November 22, 2011: Afternoon
- U.S. embassy in Beijing embarrassed by private groups' ability to out-produce cultural exchanges.
- Pictures of the ongoing meme "Casually pepper spraying everything cop."
- Making a meme of pepper-spray cop doesn't trivialize the event—it spreads the news.
- Other things the internet can do: The Rap Board, featuring push-button catchphrases from all of your favorite rappers.
- Passw0rd, dragon, baseball, and the internet's other worst passwords.
- Map of hybrid-car sales finds Bay Area leading with 8.4% of all cars sold.
- NPR listeners are 27% more likely than the average adult to own a bread-making machine.
- The "indomitable diving grandmas of Jeju Island" keep Korean fishing tradition alive.
- Berlusconi is going nowhere—his party will "unplug Monti's government life support whenever necessary."
- Leonardo da Vinci's to-do list illustrated.
- Sketchbooks of van Gogh, Kahlo, Warhol.
- Themes from W.G. Sebald's novels—memory, desire, ghostliness—show up in new poems that he never published in book form.
- Tuesday poem: "My Puppets" by Jeff Dolven.
- TMN's Sarah Hepola on the many things you may notice during the holidays if you find yourself not drinking.
- Depressingly realistic sexual role-play scenarios.