Monday Medley

What we read while going undrafted yet again…

• Some follow up on the Tsarnaevs and the Boston bombing: Dzokhar Tsarnaev was charged with the crime and could face the death penalty (though Alan Dershowitz persuasively arguing against it here). But did the Surveillance State work as planned? Should the FBI have listened to Russia more? What happend to the wrongly accused Brown student? Should we, as NYC Mayor Bloomberg suggested, “change our interpretation” of the Constitution? And were drones part of the motivation?

• Speaking of drones, the harrowing testimony of a Yemeni citizen on the effects of drone strikes in his country. This also comes on the heels of Jeremy Scahill’s new book on the drone wars.

• Are trailer parks the future?

• Bradley Manning is not welcome at the SF Gay Pride parade, that alleged bastion of tolerance and freedom.

• To go to grad school or not to go…

• Matt Taibbi on yet another Wall Street scandal. Will this lead to the end of Too Big To Fail banks?

• Everyone loves Winnie Cooper.

• Don’t let the George W. Bush Library fool you into misremembering his legacy.

• Noam Chomsky on civil liberties under President Obama. And George Will weighs in on abridging the Constitution. But Canada can infringe on civil liberties too…

• Prisoners are now reviewing their prisons on Yelp.

Monday Medley

What we read while waiting in line for gas…

• So, there was some kind of storm last week. Hurricane Sandy made landfall last Monday, cutting off power to millions along the East Coast and killing over 100 people. New York City and New Jersey were hit the hardest, as public transportation was down for days and is still not fully operational. Images from the storm were harrowing, including these from Coney Island and two different amusement park rides caught in the water. Power in lower Manhattan was gone for days, leaving it a kind of ghost town. And, of course, the storm left behind stories of tragedy, but also amazing stories of survival.

• Of course, in the wake of the storm, there were other concerns: What was the role of global warming in the hurricane? Will any politicians, besides NYC Mayor Bloomberg that is, talk about the issue now? What is the proper role of FEMA? Has Occupy Wall Street outperformed the Red Cross in its recovery efforts? Will local businesses recover or sink in debt? How can New Yorkers get gas? How long with the recovery last? How could the flooding have been prevented? Did Twitter spread false information or not? Is this a victory for “Big Government”? Will people need to use vacation days if they work for James Dolan? How did New York’s talk shows go on? And what happened to all of New York City’s rats?!

• New Jersey’s own Star-Ledger delivered remarkable covers throughout the week.

• “By midnight, the worst is over. By dawn, it is visible.”

• Now for some non-Sandy stuff: Louis C.K. hosted Saturday Night Live!

• Joe Posnanski on the baseball playoffs.

• Disney bought LucasFilm and announced plans for a new Star Wars movie. Here’s an old look at the original film. At least some good will come out of it…

• Chris Hedges endorsed Jill Stein for President.

• Will Leitch endorsed the Knicks.

• The government appears to be winging it at Guantanamo Bay.

• Did the press cover up important facts about Benghazi?

• Will college football decide tomorrow’s election?

Monday Medley

What we read while hiding safely in a midnight showing of Ice Age 3…

• Friday’s tragedy in Aurora, CO has the town and the rest of the country mourning. One of the victims narrowly avoided a similar tragedy just over a month ago. The shooting has also reawakened the debate on gun control. As NYC Mayor Bloomberg said: “Expressing sympathy is nice…but somebody has to do something about this.” James Fallows says that more shootings are a certainty–Will Wilkinson even wonders why we don’t see more of them. Of course, the odds of anything really changing are small.

• Antonin Scalia and his working relationship with Bryan Garner, the subject of David Foster Wallace’s famous essay on English usage.

• Speaking of Justices, some interesting memoranda from Chief Justice Roberts’s days in the Reagan administration (more than one involve Michael Jackson).

• Quite the interactive graphic detailing the use of stop-and-frisks in NYC.

• BuzzFeed offers the best response to a McSweeney’s parody ever.

• The weird relationship between Chris Christie and Bruce Springsteen.

• How much money is actually kept in offshore bank accounts?

• The use of drones… in North Dakota.

• On the implications of the A/B test.

Monday Medley

What we read while we all just got along…

• A look at how Jim Messina is running Obama’s reelection campaign like a business. Part of that, presumably is this recently-released list of Obama’s accomplishments that’s mostly a list of people he’s killed. Speaking of which, a young Yemeni explains how drones help Al Qaeda.

• Thoughts on the career of Vladimir Guerrero.

• In addition to banning soda, Mayor Bloomberg is trying to sell off the city’s parking meters.

• Matthew Weiner talks about the Mad Men finale in a couple of interviews.

• How have we only recently discovered the online existence of the original series bible for The Wire?

• Elizabeth Wurtzel says what it takes to be a real feminist. And speaking of feminism, a depressing look at Barbie and Ken.

• I’m sure Karl Marx would at least appreciate the irony…

Monday Medley

What we read while Reagan’s ghost cleaned up the mess at UC-Davis…

• In the real darkest timeline, Community was left off of NBC’s mid-season schedule, though NBC insists the show isn’t actually cancelled. Fans of the show are panicking and taking to the Internet to express their outrage. Alison Brie even showed up on The Soup (which may actually have more viewers than Community) to hype the show. The last episode of the show bore some resemblance to this recent GQ story.

• In news from the other end of TV comedy spectrum, Arrested Development has a new home!

• An in-depth look at sex education.

• States all across the country have been coordinating with federal law enforcement and barring media access and destroying books (America truly is the land of the free…) while they shut down the Occupy Wall Street protests. There’s a decent argument that this will help the movement in the long run, but don’t tell that to the elderly women and peaceful students who’ve been getting pepper sprayed. There have been questions about the police response throughout the country. Some of the most damning footage has come from UC-Davis, where some faculty have expressed outrage and are calling for the resignation of the school chancellor. Two police officers have been placed on administrative leave.

• Meanwhile, the 1% really want to pay more taxes.

• Life pokes fun at itself with its 20 worst covers.

• The tragedy at Penn State continues to unfold, with more reactions pouring in from all sorts of perspectives, including a priest’s and a whistleblower’s. Plus, here’s the full transcript of Bob Costas’ interview with Jerry Sandusky, for which he had 15 minutes to prepare.

• On the other end of college athletics spectrum, Coach K passed Bobby Knight for the most wins in Division I college basketball.

• Roger Craig pulled off possibly the coolest move in Jeopardy history in last week’s Tournament of Champions. Esquire‘s Chris Jones breaks it all down. Jones also spent a Friday in Cambridge talking craft with Gay Talese. You won’t believe what Talese takes his notes on.

• Speaking of Alex Trebek, Matthew Weiner has a bone to pick with him. Also, an inside look at the Nielsen numbers.