From The Wilson Quarterly, the US has settled for a patchwork approach to infrastructure — to stay ahead in the global economy, it needs to build adaptable networks like the 1956 Interstate Highway System; pouring more concrete will not by itself answer our infrastructure prayers — look instead to the transformative power of information technology; and when our roads and bridges crumble and collapse, we have one kind of problem — when they don’t, we have another. From McSweeney's, Jason Roeder on The Elements of Spam. Does going to Mecca make Muslims more moderate? Here's Nat Hentoff's last column: The 50-year veteran says goodbye (as The Village Voice is written off). What Crisis? Some promising futures for art criticism. From Vanity Fair, when Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa on novelist Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses, it was the opening shot in a war on cultural freedom — two decades later, the violence continues, and Muslim fundamentalists have gained a new advantage: media self-censorship; and Dubya, drawn and quartered: A slide show features favorite depictions of the soon-to-be-former president. There's a lot of talk about using tolls to shift people from roads onto public transportation, but how about taking the toll off transit? Gawker Shocker: How the Web's hottest gossip empire lost its mojo. More and more on Snark by David Denby.
