Politics:
I completely agree with the sentiments voiced in this column, by William Rhoden: Why do we keep giving thoroughbred horse racing a pass? Is it the tradition? The millions upon millions invested in the betting? Why isn't there more pressure...
Posted on May 4, 2008 3:15 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Did you know that more than 53 percent of the prisoners in Federal prisons are serving time for drug offenses? That's crazy. When will our politicians realize that drug addiction is a mental illness, and that the War on Drugs...
Posted on April 23, 2008 1:12 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The Economist has compiled a really interesting chart on the ideological differences between the American and British electorates. (I've been kind of obsessed with all things Anglo-American since the start of the John Adams miniseries on HBO.) The article focuses...
Posted on March 31, 2008 4:12 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
One last note on the whole Spitzer affair. The reason I think it's dangerous to use the sexual habits of other species (or even other human cultures) as a baseline when discussing prostitution is that the evolutionary argument has very...
Posted on March 13, 2008 10:17 AM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Noam Scheiber has an article in TNR touting Obama's connections to behavioral economics. The article isn't particularly persuasive, since the only examples Scheiber can muster are Obama's 401(k) savings plan and his embrace of automatic tax returns. Neither plan is...
Posted on February 28, 2008 6:17 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
First, a warning: the video below is very disturbing. It's footage of cows being prepared for slaughter at Hallmark Meat Processing. This video, which was surreptitiously shot by the Humane Society, led to the largest ever recall of beef -...
Posted on February 21, 2008 1:48 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This video is shamefully manipulative. It's just a bunch of celebrities, from Scarlett to John Legend, harmonizing over a particularly eloquent Obama speech. The rhetoric is beautiful, poetic and vapid. The camera work is a little too artful. The crescendo...
Posted on February 4, 2008 10:34 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I just got back from a week long trip to California. (You can hear me talking about Proust on KQED here.) The weather was awful - rain and more rain - but I still got glimpses of what I love...
Posted on January 31, 2008 10:16 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I've got a big man-crush on Jamie Oliver. And I really appreciate his latest stunt: Last Friday, in front of 4 million television viewers and a studio audience, the chef Jamie Oliver killed a chicken. Having recently obtained a United...
Posted on January 16, 2008 10:32 AM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Needless to say, the political pundits were hilariously wrong about the New Hampshire primary. I won't hypothesize about what actually happened, other than to say that I think many voters here wanted a longer primary. They didn't want an Obama...
Posted on January 9, 2008 11:59 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. My own holiday meal was the subject of a simple food experiment. I made two versions of the same dish: brussels sprout gratin with chestnuts, bacon and Comte. (Yes, it's as delicious as...
Posted on November 23, 2007 9:59 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Our eighth graders might not understand basic scientific concepts, but America is still a beacon for the "stars" of science, at least according to a new analysis by two social scientists at UCLA: America has 62 percent of the world's...
Posted on October 31, 2007 10:15 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Forgive the light posting. I've been traveling. I'm now in Switzerland, reporting a story that I'm sure we'll be talking about later. But for now, I'd like to share a few thoughts on being an American abroad. The first thought...
Posted on October 24, 2007 5:57 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
So tax breaks for philanthropy increase inequality: For every three dollars they give away, the federal government typically gives up a dollar or more in tax revenue, because of the charitable tax deduction and by not collecting estate taxes. [snip]...
Posted on September 6, 2007 10:10 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Saw Bill and Hillary today. I'll spare you my political commentary, except for two brief observations: 1) Hillary's biggest applause line came when she declared that, once she's President, she'll "listen to what scientists say and stop being so anti-science"....
Posted on September 2, 2007 4:56 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Jonah Lehrer is an editor at large for Seed Magazine. His first book is Proust Was A Neuroscientist. Buy it here.
