Assad Regime Hold on Syria More Tenuous as Thousands Take Part in General Strike from the Daily Telegraph [of the UK]
"The Syrian government's increasingly tenuous hold on power weakened further as rebels struck military targets across the country and thousands of businesses shut down in response to an opposition-called general strike."
Why 2011 Was a Banner Year for Human Rights (Stewart Patrick) from the Atlantic
"The world is making important strides in basic freedoms and rights."
Chinese Autumn is no Arab Spring (Yu Hua) from the Los Angeles Times
"Beijing's communist officials should fear revolution, not democracy."
Boosted by Putin, Russia’s Middle Class Turns on Him from the New York Times
"A decade of growth under Vladimir V. Putin, now Russia’s prime minister, has created a class of wealthy urban professionals who are not afraid to express their political frustration."
The Long Life of Homo Sovieticus from the Economist [of the UK]
"This week’s elections and upheavals in Russia show how hard it is, 20 years after the system collapsed, for the country to put away its Soviet past."
The Civil Archipelago in Russia (David Remnick) from the New Yorker
"Despite Putin’s high approval ratings—–sixty-something per cent, down from the mid-eighties, in 2007—the Russian people can no longer be portrayed as uniformly bovine and apathetic, anesthetized by stability."
In Decline, Putin's Russia Is On Its Way to Global Irrelevance (Niall Ferguson) from the Daily Beast
"Russia—who cares? With its rampant voter fraud and declining population, the country is careening toward irrelevance."
The Real Legacy of Nelson Mandela from the Wall Street Journal
"The antiapartheid hero refused to launch a personality cult. Why have other African leaders failed to follow suit?"
Depression and Democracy (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"It’s time to start calling the current situation what it is: a depression. True, it’s not a full replay of the Great Depression, but that’s cold comfort. Unemployment in both America and Europe remains disastrously high. Leaders and institutions are increasingly discredited. And democratic values are under siege."
Unpaid Bills Land Some Debtors Behind Bars (Susie An) from NPR's Morning Edition
"Although debtors' prisons are illegal across the country, it's becoming increasingly common for people to serve jail time as a result of their debt. Collection agencies are resorting to some unusually harsh tactics to force people to pay their unpaid debt, some of whom aren't aware that lawsuits have been filed against them by creditors."
Heating Assistance Cut for Poor in Northeast (Ben Johnson) from Slate
"It’s hard to imagine a worse time to stop helping the poor pay their heating bills. Winter is getting under way in earnest, the economy is somewhere between extremely sluggish positive motion and the brink of global collapse. But according to the Associated Press, thousands of families across the Northeast are preparing to have one of the worst winters ever, because of a ice cold combination: rising fuel prices and government cuts."
Black-led Detroit Resists White Control Under Emergency Manager from the Bloomberg News Service via the San Francisco Chronicle
"Four Michigan cities are controlled by emergency managers. All have populations that are mostly black. If Detroit joins them, 49.7 percent of the state's black residents would live under city governments in which they have little say. Michigan's emergency managers have sweeping authority to nullify union contracts, sell assets and fire workers. Snyder has said he doesn't want one for Detroit, though he called the city's financial condition severe enough to warrant help."
Police Employ Predator Drone Spy Planes on Home from the Los Angeles Times
"Unmanned aircraft from an Air Force base in North Dakota help local police with surveillance, raising questions that trouble privacy advocates."
Obama 2012 Gaining Support From Democrats from the Associated Press via the Huffington Post
"After a dreary summer marred by the fight over government borrowing, rank-and-file Democrats say they are growing more optimistic about President Barack Obama's political prospects in 2012. They cite his tougher, more populist tone and what they view as a chaotic primary fight among Republicans."
Poll: Obama Leads Romney and Gingrich ... in South Carolina?! from Talking Points Memo
"...these are not good numbers for the GOP with a supposedly lukewarm popularity president and near catastrophic levels of unemployment."
Mapping Out The Primary Calendar: Why Mitt Romney Is In Trouble from Talking Points Memo
"Taking a step back from the various state polls, and looking at the flow of the calendar itself, something starts to become clear: If a person had sat down to write a primary calendar, designed around the goal of making things hard for Romney, they could not do much better than the current one."
After Saturday Night’s Debate, Is It the End of Mitt? (Michael Tomasky) from the Daily Beast
"Through all the ups and downs of the past few months, Mitt Romney has remained the default frontrunner—until now. Michael Tomasky on the beginning of the end."
Republican Debate: 7 Takeaways from Politico
"Mitt Romney had a $10,000 unforced error. ... The details of what the two were fighting about almost don’t matter. ... The line cut to the heart of the knock on Romney — that he’s rich and out of touch."
Newt Obliterates the Competition in Saturday’s Debate (Paul Begala) from the Daily Beast
"Newt came into the debate the frontrunner, and that’s how he left it—with Romney left in the dust, says Paul Begala. Plus, Eleanor Clift, Rich Galen, and more contributors weigh in."
And Now It's Newt's Turn (Erik Tarloff) from the Atlantic
"The former Speaker for the House may enjoy support as an alternative to Mitt Romney, but one way or another, he will be brought down by the party establishment."
Fire and Ice (Maureen Dowd) from the New York Times
"Joe Scarborough, one of the House plotters against Speaker Gingrich back in 1997, quipped, “Let me just say, if Newt Gingrich is the smartest guy in the room, leave that room.”"
INTER-RACIAL HISTORY NUGGET!!
Dating and Marrying Out: Intermarriage and Cross-cultural Relationships in the U.S. (Denise Oliver Velez) from Daily Kos
A really interesting long-form essay (with disturbing images) on the topic!
"Inextricably linked to marriage and sex across boundaries was (and still is) the classification of any progeny from these unions. Who got to be "white" and how that was determined was key. Laws developed to deal with "miscegenation" also worked in tandem with determinants of "race," which here in the U.S. was governed by variants of hypodescent (the one-drop rule), which assigned children of mixed unions to the group with lower status."
RELIGION NUGGET!!
One True God – Not as Popular as You Might Think from Discover Magazine
Despite the headline, I was actually taken aback by the number of true believers!
"Even in Saudi Arabia 25 percent of the population would not sign on to a very exclusive reading of their religion. This is not surprising to me. Very exclusive adherence to the proposition that all non-believers are damned is often hard to adhere to in any marginally cosmopolitan circumstance."
ODD INTER-SPECIES FRIENDSHIP NUGGET!!
Anjana and Cub at Myrtle Beach, SC at the Institute of Greatly Endangered and Rare Species (PHOTOS) from YouTube
A chimp playing with his tiger cub friends!
TECHNOLOGY NUGGET!!
Coming to a Store Near You: A Flat-screen TV that Can be Rolled Up and Put in your Pocket from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"Flat screen TVs that can be rolled up and stored in a draw of put in your pocket will soon be a reality. The new technology which was developed by a team of British scientists is known as quantum dots and can be used to make ultra-thin televisions."
Thank God! One thing I have long despised about TVs is how much they can DOMINATE a room. This roll-up quality -- I could see myself paying extra for this feature if the picture were good enough.
WORLD WAR II NUGGET!!
Nazi Memorabilia Boom: 'The People Want Souvenirs' from Der Spiegel [of Germany in English]
"The trade in Nazi relics is booming in the United States, driven by private collectors who want to own a piece of world history's most notorious era. This week a US auction house at the helm of the trend will sell personal documents left behind by Joseph Goebbels, one of Hitler's closest cohorts. "
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