September 12, 2013: Morning
By The Morning News
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- Putin, overtaking Obama as leader of the world's Syria agenda, said to be "relishing" his role as statesman.
- Putin in the Times: It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.
- Maureen Orth's 2000 Putin profile for Vanity Fair.
- The Snowden files should be destroyed because their good is abstract, their harm is concrete.
- Data from the 1860 U.S. Census used for a map of southern states' slave populations.
- Interview with a woman who hunts for gravestones with epitaphs describing death by lightning strike.
- Excellent, old Freakonomics podcast on the "suicide belt" in Western states.
- Scholarship attempts to explain why the majority of men in Papua New Guinea rape.
- In case you missed it, Argo reporter Joshua Bearman's "Coronado High," about surfer drug kings in '60s California.
- Tribute to 14 undersung inventions, people, and ideas that save lives.
- The felt on the bottom of Converse sneakers isn't there to look nice, it's there to make them cheaper.
- Etymology of "simpleton" should be clear, except nobody understands where the "ton" came from.
- Unconscious thoughts manifesting in physical responses is a product of "mass hysteria"—a condition exacerbated by social media.
- Slavoj Zizek gives a tour of his apartment.
- The text messages of William Carlos Williams.
- See also: Frank O'Hara's "Ode to Joy" mashed up with Drake's "Best I Ever Had."
