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Category: Omnium Gatherum

Weekend Reading: Independence Day Edition

On July 3, 2015July 2, 2015 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

This is what the White House looked like last Friday.
… and then the Girl Scouts showed up.
America finally agrees … on hating this recipe.
Christie the great American truth-teller.
Well, it started when Columbus discovered barbacoa…
A history of American fireworks.
Confederate flags, then and now.
Time to open up the old embassy.
Print and read: What will America be like when we can’t base our lives around work anymore?

Weekend Reading: June 26, 2015

On June 26, 2015June 25, 2015 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

And to think that you missed International Typewriter Day … again.
There’s a speech doctor in Hollywood who helps actors sound less “gay.”
More immigrants now coming from China than Mexico.
Why so scared to acknowledge racism exists?
Ebola might have caused the Plague of Athens in 430 B.C.
Why is the Yale rare-books library saving Chipotle cups?
Deconstructing Syria as the only viable option left.
According to the studio, Peter Parker must be white, straight, and a non-smoker.
NATO returning to the business of being, well, NATO.
Six takes on the UN Gaza report.
Marc meets Obama.
Print and read: Send your kids to the Tilda Swinton School (not its real name); no grades and lots of fun on the Scottish shore.

Weekend Reading: June 19, 2015

On June 19, 2015June 18, 2015 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

Jeb – Good for the general election; primary not so much.
What goalies’ faces could look like before masks.
A long history of assaults on black churches.
White guys with guns.
Donald Trump is the anti-LeBron James.
The 21 senators who just love torture.

Reasons I missed didn’t go to that site on my holiday.
The Army thinks they can fight anybody now; they’re wrong.
Preserving the century-old chalkboards with lessons still on them.
Print and read: Why it would ultimately have been better for Europe if Napoleon had defeated Wellington at Waterloo; also: New Pope on how we’re ending the planet.

Weekend Reading: June 12, 2015

On June 12, 2015June 11, 2015 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

Don’t want to pay your BBC license fee? Prison for you.
Idiot box: This is what kids look like when they watch TV.
How to turn Detroit’s lights back on.
Good thing that White House-industry revolving door has slowed down.
Telling a chronic procrastinator to just do it is like telling a clinically depressed person to just cheer up.

State workers concede on pensions, lose anyway.
Three years in Rikers without being charged, dead at 22.
Since nobody’s curbing climate change, here’s some last-ditch ideas to avert disaster.
Print and read: The bloody, classically-inspired poetry of ISIS isn’t just verse, it’s propaganda, and effective.

Weekend Reading: June 5, 2015

On June 5, 2015June 3, 2015 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

Young or old, nobody trusts Rush, Hannity, or BuzzFeed for their news.
According to Spotify, metal is their most popular genre, and blues the least.
Bonnet rippers, and the growing appetite for Amish romance fiction.
The world economy, still lousy.
Best subway-rock band named after a line from Jurassic Park.
Cuba, before it all changes.
Sykes-Picot and more; a short history of dodgy land grabs.
How come enemy combatants never surrender anymore?
Print and read: Incompetent, wasteful, arrogant, and ineffective; how the Red Cross raised a half-billion dollars for Haiti and did almost nothing with it.

Weekend Reading: May 29, 2015

On May 29, 2015May 28, 2015 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

New candidate Rick Santorum and his old Google problem.
Pentagon funds well-spent at casinos and “adult entertainment establishments.” You know: for the troops.
Third-party eavesdropping: We are always listening.
Babes in Toyland: back to rock.
Montreal: First Jackie Robinson, then Michael Sam.
No more casual Christians?
Back to being okay with the “l” word.
Sometimes your book ends up in bin Laden’s library and there’s nothing you can do about it.
A short history of military braggarts from Sparta to Patton, Tom Clancy, and Chris Kyle.
Print and read: The science of stand-up comedy in China.

Weekend Reading: May 22, 2015

On May 22, 2015May 20, 2015 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

Most cars might be driverless as early as 2025, which could destroy tens of thousands of jobs.
What if you built a utopian commune and nobody came?
“Wear good shoes in a thumbtack factory” and other advice from Bill Nye.
Ramadi’s fall as the canary in the Iraqi coal mine.
Ethan Coen: “I haven’t watched a television show in decades.“
Baltimore and Ferguson are one thing, but Waco apparently deserves a different standard.
Print and read: Regime-friendly journalists, 9/11 truther conspiracies, and other revelations from the Assad regime email hack.

Weekend Reading: May 15, 2015

On May 15, 2015May 14, 2015 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

“He’s the one we all chase;” “I don’t pay much attention to her;” what Hollywood thinks of top film critics off the record.
Test yourself at the National Geographic Bee.
Meet ApologetiX, the Christian Weird Al.
The robot cars of our future will still need humans.
Hillary Clinton takes a stroll around Brooklyn Heights.
Funny, were it not sad.
To be an American citizen, you just need to be born here; maybe not any longer.
Munchausen by Internet; faking illness online.
When the president goes to South Dakota.
Print and read: What Star Wars will tell the future about the society that created it.

