Tuesday, August 31, 2010

WEB BOHEMIAN (Tuesday, August 31, 2010)
(1)- CITIES RULE -- The 21st century will not be dominated by America or China, Brazil or India, but by the city. In an age that appears increasingly unmanageable, cities are the islands of governance on which the future world order will be built.

(2)- NOBLE ADAM SMITH -- The myth of Adam Smith is that he was the hard-nosed high priest of self-interested capitalism. A new biography shows that his intellectual goals were far greater and nobler.

(3)- POLITICAL JESUS? -- The ancient art of cherry picking passages from the Bible to support this or that argument has found new life as conservatives claim Jesus as their political ally and the Tea Party movement invoking Christ’s conservativism.

(4)- IF IT FEELS TRUE, IT IS TRUE – Turks—and people throughout the Middle East and Mediterranean—see “truth” as something plastic, connected more to emotions than to facts or logic. Feelings tend to change very quickly—and with them, the truth.

(5)- PAINTING STONE -- It is easy to see why the first Grand Dukes of Tuscany favoured the opulence of artefacts that signified wealth, status and endurance. Lorenzo de Medici loved red Egyptian porphyry, with its claims of royal grandeur.

(6)- RANKINGS -- Although some things never change, the ranking methodology does. This year, for the first time, U.S. News included the views of high-school counselors in its measure of “academic reputation” for colleges.

(7)- COPYWRONG -- What are the rules that will govern culture for the next hundred years? Are we building an ecology of access that demands a lawyer at every turn of the page? Or have we learned something from the mess of the documentary-film past?

(8)- FINE LITERATURE -- This site looks at Medieval, Renaissance, 17th Century, and Restoration English literature. It also explores Religious Writers, RenDrama, Metaphysical Poets, and Cavalier Poets. Navigation is very simple.

(9)- STUPID THIEF -- A German bank robber led his pursuers straight to him after taunting police in an email. Police say the robber emailed police and newspapers to point out factual errors in the report of his bank theft.

POLITICAL COMMENTARY

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