21 April 2009: Morning

In an effort "to make Norm Coleman go away," Democrat groups ask supporters to donate $1 a day every day Coleman refuses to concede.

"The wall is the perfect crime because it creates the violence it was ostensibly built to prevent." The history of Israel's wall.

Spain leads the way in development of costly but green high-speed trains, reawakens sleep towns, angers airlines.

When a 9,200-ton destroyer is sent to fight Somalian pirates, it's clear sea power must change.

Elizabeth Strout wins fiction Pulitzer for Olive Kitteridge. (full list of winners here)

I really didn't tell people as I grew older that I wanted to be a writer--you know, because they look at you with such looks of pity. From August, Strout's chat with Birnbaum.

Contribute to this month's Of Recent Note: Celebrate (and/or mourn) your favorite print periodicals.

Excelsior 1968 is a high school yearbook for the fictional Bristol County Secondary School...Each student here is redrawn (and renamed) from my mother's actual 1968 high school yearbook.

Steven Bevacqua thought he saw secret messages in the new issue of Wired--it turned out to be a hidden puzzle from guest editor J.J. Abrams.

A course syllabus for ENG 371WR: Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era.

Some of pop's most delightful figures endure exactly because we can't figure out what they are up to. SFJ on fame and the rise of Lady Gaga.

The walk-in cocktail is a gin-and-tonic mist.