August 15, 2011: Afternoon
- China pours billions into Africa, and billions go straight into private pockets.
- Warren Buffett: Thank you, Congress, for all the tax breaks, but we super rich are sick of lower job creation.
- Historian known for making dumb remarks on TV blames London riots on English whites going Jamaican black.
- Elif Batuman and Daniel Mendelsohn on great books they can't stand to read.
- Male model Andrej Pejic finds fame and work after Carine Roitfeld and others dress him in women's clothes.
- Salon advertisement of the day.
- Elective abortions to reduce twins to singletons are gaining ground while raising tough ethical questions.
- Extrapolation: from Renaissance churches to sandwiches' cross sections.
- Pictures from E.B. and Katharine White's farm in Maine, with swing.
- South Koreans head to the beach and almost no one is exposed to sunlight.
- Vampire Weekend and preppie woman on Vampire Weekend album reach settlement.
- Sondheim rips Diane Paulus and Suzan-Lori Parks new ones for dissing opera audiences while reworking "Porgy and Bess."
- Surfeit of information makes us narcissists—Richard Dawkins needs more TV time?—and other hodgepodge about "big ideas."
- Jakob Hunosøe photos of objects around the house delightfully skewed.