December 19, 2011: Morning
By The Morning News
—
- Tributes flow in after Sunday's death of Vaclav Havel, playwright and president.
- Related: Remnick's profile as Havel left power, in a tailored suit rather than borrowed trousers.
- Kim Jong-il's death announced by weepy Korean newscaster.
- While his country suffered, Kim Jong-il realized his family's dream: to win at nuclear chess.
- Oldie but goodie: "I was Kim Jong-Il's cook."
- Slightly more inequality found in the U.S. than in the Roman Empire.
- Egypt's newest protest symbol, worn with respect: the eyepatch.
- Deft overview of mafia and state powers intermingling in Russia finds "gradations of respect" in different types of assassination.
- Notes on powers ascribed to fathers from the Napoleonic Code.
- Young black man in New York City: Why is the NYPD after me?
- Poor man's text in India is the missed call—ring once, hang up—and it's a massive phenomenon.
- NYT mag staff: "[Paul Ford's TMN story] provoked as much conversation in our office as any single story this year."
- Related: “The Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” by Paul Ford.
- Disloyalty cards in Singapore support an ecosystem of cafés.
- Drooly descriptions of Tokyo's coffee bars ("Drooly? Yes."—ed.)
- Continuing the Russo/Manjoo fight, a cheer for bookstores' variety of titles.
- By purchasing a hardcover book, you're doing more than buying a pricey title—you're telling the publisher to continue printing your favorite author.
- Anthony Doerr's favorite science books.
- Obit for George Whitman, proprietor of Paris's Shakespeare and Company, who cut his hair with fire.
- To read while you eat lunch: On robots, drones, spies, ethics, war.
