Each Friday we compile a list of interesting links and articles our editors find from across the web. Here’s what’s catching our eye this week.
The Internet pokes fun at Brian Williams with—yes, you guessed it—memes:
The most astute reaction to news anchor Brian Williams’s claim that he “misremembered” being present inside a US Army helicopter when it was shot down in Iraq can be found in a meme now ricocheting through the Twitter-verse. It features a picture of Lord of the Rings’s Boromir beneath the text, “One does not simply ‘misremember’ being shot down by RPG fire in Iraq” — a play on the character’s oft-quoted warning against walking into Mordor.
Of course, Kanye caught a lot of attention at this year’s Grammys:
Who knows what would have happened had Kanye taken Beck’s advice to stay onstage. Instead, Kanye went back to his seat with a smile on his face, as if it were all for a laugh. The new Kanye West, making fun of old Kanye West, a continuation of what Jay Z started at the 2012 BET Awards.
The alphabet may be hindering the education of children:
Johnny in Topeka can’t read, but Janne in Helsinki is effortlessly finishing his storybooks. Such a disparity may be expected by now, but the reason might come as a surprise: It probably has much less to do with teaching style and quality than with language. Simply put, written English is great for puns but terrible for learning to read or write. It’s like making children from around the world complete an obstacle course to fully participate in society but requiring the English-speaking participants to wear blindfolds.
A review of Contesting Catholicity: Theology for Other Baptists:
Curtis Freeman has written an important and compelling study of the past and the future of Baptists. The director of the Baptist House of Studies at Duke Divinity School, Freeman combines detailed reflection on the history of Baptists with vigorous theological advocacy for catholicity.
A book review on the anticapitalist woman who actually invented the boardgame Monopoly:
In March of 1903, a single woman in her late thirties walked into the U.S. Patent Office to secure her claim to a board game she had been diligently designing in the hours she stole from her day job as a stenographer. Lizzie Magie was an exception to the female norms of the time, not just because she had remained unmarried well beyond the conventional marry-by date, but also because she was an avid supporter of the teachings of progressive politician and economist Henry George, an outspoken and influential tax reformer who advocated policies that would keep more money in the hands of the poor and working class.
How the causes of addiction have been misunderstood and how healthy societal relationships prevent it:
It is now one hundred years since drugs were first banned — and all through this long century of waging war on drugs, we have been told a story about addiction by our teachers and by our governments. This story is so deeply ingrained in our minds that we take it for granted. It seems obvious. It seems manifestly true. Until I set off three and a half years ago on a 30,000-mile journey for my new book, Chasing The Scream: The First And Last Days of the War on Drugs, to figure out what is really driving the drug war, I believed it too. But what I learned on the road is that almost everything we have been told about addiction is wrong — and there is a very different story waiting for us, if only we are ready to hear it.
The stress of home-cooked meals:
Food writers love to expound on the benefits of home-cooked meals. “No nonsense cooking and eating — roasting a chicken, making a grilled cheese sandwich, scrambling an egg, tossing a salad — must become popular again,” Mark Bittman at the New York Times wrote in an op-ed extolling the benefits of preparing food at home. To tackle the obesity crisis, he writes, “The smart campaign is not to get McDonald’s to serve better food but to get people to see cooking as a joy rather than a burden, or at least as part of a normal life.”
Who will replace Jon Stewart?
After 16 years as the host of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart announced yesterday that he’s calling it quits on an as-yet-undetermined date in 2015. During his hosting tenure, Stewart has grown from a snarky Gen X comic into one of the most influential voices in American cultural discourse. The Daily Show is a program that existed before Jon Stewart and will likely exist for many years after him. We stopped crying long enough to discuss the most important succession plan since Robert Baratheon was killed by that boar.
Watching Severus Snape’s story unfold in chronological sequence will bring a tear to your eye:
Fifty Shades of Grey is scheduled to release today. The trailer is better with legos: