The Browser - Society

On Censorship | Salman Rushdie | New Yorker | 15 May 2012

The Browser — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:40:39 +0000

Superb short essay in favour of boat-rocking. "Originality is dangerous. It challenges, questions, overturns assumptions, unsettles moral codes." This is where great art comes from. If we believe in liberty, we must celebrate it

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Economic Case For Same-Sex Marriage | Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers | Bloomberg | 15 May 2012

The Browser — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:06:59 +0000

"The joining of husband and wife yields a more productive firm, because it allows one spouse to specialise in earning income from working in the market, while the other specialises in the domestic sphere." But times change

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The Mafia Wives Who Want Out | Michael Day | Independent | 15 May 2012

The Browser — Wed, 16 May 2012 07:04:42 +0000

Married to the 'Ndrangheta. "Ms Cacciola was forced into a loveless marriage at the age of 16, with a man who almost immediately disappeared into the solitary confinement wing of a prison. From then on, she was rarely allowed out"

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The Wrong Carlos | Ed Pilkington | Guardian | 15 May 2012

The Browser — Tue, 15 May 2012 11:36:20 +0000

Troubling story of Carlos DeLuna, executed in 1989 for the brutal murder of a young woman. DeLuna always insisted that the killer was a lookalike, Carlos Hernandez. But police denied Hernandez even existed. They were wrong

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A Bully Never Forgets. Unless That Bully Is Mitt Romney | Tom Junod | Esquire | 14 May 2012

The Browser — Tue, 15 May 2012 11:32:34 +0000

Junod bullied another child and it scarred both of them. So when Romney says he doesn't remember, he's lying. Neither victim nor perpetrator forget things like that. But suppose he is telling the truth. What does that make him?

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Bullfighting Is Not A Sport, It Is A Tragedy | Ernest Hemingway | Hemingway Papers/Toronto Star | 07 May 2012

The Browser — Tue, 15 May 2012 11:30:54 +0000

Hemingway's old paper, the Toronto Star, has launched a terrific new project to republish his columns. In this piece, from 1923, Hemingway describes the first bullfights he saw – an experience he was to revisit in his first novel

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Three Myths Of Immigration | Kenan Malik | Pandaemonium | 08 May 2012

The Browser — Tue, 15 May 2012 11:24:32 +0000

First up: European nations used to be homogenous but have become plural because of mass immigration. Er, no. To believe this requires "historical amnesia and a highly selective standard for defining what it is to be plural"

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Anonymous: Most Powerful Organisation On Earth | Catherine Solyom | National Post | 12 May 2012

The Browser — Tue, 15 May 2012 06:58:56 +0000

Interview with fugitive hacker Christopher Doyon. "Right now we have access to every classified database in the US government. The access was given to us by the people who run the systems. The pimply-faced kid in the basement"

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Louisiana Is The World's Prison Capital | Cindy Chang | Nola | 13 May 2012

The Browser — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:34:14 +0000

Incarceration rate highest in US, triple Iran's, seven times China's. Most prisoners are in privately owned prisons. Prison profits help pay for law enforcement. Strong chain of incentives for local sheriffs to keep prisons full

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Château Sucker | Benjamin Wallace | New York | 13 May 2012

The Browser — Mon, 14 May 2012 10:33:10 +0000

How one man fooled some of the world's most knowledgeable wine collectors. It's easy to say they should have spotted the con, now that Rudy Kurniawan has been indicted for fraud. But vanity, greed, credulity can be a powerful brew

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