Headlines from September 30, 2013

Get out of the way so I can help my people. Kentucky governor tells Republicans to “get over” Obamacare.
Parsing the doublespeak around the government shutdown uncovers triple negations and results in headaches.
With the shutdown edging nearer, Republicans lay the groundwork for avoiding blame.
The Heritage Foundation’s 1980 Mandate for Leadership proposed universal health care and made the GOP the party of ideas.
Last week a U.S. and Iranian president had their first direct contact since 1979—here’s how it was tweeted.
For today’s teenagers, steeped in internet dating and porn, the definitions of sex and love have become murky. #sex
The word “fave” was more popular in the 17th and 18th centuries than it is today. #language
If you want to have fun in North Korea, it wouldn’t hurt to enjoy singing in the dark.
Riding the food truck boom, gas station restaurants are the next place to locate new American cuisine.
Elliott Holt realizes a local cyclist may bear witness to a neighborhood’s drama.
Thirty years ago, by not responding to a false warning that the U.S. had launched five ballistic missiles, a Soviet soldier saved the world.
Sicily’s president is a 62-year-old chain-smoking gay Catholic leftist intent on putting an end to corruption. #longreads
500 million years in the evolution of North America, depicted with U.S. state lines. #maps
Rick Ross—not the rapper—“probably did more than anyone else” to cause the spread of crack in the 1980s.
These are hard times for everybody. and musicians’ blues are pretty low on the list of things in need of urgent correction.
Gun ownership among women has doubled in the past year; advocacy groups teach defense-based target practice and firearm safety.
See also: A childhood ban on toy guns didn’t erase death from a group of friends, but it changed their view of mortality. #tmn
I need to reach down with my hands to push my legs so that I can turn myself over. Running away to China to learn kung fu.
How Ramona Pierson became a tech CEO, after being hit by a car and spending a decade blind.
Change.org isn’t just an idealistic petition-gathering nonprofit, but a player in the Big Data game.
Bertolli pounces on Barilla’s self-inflicted negative PR with a pro-LGBT commercial.
I learned that the house I grew up in had been razed to the ground. This was no ordinary house, certainly not to me.
Instagram’s process of speeding up the aging process would have made it a natural fit in 2000’s Memento.
List of Hitchcock’s cameo appearances in his movies.
A Faustian reading of Breaking Bad.
If you never got into Breaking Bad and want to get hooked: Just watch season 1, episode 6—aka Tuco’s first episode. #tv
Our meta-emotional reactions conclude that we are sympathetic and humane. Why we watch stressful TV.
Times New Roman is a font that gets the job done, though it also shows the path of least resistance.
Now viewed as lowbrow, ghost fiction was once the domain of eminent writers from Maugham to Cheever.
Editor Ronald Latimer published some of the biggest voices of his time, but his own life was a shadowy mystery.