Monday Medley

What we read while sympathizing with Afghanistan’s committed non-voters…

• Josh Levin’s series over at Slate on how America might come to an end in the next century is a really good (and apocalyptic) way to spend about an hour. My favorite scenario? Obama becomes a God-like figure in a radical right theocracy in which the American government becomes too complex and thus initiates an opt-in system, excluding the northeast and northwest, which have been ceded to Canada and are now known as Novacadia and Cascadia, respectively. Man, I hope this happens soon.

• One of the things that most interests us about Twitter is how it can be used to tell stories. We hope (and let’s be honest, can be pretty certain) for the sake of this one that Steve doesn’t read NPI. We wouldn’t want to spoil his roommate’s fun (h/t to The Millions).

• The whole concept that 1. A man should only eat one candy; 2. That that candy is Jujubes; and 3. The correct pronunciation of said candy is the two-syllable “ju-jubes,” got us so angry that we decided to head down to Walmart and stock up on real candy–like Milky Ways, Snickers, Twix, Kit-Kats, and yes, even Skittles (‘cuz real men love tastin’ the rainbow).

• Apparently, it’s not fun to have your house robbed. Who better to know the way the robbers think than from the robbers themselves?

• Some shorter stuff we liked: A roving cocaine bar (contrary to our initial impressions, this is not a chocolate-like “bar” of cocaine; rather, it’s a bar where they serve cocaine); Stephen Whitty’s review of Inglourious Basterds is more a review of Tarantino’s philosophy on film (and while we’re at it, if you’re writing a critique of a review, try not to destroy your credibility by misspelling both the name of the film and director: It’s IngloUrious Basterds and Quentin TarAntino); speaking of film critics, A.O. Scott doesn’t like how Hollywood decides which films get wide releases and, frankly, we agree; our friends at Kodswallop put together an even-more-belated-than-ours review of Whatever Works; Mark Reynolds, Statistical Freakshow; and why teacher burnout isn’t so bad.