Weekend Reading: May 1, 2015

On May 1, 2015April 30, 2015 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

Bill Gates on the first steps toward saving millions from treatable diseases.
It’s not that some conservatives think there’s going to be a disaster, it’s that they want a disaster.
Baltimore defeats the great libertarian hopeful.
No Kiss camera, no fans; the creepy silence at Camden.
Reasons not to put an NHL team (or any other team, really) in Las Vegas.
The Society for Creative Anachronism close up.
Here’s what the Wall Street Journal Interactive online edition looked like in 1996.
Print and read: If there’s a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Ferguson, why was the city using fines from (mostly) black citizens to pay its bills?

Weekend Reading: April 24, 2015

On April 24, 2015April 23, 2015 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

Why the head of the FBI insists on sending agents to the Holocaust Museum; why that bothers Poland.
Hit jobs: Renata Adler’s 1980 takedown of Pauline Kael.
New Orleans, where you can smoke inside and drink outside, no more.
Chinese scientists edit genes in human embryos; “off-target” mutations result.
Taco Bell fights unions off by delivering free tacos to Congressional staffers.
Smartphones, couchsurfing.org, and other tools of the millennial hobo.
The “ghost army” that faked out the Nazis.
Medicare was controversial, then not so much. How will Obamacare fare in the long run?
Print and read: “A dead goat doesn’t fear the butcher’s knife” — Risking death at sea seen as a good option for many African migrants.

Weekend Reading: April 17, 2015

On April 17, 2015April 15, 2015 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

Rich teens use Instagram more often than their less affluent peers, and other notes from the adolescent Internets.
Boko Haram has now captured about 2,000 women.
Going forward, everybody earns at least $70,000 a year.
Let your kids walk to the park, go to court.
Killswitches, battlefield flash crashes, “centaurs,” and other perils of the coming robot soldiers.
Watching Aliens for the first time as an 11-year-old.
One of the earliest markets on Wall Street didn’t sell stocks; it brokered slaves.
All together online and still horribly alone.
Need to call in a JDAM on those insurgents in the bunker? There’s an app for that.
California, golf, and the shame of water-hogging.
Print and read: The curious journey of the itinerant preacher and cavalryman who shot John Wilkes Booth.

Weekend Reading: April 10, 2015

On April 10, 2015April 10, 2015 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

Can’t get to Broadway? Just check out whatever musical the local high school is putting on.
The Pentagon tries to predict the future.
“Catholic for Rand” and other fun items from the Rand Paul website.
Forgotten neighborhoods: Downtown Manhattan’s “Little Syria.”
So what’s causing all those earthquakes in Oklahoma, anyway?
Bowie working on a new musical (sort of) based on The Man Who Fell to Earth.
New George R.R. Martin chapter from his upcoming novel.
Saudis trying to get Pakistan involved in Yemen now.
Print and read: The original Rolling Stone “A Rape on Campus” story; and the follow-up report on its journalistic failings.

Weekend Reading: April 3, 2015

On April 3, 2015April 2, 2015 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

Remember Planet Hollywood? Reasons you shouldn’t.
Bookstore pets of Northern California.
A Nevada court might have to shut down because of fewer traffic tickets.
Is America actually on the verge of the greatest societal shift since the Industrial Revolution?
Women and the online appearance mafia.
Time for the Ferguson Alternative Spring Break.
Make killing journalists a war crime?
A quick history of hell.
Print and read: Seymour Hersh, who broke the My Lai massacre story, returns to the scene of the crime.

Department of Weekend Reading: March 27, 2015

On March 27, 2015March 25, 2015 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

The X-Files returns, because, well, the truth is still out there it would seem.
The sad NFL veteran combine.
Florida: No longer as great an evil-dictator hideout as it once was.
Fighting ISIS with drones and micromanagement; a.k.a., “war is too important to be left to generals watching TV.”
More drones: Here are the many ways that robots could kill you.
If you keep watching Game of Thrones, you’ll know how the book series ends before they’re all published.
Keeping students safe from everything may just hide them from the world.
Curing depression with coloring books.
Ted Cruz runs for president; Twitter enjoys itself.
Print and read: After Paris, Brussels, and Copenhagen, European Jews wrestle with the possibility of another diaspora.

Weekend Reading: March 20, 2015

On March 20, 2015March 19, 2015 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

The moonshine origins of Mountain Dew, returned.
A Mulder and Sculley playlist.
So long, Internet Explorer.
Custom ring-tones and other art for the taking at the Walker’s Intangibles store.
“Whenever I encounter ‘failure,’ no matter how minute, it sends me into an existential crisis.“
How real were the Amazons?
So, how does one get on the kill list, anyway?
We’re keeping Crimea.
No more lasso? Wonder Woman loses her kink.
Sometimes, it’s just more fun blowing stuff up.
Print and read: ““Everybody knows [Gerry Adams] was in the I.R.A., except for Gerry.“

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