Culture
Citizen Alec
Forget Clooney. Alec Baldwin is America's most believable celebrity liberal. Here's why.
It wasn't so long ago that Alec Baldwin—his never-all-that-imposing days as a leading man well behind him—was just another Hollywood dolt with a waning grip on our attention and an apparently well-deserved reputation as an arrogant putz. However you define "cultural cachet" in the 21st-century infotainment thunderdome, betting on him to achieve it would have made predicting a Newt Gingrich inaugural seem like the consensus opinion of reasonable people everywhere. READ MORE >>
Is Friendship Better than Romance?
LAST MONTH, I went on a very successful “friend date.” We had a few acquaintances in common and had talked briefly at parties. I had a hunch about her, that there was a future for us, and so I asked her out. We met at a mutually convenient bar, summarized our pasts in that frantic, practiced way that people do—skipping the boring parts, dramatizing events that end with punch lines. We were recklessly candid and very smiley. I walked home, ecstatic, and told my boyfriend all about it. READ MORE >>
Has Nate Silver Forever Changed Statistics?
2012 WAS A good year for numbers in American presidential politics, but it also highlighted a collective squeamishness about statistics. By mid-October, New York Times number-cruncher Nate Silver found himself in a modern-day version of seventeenth-century Salem, with a long line of pitch-fork wielding poll-doubters accusing Silver of magic and wizardry. READ MORE >>
No Solid Homeland—Mid-century Travels Through America
How to Be a Pseudo-Intellectual
Fantastic Voyage—The History of Travel Around the Earth
WHEN GEORGE ANSON returned from circumnavigating the globe in 1744, London wits had a field day. A brave and ruthless Royal Navy officer, Anson was also socially awkward and reputedly impotent. He had been all around the world but never in it, quipped one commentator. Much the same, remarked another unkindly, could be said of Anson’s relationship with his wife. READ MORE >>
Shamans and Samsung: South Korea's Rise
SOUTH KOREA HOLDS its presidential elections today, and given North Korea’s brinkmanship last Wednesday when it launched a surveillance satellite—widely seen as a step toward greater nuclear capability—Americans would be wise to watch. READ MORE >>
