Read Something

Here is a review of an interesting new book about how presidential speeches have focused less and less on logos and more and more on pathos–to America’s detriment.

To my students: What does it say about our culture if a mob of shoppers tears the doors to a Wal-Mart off their hinges and tramples several people, killing one of them?  Another one of the victims was a woman who was eight months pregnant.  Happy shopping, everybody.

I just got back from seeing The Dark Knight a second time, and something struck me, not just about the film itself, but about Gotham City’s ongoing problems with crime.  Batman has been around for almost seventy years now, but his home turf still looks pretty sketchy.  Sure, there is a lot of suspension of disbelief that goes into writing a comic book, but shouldn’t there be some degree of change over time with regard to how Gotham City as a whole responds to Batman’s work?  We don’t know the crime rate, but does it ever go down?  Don’t things get quieter over there?  Why don’t some of the more powerful criminals just move on down the road?

Batman is ultimately a fantasy, so most of these questions go unanswered, but there may be some logic to why things don’t change.  Criminals–well, actually, people in general–have a natural lust for power, and with Gotham being the metropolis (pardon the obvious allusion) that it is, not even a superhero can prevent someone from wanting to be the main source of contraband in the city.  These crooks jockeying for a monopoly on drugs run into trouble, but the Gotham P.D. and Batman only prevent the city from being overwhelmed by depravity.  They never truly clean up the streets; there’s always a noticeable layer of grime.

So is it worth it for Batman to go to all the trouble?  Probably.  Crime is crime, and somebody has to fight it.  But he could certainly use some help, and not just from Robin.

Consider seeking Lemony Snicket’s wise counsel.

…if you can find a way to improve Cinematch’s accuracy by ten percent.  Cinematch is the program that matches customer ratings with recommendations, and Netflix’s own programmers have hit a wall in trying to improve it.  The New York Times has a great piece about the teams of programmers (many with no programming or mathematical background) who are trying to win the prize.  Two years have passed with no one reaching that ten percent target.

One problem for many of them?  This movie.

Is there anything left to say about Buffalo, New York, other than that it has sports teams?  This brief story in The Atlantic is a reminder that what was once the eighth-largest city in the country is rapidly dying.  It’s sad, really: a few years ago, my wife and I spent a little time there, and it had so much to offer (in spite of its weather) that one wonders how they lost it all.  Driving through there made me think about the process a major urban area goes through when it decays.  The city looked like it once housed a lot of life, but as the industries there continued to go south, downtown hollowed out more and more.  Buffalo could still be a great place to live, and whenever it’s mentioned, I can’t help but root for it a little, hoping that someday, a genius (or a corporation?) shows up and revives it.

As promised, here is the Washington Post article on how The Onion comes up with its stories.

An eighth-grade girl in Chicago wore both McCain and Obama shirts, with interesting results.

Part 1

Part 2

Really?

Malcolm Gladwell writes for The New Yorker, and he also has two (soon to be three) bestselling books.  His latest article (presumably an excerpt from his new book The Outliers) is about how a legendary Goldman Sachs executive may have benefited from his adverse background.