News, reviews, latest trends, breakthroughs, disputes, and gossip in arts and culture http://aldaily.com/ en-us Copyright 2009 The Chronicle of Higher Education Fri, 6 Nov 2009 07:00:02 EDT rss@chronicle.com rss@chronicle.com http://aldaily.com/ald01.gif http://aldaily.com 128 70 Today's News http://aldaily.com Fri, 6 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT <p>California has over 5000 public servants whose state pensions exceed $100,000. For that lucky group, it is the Golden State. Meanwhile, in Texas... <a href="http://www.city-journal.org:80/2009/19_4_california.html">more</a> </p> <p>"God's masterpiece," or simply "the most evil woman" to wield power in the 20th century? Madame Chiang Kai-shek is still an enigma... <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703574604574500412440365156.html">more</a> </p> <p>Click, tweet, email, twitter, skim, browse, scan, blog, text: the intellectual habits of internet life are killing storytelling, says Ben MacIntyre... <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/ben_macintyre/article6903537.ece">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com Thu, 5 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT <p>Livestock and poultry farms give out 500 million tons of manure yearly. Where does it all go? Ask Rick Dove, whose Cessna is equipped with cameras and a GPS device... <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125721391914624061.html">more</a> </p> <p>Wikipedia writer/editors are 80% male, 65% single, 85% without children, about 70% under the age of 30. Does that tell us anything?... <a href="http://bostonreview.net/BR34.6/morozov.php">more</a> </p> <p>Spaceship Jesus: Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series of sixteen novels represents everything that is most deranged about religion. Frank Shaeffer explains... <a href="http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/dogma/spaceship-jesus-will-come-back-and-whisk-us-away/">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com Wed, 4 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT <p>Whacky tabloid headlines can be quite literally true - but very misleading all the same. John Allen Paulos explains... <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=8959855 ">more</a> </p> <p>John Maynard Keynes offers us today not so much a well-defined economic doctrine as the attitude and the tools with which he attacked economic problems... <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/books/review/Fox-t.html?pagewanted=all">more</a> </p> <p>Scientists seem addicted to predictions lately, the more ominous or hysterical, the better. Science didn't used to be like this, says Stuart Blackman. What's going on?... <a href="http://www.the-scientist.com/article/print/56082/">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com Tue, 3 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT <p>Yamaha's new electronic piano looks like a cheap and nasty baby grand, but delivers the sonic wallop of a nine-foot Steinway. Or so it says here... <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2233839/pagenum/all/">more</a> </p> <p>From the Salem witch trials to W.E.B. Du Bois to Linda Lovelace, A New Literary History of America covers a lot of ground. Maybe too much... <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Is-This-Literary-History-/48956/">more</a> </p> <p>"The Massachusetts miracle" - record-breaking rises in student test scores in the state - has resulted largely from the adoption of the Cultural Literacy program of E.D. Hirsch... <a href="http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_4_hirsch.html">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com Mon, 2 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT <p>Having escaped from Germany in 1933, Hannah Arendt stayed for the rest of her life loyal to the philosophic tradition that had helped lead to Hitlerism... <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2234010/pagenum/all/ ">more</a> </p> <p>Atlas Shrugged was published 52 years ago, but in the Obama era, Ayn Rand's angry message is more resonant than ever before... <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/books/review/Kirsch-t.html">more</a> </p> <p>Russia's historical misfortune - and its tragic fate - is its obsession with imaginary dangers and neglect of real ones, argues Walter Laqueur. Just look at its relation to Islam... <a href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu:80/mesh/pages/russias-muslim-strategy/">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com New material is added to Arts & Letters Daily six days a week. We continually test links for reliability. Despite our best efforts, links may fail (often only temporarily) without warning. We apologize for any inconvenience. Our motto, "Veritas odit moras," is from line 850 of Seneca's version of Oedipus. It means "Truth hates delay." Arts & Letters Daily is a service of The Chronicle of Higher Education.