.

• Speaking of judges, C-Span has just posted a lengthy interview with new Justice Elena Kagan.

• And speaking of New York, last week’s storm turned out to be a big embarrassment for the city.

• Facebook passed Google as the most visited website in America this year. Meanwhile, those stupid twins won’t shut up and go away. And the big question now is how long Facebook can hold off the totally up-to-date and not-in-any-way-untouched-since-1997 website for Space Jam. That gives us Geocities flashbacks.

• Is the relationship between age and happiness really U-shaped?

• This interview The Big Lead did with Deion Sanders can best be described as awkwardly unproductive, while over at Deadspin someone took Gregg Easterbrook to task for his preachy bullshit.

• We posted Roger Ebert’s best films of 2010 last week. This week he gives us is top ten foreign films of the year. And if that doesn’t slake your thirst for foreign cinema, take a peek at Empire‘s 100 best of all-time, compiled way back in June. John S mentioned two of the top 20 in Aught Lang Syne’s look at cinema.

• Yeah, there’s some irony here…

Monday Medley

What we read while asking and telling like crazy…

• The best of longform journalism in 2010. Do we need any more links this week? Oh fine, whatever.

• How cool is this? The New York Times asked several industry experts in 1931 what the world would look like in 2011; their answers are by turns enlightening and hilarious.

• It was a week of Joe Posnanski writing about pitchers, with his thoughts on Cliff Lee signing with Philadelphia, on Zack Greinke’s trade demands, and on the late Bob Feller.

• In other sports journalism news, here’s an oldie from Sports Illustrated in which Gary Smith breaks down the trials of Rickie Parker. Buzz Bissinger is cool with Cam Newton. And the Fayetteville Observer‘s Dan Wiederer unleashed a fantastic and in-depth look at Mike Krzyzewski, including a dig at K’s fascination with criticizing our old student newspaper stomping grounds. Joe Drews was right!

• 60 Minutes had a fascinating feature on superior autobiographical memory, a rare characteristic where individuals remember ordinary details from every day of their lives. Dr. James McGaugh, the neurobiologist behind the study of these individuals, has an interesting academic background.

• Mark Zuckerberg is Time‘s Person of the Year, for reasons that apparently have to do with more than the fact that he had a movie made about him this year. He seems honored. And hey, that new profile allows for some artistic creativity!

• In other award news, this man’s mantle as Christmas’ chief hatemonger has been passed on to our very own John S.

• Tyler Cowen explains the truth about income inequality. Cowen also linked to this, um, intriguing dating website profile of Julian Assange. And, making Josh ecstatic, Cowen gives an “informal audit” of the past ten issues of the New York Times Magazine’s Year in Ideas in this year’s issue.

• In the wake of Season Five of Dexter, Esquire explains how the character is the new face of American justice… or something like that.

• When Parents Text is this week’s FML.

Monday Medley

What we read while appreciating the human element…

• Two stunning technological developments this week: one involves Google (in the transportation industry!) and and another does not involve Google (but involves rat brain cells).

• John S wasn’t the only one to criticize Malcolm Gladwell’s analysis of social media’s relationship to activism. Maria Popova had a well-written retort, and Angus Johnston had a reply at The Huffington Post. Gladwell, for his part, responded by belittling Twitter again and calling Johnston a narcissist. Tim mentioned Gladwell’s session with Bill Simmons at The New Yorker Festival in Unabated to the Quarterback, but here’s the Deadspin rundown in case you missed it (amidst the Duke Thesis and Brett Favre, umm, pictures).

• Mitch Hurwitz, the genius behind Arrested Development, gave two interviews last week about trying to make his new series, Running Wilde, more viewer-friendly than Arrested Development was. The interviews may sound troubling, but NPI is enjoying the new series enough to offer an endorsement.

• In the wake of The Social Network, which John S reviewed yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg made a historic donation to Newark public schools. Some people had questions about the donation’s timing, but Jose Antonio Vargas tried to get at the root of Zuckerberg’s idiosyncrasies. Meanwhile, New York did a feature on Aaron Sorkin and the making of the film.The New Republic‘s Lawrence Lessig liked the film, but said it fell short of what it could have been.

• We doubt we could construct a better theoretical piece of sports journalism than Joe Posnanski on Vin Scully. It works practically, as well.

• To appease Tim’s burgeoning Auburn fandom (WAR EAGLE!) on a week where Alabama lost, here’s a multi-angle view at QB Cam Newton’s remarkable throw on Saturday night (Tim: “College football play of the century, obvs”) and an in-depth look at one of the University’s most well-known recent grads. You may not know who Alice Fraasa is, but we bet you’ve seen her. Both, by the way, are courtesy of the excellent War Eagle Reader (for all the other, NPI/Auburn fans).

• Is this a libertarian failure or success?

• The new Supreme Court class photo is out: Scalia’s looking old and Ginsburg’s looking, umm, uncomfortable?

• Two games that are, indeed, all about corners — Monopoly and The Wire — together at last.

• It seems fair to call Courrier International‘s “Learn to anticipate” ads in, well, poor taste.

• We were going to read this article on procrastination, but we never got around to it….