Dreadful Murder

This week's articles are, if I'm counting correctly, all here. My favorite, about halfway down, has been copied in its entirety because it is Just That Awesome. You should probably put down any beverages you might be consuming when you read it - especially if it's milk - because you will certainly do a spit-take if you don't. It's seriously that hilarious. A preview: a murder suspect is described as "a fine young man."

However nihilistic it might be, "How the planet will recover from us" explores global warming from an epochal perspective. Rather than using this longest of long-term analysis to decry the "myth" that humans are causing the Earth's climate to change dramatically, however, the author examines periods of rapid carbon and methane gas release, long before the dinosaurs, that led to mass extinctions. The fossil record gives a surprising - but very clear - picture of how life on Earth strives to hold on as the planet rights herself into a stable biosphere once again.

In "Two legs good, 24 better," NS interviews Aimee Mullins, an actress/model/athlete who also happens to be a double amputee. Mullins also happens to be more articulate than your everyday model, and discusses passionately why equal rights for persons with disabilities hinges on viewing them apart from their disabilities and seeing what they can do - which, incidentally, is a lot.

The new "Chicago School Violence Plan" hopes to prevent off-campus shootings of students by assigning statistically-calculated "high risk" kids with life coaches, psychological counseling, job opportunities, and other things that, hopefully, will lead them to see the error of their gang-banging ways. It'll be interesting to see how this turns out, especially since there are far more kids actually "at risk" of being involved in a shooting than the program's $30m will initially be able to reach.

So, yeah, it's a New York Times article, but I think it's pretty important and the one New Yorker piece below is really long and involved, so... yeah.

"The Last Mission" is a highly detailed account of Richard Holbrooke's rapid rise - and subsequent decades-long plateau - in the ranks of the State Department. Now on the verge of retirement, he's answered President Obama's call to oversee State's mission in Afghanistan and Pakistan, or Af-Pak, as he's dubbed it. Of equal interest to me is the conspicuous system of patronage and apprenticeship at State, the network of people who care as much about who you know and have served under as what you know and where you were stationed when you learned it. It worries me a bit that I'm not coming out of Yale or Harvard, but I know that I can connect with my superiors and force my way into that web of who-knows-who if I get the chance.

On a much lighter note, "There's gold in them there bacteria!" Apparently, there's a certain class of bacteria that's allergic to gold, and has evolved a way to break it down in its system to neutralize its harmful effects and, due to the law of conservation of energy (or something), this process causes them to emit a light which prospectors can then use to determine whether or not a particular patch of soil holds a gold deposit.

And on a more dreadful note, The Economist has transcribed its first issue and published all the articles online. For some reason, they decided not to do the ads. I feel like this is a huge oversight; very few things in this world are more entertaining than pre-Victorian print ads. Except the stories running alongside them. This one is short enough that I'm actually going to paste in the full text.

Dreadful murder

Sep 2nd 1843

Since Tuesday morning the beautiful seat of the Earl of Darnley, at Cobham park, near Gravesend, in Kent, its village, and the surrounding suburbs, have been the scene of much excitement in consequence of the perpetration of a murder, attended with circumstances of a truly distressing character. The victim is Mr Dadd, sen., 55 years of age, a person who a few years ago carried on a most extensive business at Rochester, as a chemist and druggist. He had lately, however, retired, and had gone to London, where he has since resided, in Suffolk street, Pall-mall East, and gained some notoriety by the manufacture of an improved oil for artists. He was found lying by the roadside, with his throat cut, and a knife not far from his body. It has since been ascertained, beyond a doubt, that the murderer of the unfortunate gentleman is no other than his third son, Richard Dadd, a fine young man, 24 years age, and that he committed the act whilst labouring under an aberration of intellect. He was an artist of some celebrity, and has gained several prizes at the Royal Academy. A year or two ago this unfortunate youth accompanied Sir Thomas Phillips, the late Mayor of Newport, on a tour through Italy, Switzerland, Germany, &c., for the purpose of improving himself in his art. Owing to his arduous studies and constant exposure to the sun, his brain became affected to such a melancholy extent as to produce insanity. The circumstances attending the dreadful deed have not yet been correctly ascertained, nor has the youth been apprehended.

I hope I never live in New York long enough to be this uppity. Some New Yorker blogger decided to do his weekly column on the recently-published list of art the Obamas have pulled from the national collection to display in the White House, and judge them, heavily, for their choices. They like what they like. Deal with it.

Finally, there was an entire issue full of good Economist articles, but the ones that I want to share are "How many Mexicans does it take to drill an oil well?" and "Please do feed the bears", mostly because of their titles. The first is about Mexico's state-run oil companies and their rapidly declining production capability. The latter is a caveat to government regulators to remember that it was bulls, not bears, that caused the market bubbles. Their trading habits should not be restricted, nor should their frequents portents of financial disaster be ridiculed without careful examination of their reasoning. A good policy to hold in general, I'd think, but sure, let's keep it to just the stock market for now.