Monday Medley

What we read while Pussy Riot got legitimately raped…

• Some Julian Assange drama last week: First, Ecuador granted asylum to the Wikileaks founder. Then the UK threatened to storm the embassy and extradite Assange anyway. Ecuador did not like that one bit. Assange, while holed up in the Embassy in London, spoke to supporters and called on President Obama to end the witch hunt on Wikileaks.

• Pussy Riot, the Russian punk band, was sentenced to two years in a prison camp for something called “hooliganism.” The New Republic had the definitive account of the trial two weeks ago — “Question is struck!” — and N+1 translated the Dostoevskian closing statements from the band.

• Judge Richard Posner discusses leisure time and the misery of old England in a book review.

• Joe Posnanski discusses the challenge of writing Joe Paterno’s biography.

• Simon Rich tells us how to write in any medium.

• The worst insurance company ever…

• The worst idea for a restaurant ever…

• How should we evaluate the reliability of online reviews?

Monday Medley

What we read while wondering what the original Holy Saturday was like…

• As fans of Ron Swanson and baseball, we very much approve of this attempt to bridge the two.

• For anyone who doesn’t understand Passover, this extended version of the Four Questions pretty much explains it all.

• Tom Scocca v. Chris Jones! Writer feud!

• Jones also talks about Jon Krakauer’s takedown of Three Cups of Tea author Greg Mortensen and its ramifications for non-fiction writers.

• Noam Chomsky asks if the world is too big to fail.

• A brief history of Humblebrag may qualify as its own best example.

• The WNBA’s next slogan: Take a gamble!

• For all our soccer aficionados, the Cosmos!

• Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock, among others, talked about the art of comedy on HBO’s Talking Funny.

Monday Medley

What we read while intentionally walking Josh Hamilton….

• Mad Men‘s fourth season, which John S reviewed this week, concluded last Sunday, and Vulture featured a series of interviews with the show’s cast and creative team. They also wondered when Betty Draper became such a monster, and if Don disappointed his fans. Also, here’s Alan Sepinwall’s breakdown of the finale.

• One of the Tea Party’s founders tells the Tea Party to go screw itself.

• There are A LOT of people with college degrees and they do things that, you know, lesser-educated people do.

• If there’s anything more intriguing than a literary mystery, we don’t know what it is. This week: Jane Austen wasn’t as good as everyone thought! (Psh…we’ve known that for years.)

• “This site records my foolhardy attempt to illustrate Finnegan’s Wake.” We at NPI cannot express our enthusiasm for foolhardy attempts enough.

• FiveBooks recommends, well, five books for just about any subject, including, and here’s the callback, the five Jane Austen books to read.

• Our favorite Canadian magazine, The Walrus, views the travels of a bust of Lenin as a metaphor for the Soviet Union as a whole.

• With the Giants now officially in the World Series, here’s an interview with Wiley Wiggins (a.k.a Mitch Kramer in Dazed and Confused) about looking so much like Tim Lincecum.

• South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker had to issue an apology when their spoof of Inception bore too close a resemblance to Dan Gurewitch’s on College Humor. Gurewitz accepted the apology. Speaking of films John S reviewed this year: Robert Wright wondered if Mark Zuckerberg is actually a visionary.

• Simon Rich explores the intricacies of Google Dictionary.

• Finally, a shallow look into whether her run-in with Kanye West helped Taylor Swift’s career.

• How many Cam Newton highlights can Tim link to before it gets tiresome? Can he have one more? Newton’s 49-yard run against LSU on Saturday left veteran broadcasters Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson (NPI faves, btw) incredulous. The Tigers, meanwhile, are now No. 1 in the BCS standings.