At the Wall Street Journal, Michael Moynihan reviews A Difficult Woman, a biography of Lillian Hellman, written by Alice Kessler-Harris.  Moynihan puts it all in perspective with:

Despite voluminous evidence to the contrary, Ms. Kessler-Harris insists that Hellman’s “concern for accuracy persisted throughout her life.” Not when it came to her memoirs and certainly not when it came to communism’s crimes.

Hear, hear.  It’s about time these things stopped being soft-lighted and people full of supposed social concern stopped being given a pass for supporting unspeakably evil regimes.  Read the review here.  And if you haven’t, just for the sake of perspective, consider buying and reading  The Black Book Of Communism.

Science you can use — apparently buying happiness IS a matter of knowing where to shop.  And how.  And having the money.  At least to a point.

Smoke, Mirrors and Publisher self-delusion, oh, my.

Turns out Amish farm kids are remarkably immune to allergies.  Since they are more immune than other farm kids, it’s possible it is a result of the genetic pool.  But it’s also possible that things such as drinking raw milk are involved.  You know, the same raw milk our government protects us from?

As the Professor would say, “Faster, please”  Perhaps the most exciting medical breakthrough in recent times.  There’s an 80% chance that in five months Bill Weir will be the first person ever to see his cardiac tissue beating outside his body.

If only dinosaurs had invented beano, they’d still be around.  Or at least that’s the belief of those attributing pre-historic climate change to… dinosaur flatulence.

A forgotten New York City “Hidden” Subway station is both visually stunning and an illustration of how elaborate top-down economic planning (shovel-ready, even)  is often outpaced by technological development, creating massive waste. 

It was opened in 1904, with the hope of making it the crowning glory of the New York subway system in elegant architecture and a place for commemorative plaques to honour the work that had resulted in such a successful underground mass transit system.……..The reason for its closure was that newer longer cars were required ……… as the stations tracks were severely curved, a dangerous gap between the train doors and the platform was formed making it an unsafe area. This combined with the fact that only about 600 people used it, resulted in its closure with only mythical plans of turning it into a transit museum.

Stunning pictures.  Someone should use it as the setting for some urban fantasy movie.

THE END OF AN ERA?  Japan ‘switching off’ final nuclear reactor.

UPDATE: Link was broken before. Fixed now. Sorry!

Catastrophic change in publishing meets the education bubble?  The cost of textbooks used to be justifiable given small print runs, need for frequently updated editions, etc.  Electronic publishing removes those justifications.  Academic publishers have fought the e-model tooth and nail.  Reality can’t be ignored forever, though, and things are starting to change.

My name is Sarah A. Hoyt and I’m a writer.  It’s been six hours since I last wrote–  Oh, wait, wrong place.  So, hi.  I normally blog here.  I will be one of the people filling Glenn’s not inconsiderable shoes.   Needless to say, honored to be here.  I feel like the kid who is used to his tricycle and just got handed the keys to a Ferrari.