The New Republic

Four years ago, a cloud computing company called Rackspace was exploding. Hiring at a rate of 100 people per month, it had bought a 1.3 million-square-foot abandoned shopping mall in San Antonio—soon christened “The Castle”—to house them. Director of social media Rob LaGesse was tasked with making it feel like something other than an abandoned shopping mall.  READ MORE >>

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Republicans in Congress belatedly closed ranks behind Mitt Romney this past week, with House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell abandoning their neutrality in favor of the clear nominee. The goal is a happy political marriage until Election Day in November—and, ideally, beyond. READ MORE >>

The big news in business yesterday was yet another step towards consolidation in the airline industry, as Southwest announced a plan to acquire AirTran for $1.4 billion. READ MORE >>

Now that the climate bill is dead and decomposing, some advocates are writing op-eds arguing that if only its backers had framed things this way or that way, the public would've responded more positively and demanded action from lawmakers. See, for instance, Lee Wasserman's piece in The New York Times today. READ MORE >>

Having spent a good deal of our time examining the path of the downturn and recovery within America’s own metropolitan areas, it’s great to see other organizations doing the same--and doing it with cool technology. READ MORE >>

“First Fridays” these days find Wall Street investors and Washington policymakers and pundits holding their collective breath. At around 8:30 AM, on the first Friday of each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the latest round of job and unemployment figures. And then the buying, selling, and spinning begins. READ MORE >>

Victoria Burnett of The New York Times recently wrote a fascinating piece about Spain's entry into the wild world of high-speed rail. The country's first route, between Madrid and Seville, opened in 1992. Since then, the national rail network has grown to some 2,000 kilometers of track, and it's proven so wildly popular that politicians from all parties are tripping over themselves to bolster service—the current plan calls for 10,000 kilometers of track by 2020. READ MORE >>

Donald Judd had his share of staunch supporters. But you are likely to meet with skeptical responses if you announce that you are captivated by his magnum opus, a composition consisting of one hundred aluminum boxes that is the linchpin of the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas. Chinati is where the sculptor made a permanent home for the frequently large-scale work that interested him and some of the contemporary artists whom he admired. It has an eccentric, off-the-beaten-track kind of grandeur that rubs some people the wrong way. The austere forms that Judd (who died in 1994) arranged in READ MORE >>

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