Seven hours, thirty-eight minutes a day
Of electronic devices
The Michigan Theater
A once great theater now houses parked cars
November 11, 1919
Armistice Day, ninety years ago
Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–2009)
"What makes a steel ax superior to a stone ax is not that the first one is better made than the second."
U.S. Postal Service sells greeting cards
I don't think it'll work.
“Why E-mail No Longer Rules”
Facebook, Twitter.
Barack Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize
Remember the spin in the wake of Rio’s Olympic victory? “WORLD REJECTS OBAMA,” yelled the Drudge Report. But Norway has gone rogue. From the...
Paleo-Future
From a site dedicated to “the future that never was”
Bob Herbert on present danger
Bob Herbert’s latest column
“Think Different” quiz
Can you name the people from Apple's “Think Different” ads?
"All time"
"The words 'all time' play such an odd role in pop culture."
Health Insurance Reform Reality Check
"The White House has created a website to combat the toxic legends in the air."
Mad Men yourself
Turn yourself into a Mad Men person
Tolls and M&M's
From 1972: Fred Kimmerly recounts what happened when, as a toll collector on Connecticut's Merritt Parkway, he began giving out M&M's.
Mysteries of the tollbooth
"A tollbooth's interior is mysterious — most people haven't seen what' s in there."
Cooking and television
Michael Pollan on the meaning of food television
"An Accident of Time and Place"
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on his arrest
“Two large black men,” et cetera
Where did that description come from? Not from the 911 call.
Blurry blue line
In the aftermath of the Henry Louis Gates, Jr. arrest, an examination of varied attitudes toward "what in police parlance is called getting 'lippy'"
"[N]o respect without knowledge"
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: "Beyond the hype and the high-flown rhetoric is a pretty homely truth: There is no tolerance without respect — and no respect without knowledge."
The Right to Quiet Society
Against canned music in public places: "the underlying assumption is an insulting one: that our empty heads need to be kept filled with artificial stimuli so that we do not become insufferably bored."
Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite commenting on Richard Nixon's resignation speech, as seen on a Washington, D.C. television set, August 1974. A photograph by Gjon Mili.
Robert McNamara's lesson
From The Fog of War
"No idea what to do"
"I was told, growing up, that I could do whatever I wanted, and I fully believed I could. And therefore I had no idea what to do."
July 4, 1939
A photograph from the day
More from The Book of Tea
"We see only our own image in the universe — our particular idiosyncrasies dictate the mode of our perceptions."
From The Book of Tea
From Kakuzo Okakura's book: "Teaism is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence."
Specialized skills, no longer needed
Mark Patinkin: "I know how to wait for four days for a mailed letter to arrive."
"Let the Earth Bear Witness"
Words by William Butler Yeats, music by Mike Scott of The Waterboys
Florida Citrus responds
The Florida Department of Citrus has responded to Alissa Hamilton's book Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice: "The basic principle of orange juice processing is similar to how you make orange juice at home."