This week: Enduring sexism / LBJ and the Secret Service / Exercise and depression / The Roman Empire / The political Eva Longoria
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1. Jessica’s Feminized Atmosphere
By Jessica Williams | The Daily Show | Oct. 2
“Also, that’s redundant.”
2. L.B.J.’s Bravado and a Secret Service Under Scrutiny
By Michael Beschloss | The Upshot :: The New York Times | Oct. 2
“Not long after President Kennedy’s assassination, President Johnson chafed under his Secret Service protection.”
3. What made Japan’s deadly volcanic eruption so unpredictable?
By Judy Woodruff and Miles O’Brien | PBS NewsHour | Sept. 30
“More than 250 people were out hiking and enjoying a nice fall day, when a surprise eruption littered the mountain with falling boulders, thick smoke and piles of ash. At least 36 people were killed.”
4. This Is How Eva Longoria Is Trying to Win the Midterms
By Asawin Suebsaeng | The Daily Beast | Oct. 1
“From working behind the scenes in the midterms to making a new farm labor documentary, the former Desperate Housewife has emerged as a force to be reckoned with in liberal politics.”
5. How Exercise May Protect Against Depression
By Gretchen Reynolds | Well :: The New York Times | Oct. 1
“Exercise may help to safeguard the mind against depression through previously unknown effects on working muscles.”
6. The Elements of Style
By Sasha Weiss | The Sunday Book Review :: The New York Times | Oct. 3
“Watching other women, seeing how they’re dressed and how they pull it off, is the way most of us learn to become ourselves.”
7. Former Haiti president Duvalier dies
By Mike Wooldridge | BBC News | Oct. 4
“Duvalier was just 19 when in 1971 he inherited the title of “president-for-life” from his father, the notorious Francois ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier. He was accused of corruption, human rights abuses and repression in his rule, which ended in a 1986 uprising.”
8. Catastrophic Coltrane
By Geoff Dyer | NYR Gallery :: New York Review of Books | Oct. 4
“The interest of recordings from this final phase — in which Coltrane’s playing became increasingly frenzied and the accompaniment more abstracted — lies partly in what they preserve and partly in any hints they contain as to where Trane might have headed next.”
9. The Aral Sea’s Disappearing Act
By Anna Nemtsova | The Daily Beast | Oct. 4
“Satellite photos show how the depredations of dictators have turned the world’s fourth largest inland sea into a poisonous desert.”
10. 40 maps that explain the Roman Empire
By Timothy B. Lee | Vox | Aug. 19
“Two thousand years ago, on August 19, 14 AD, Caesar Augustus died. … Under Augustus and his successors, the empire experienced 200 years of relative peace and prosperity. Here are 40 maps that explain the Roman Empire — its rise and fall, its culture and economy, and how it laid the foundations of the modern world.”
I was enjoying number 1 and number 6 on your list… but I really loved when I got to the 40 maps on the roman empire! Superb recommendations. 🙂