Monday Medley

What we read while not watching ice dancing…

• Inside a Wall Street secret society party. But what’s really wrong with rich people having a party and making bad jokes?

• A full breakdown of the career of Bill Murray thus far.

• Roger Angell on aging.

• A court in the UK has defended the detention of David Miranda last year in a move that, some say, equates journalism with terrorism. Meanwhile, back in America, a federal court dismissed a challenge to NYPD spying.

• From last year: A photo essay on domestic violence.

• The resurgence of debtors’ prisons in America. And an argument for rethinking prison sentencing in general.

• Matt Taibbi is leaving Rolling Stone for a venture with First Look Media.

• The Duke porn star responds.

• This week in oral histories: Reality Bites, the movie that (sort of) defined Generation X. On the other hand, a competing view of the film.

Monday Medley

What we read while somehow getting the six seed in the AFC…

• A bad week for NSA opponents, as a federal judge upheld its collection of telephone data, just weeks after a different judge ruled the same practice unconstitutional. Some more on the legacy of Edward Snowden.

• The death of funerals.

• Is price transparency good for health care?

• If you missed Alex Pareene’s annual “hack list” at Salon, be sure to check out some of this year’s highlights.

• Matt Taibbi rips another Wall Street settlement.

• Whatever happened to conversations?

 

Monday Medley

What we read while pondering the existential nature of time itself…

• The Guardian has a helpful, cool, comprehensive graphic detailing all of the NSA revelations thus far. Speaking of The Guardian, Glenn Greenwald wrote an official statement on his exit from the paper, and was profiled by the The Advocate.  And in case you were wondering: Helping a reporter break a story, or advancing political causes=terrorism, but a white guy opening fire at a crowded airport=not terrorism.

• A look at what lies beneath New York City.

• More remembrances of Lou Reed, including a look at the most essential tracks of his long career.

• Julian Assange opened for M.I.A. at her New York City concert last week. And Rolling Stone profiled Lorde, pop’s latest teen sensation.

• On America’s Walter White logic in the post-9/11 world.

• Different writers look at how technology has changed fiction.

• Jonah Keri looks back at the 2013 baseball season, and Adrian Cardenas explains why he quit the game.

• The complicated historical relationship between love and marriage.

• An interview with Pete Holmes.

• The 50 most intellectual jokes.

Monday Medley

What we read in our government-less dystopia…

• Was Walter White dreaming? An offbeat interpretation of the Breaking Bad finale made its way around the Internet last week, despite the creator’s dismissal.

• The story of the Elvis impersonator who tried to kill President Obama, or something like that…

• On female beauty in literature.

• Miley Cyrus in Rolling Stone.

• Joe Posnanski on unanimous Hall of Famers.

• Bret Easton Ellis or Dr. Seuss?

 

Monday Medley

What we read while conceiving the next Dauphin…

• Rolling Stone got some flak for its cover story on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, but the story itself is pretty great. It’s also worth remembering that ignoring inconvenient facts doesn’t make them go away. Also, newly released photos of Tsarnaev’s capture.

• Speaking of terrorism, what isn’t “terrorism” these days?

• Another piece on Mariano Rivera’s final season.

• How the new sports network, Fox Sports 1, plans to compete with ESPN.

• Now banks are going after credit unions. Speaking of banks, watch The Newsroom try to get Occupy Wall Street right.

• The life and times of Jack Handey.

Monday Medley

What we read while tripping over the power cord at the Superdome…

• There was some sort of football game last night, though it was interrupted by a blackout. There was some fuss about the coaches and Ray Lewis, but frankly we were more interested in the oral history of the Super Bowl Shuffle.

• For the second time this postseason, Dan LeBatard lowers the hammer on the NFL — this time on the slippery morality of those who analyze it.

• The best Super Bowl photos of all-time.

• Yeah, it’s baseball season now.

• Ed Koch, the controversial former mayor of New York City, died last week at the age of 88. Eerily, it was on the eve of a new documentary about his life.

• Another great interview with George Saunders.

• The series finale of 30 Rock aired last week, and was one of the most well-received series finales of all-time. Of course, the show has always inspired awe in critics. In other TV news, Lorrie Moore analyzed the highs and lows of Homeland.

• On understanding introverts (a subject Josh tackled back in 2009).

• Is the future of education really online?

• The past, present, and future of drones.

• The evolution of the NRA.

• In defense of public nudity.

• Does Dr. Oz do no harm?

• The Boy Meets World spinoff is official!

Monday Medley

What we read while everyone misremembered Mary Shelley’s book…

• Last week was the foreign policy debate, which spent a total of about one minute discussing the devastating secret drone program. When pressed, an Obama spokesman offered this defense of killing an American teenager. Good thing the “assassination czar” is so “priest-like.” On the other side, Robert Wright argues that Mitt Romney is more likely to start a war, and Stephen Walt analyzes the “genius” of neoconservatism.

• Is Homeland unfair to Muslims and Arabs?

• In other election news (sorry, but only 8 more days!), President Obama sat down with Rolling Stone, and Matt Taibbi responded to some of his points. Ezra Klein called Obamacare the most important issue in the election. Time wonders why climate change has essentially disappeared as an issue. And is Ron Paul the future of the American left? Finally, Mitt Romney’s homophobic past, and his differences from Mormon’s early socialist history.

• Stephen Colbert’s Playboy interview.

• Joe Posnanski on the artistry of Bob Costas.

• A touching, personal defense of euthanasia.

• Where did the myth of voter-fraud come from?

• Sexy/sexist Halloween costumes.

Monday Medley

What we read while getting snubbed for the All-Star Game….

• At the risk of blasphemy, this Wells Tower profile of male porn star James Deen might be even better than David Foster Wallace’s dispatch from the AVN Awards.

• The New York Times looks at last weekend’s Del Close Marathon.

• Bill Murray is awesome. But we all knew that.

• Another Wall Street scandal, this one over LIBOR (whatever that means). Who might have suffered from this one? And is there any way to fix the culture of Wall Street? Meanwhile, the return of debtors’ prisons.

• Speaking of which, does money make people less moral?

• Rolling Stone profiled Rachel Maddow.

• A writer reacts to an inaccurate negative review of his book.

• The story of Anonymous.

• A review of America on its birthday.

• What’s James Murphy up to these days?

• We don’t want this to come off as fanfaronade, but you’re probably going to be gorgonized by this list.

• It turns out milk really was a bad choice…

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.

Why Is Matt Taibbi So Obsessed With Campaign Contributions?

I should start this off by saying that I like Matt Taibbi. His coverage of the financial crisis and other political corruption often delves into issues ignored by most media outlets, and his acerbic wit makes for fun reading. Nevertheless, he often fixates on the wrong aspect of the scandal he’s uncovering, and that usually involves focusing on campaign contributions.

In his blog post about the Iowa caucuses, Taibbi yammers on about how contributions corrupt the campaigning process:

“[T]he ugly reality, as Dylan Ratigan continually points out, is that the candidate who raises the most money wins an astonishing 94% of the time in America.

“That damning statistic just confirms what everyone who spends any time on the campaign trail knows, which is that the presidential race is not at all about ideas, but entirely about raising money.”

This is so logically porous that it hardly needs explaining (but that won’t stop me).