From Human Rights and Human Welfare, a roundtable on women's human rights. Unfinished business: An article on sex equality on the global agenda (and part 2). How can you save the world?: Social scientists have known for years that investing in girls has a multiplier effect, sending positive ripples to their families and communities. How women can save the planet: Empowering young women through education will help reduce overpopulation in areas that cannot support it and avoid extremism in the children they raise. A feminist case for war: Women's rights activists are conflicted over a continued US presence in Afghanistan. What does a woman want? Women want to be Swedish. From H-Net, a review of Making Marriage Modern: Women's Sexuality from the Progressive Era to World War II by Christian Simmons. An excerpt from When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins (and more and more and more and more and more and more). Did feminism make women miserable? Barbara Ehrenreich on why a recent study on declining female happiness really stinks. From CAP, here's the The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything. Work/life balance is not a woman's issue: Men need family-friendly workplaces, too — so why is this issue framed as something only mothers should care about? Calling all male feminists: Erasing gender stereotypes benefits all of us, men and women. The Mismeasure of Woman: Somewhere along the line, especially in recent years, progress for women has stalled — this isn’t simply a woman’s issue, it affects us all.

Robert Crumb thinks God might actually be crazy (and more and more and more and more and more and more on The Book of Genesis Illustrated; and a review by Jeet Heer at Bookforum). You don’t need psychedelic drugs to start seeing colors and objects that aren’t really there; just 15 minutes of near-total sensory deprivation can bring on hallucinations in many otherwise sane individuals. An Afternoon in Auschwitz: Can the world's most famous death camp teach us anything but horror and despair? Margaret Thatcher's German war: Newly released documents reveal the British Prime Minister's fear of a reunited Germany. Weakness, ineptitude, and folly: Harvey E. Whitney, Jr. on scientistic sensationalism and corporatized cliches of university game day television ads. Saddam’s space program: Before the first Gulf War, Iraq was actively developing a launch vehicle for placing a satellite into orbit, and perhaps other purposes; Dwayne Day looks at what’s known about this effort. Lives less ordinary: No one wants to read about writers diligently scribbling in lonely garrets — bring on the addictions, the affairs. Is this the Hand of Google?: "Finger condoms", the sheathed fingers of scanners employed by the search giant's Google Books service, are provoking amusement and consternation online. All sports books are local: National scandal fatigue has revived the appeal of hometown loyalties and the true fan. An interview with Emily Bobrow, editor of More Intelligent Life, the online version of The Economist’s quarterly culture and style magazine. A review of Iris Murdoch and the Art of Imaging by Marije Altorf. The Boar War: A wild menace invades Houston.

From THES, Kant trumps cant any day: "Intensely relaxed" about the academy's "filthy rich legacy", Simon Blackburn sees no need to justify his work to ministers. Thirty years after he graduated from Exeter University, John Crace returns to find out how loans, fees and accountability have changed the student experience. The long march: China is hungry for Western-style universities, not least to fuel its economy. US decline or a flawed measure: Can international rankings of universities provide a picture of the relative rise and fall of nation’s universities? From the new Wall Street Journal on Campus, are the Ivies worth the price? Yale for Sale: In the pocket of political correctness and Saudi princes. One shudders to think of how these euphoria-deprived pashas of the nation’s bogus meritocracy will forge onward in their post-Harvard professional lives. At NYU, a more progressive president means less progressive labor policies. A review of Wannabe U: Inside the Corporate University by Gaye Tuchman (and more). An interview with James C. Garland, author of Saving Alma Mater: A Rescue Plan for America's Public Universities (and an excerpt). The first chapter (and video) of Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America's Public Universities by William Bowen, Matthew Chingos and Michael McPherson. Why do so many first-generation college students fail?: An interview with Rebecca Cox, author of The College Fear Factor. Subprime student loan racket: With help from Washington, the for-profit college industry is loading up millions of low-income students with debt they'll never pay off.

A review of The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves by W. Brian Arthur. Who still uses fax machines (other than Mia Farrow fans)? A review of Cassette From My Ex: Stories and Soundtracks of Lost Loves by Jason Bitner. Since stacks of vinyl are quickly disappearing, is it possible that we will be handing our kids our old hard drives for them to look through or USB drives for them to play with? More on Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music by Greg Milner. The father of video games: From a few notes scribbled on a notepad, Ralph Baer invented a new industry. Global Impositioning Systems: Is GPS technology actually harming our sense of direction? Enthusiasts use GPS to track down hidden booty. Free municipal wireless sounds like a great idea for any city that has already invested heavily in high-tech infrastructure — too bad there’s no more money to pay for the last link of the chain. Happy 40th birthday, Internet: In 1969 a UCLA team sent the first message over ARPANET — and fundamentally changed humanity (and more and more and more). A review of The Tyranny of E-mail: The Four Thousand Year Journey to Your Inbox by John Freeman (and more). Nary a decade after its coronation as the lingua franca of technological communication, has email already lost its crown? A review of Total Recall: How the e-memory revolution will change everything by Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmell. A review of Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger (and the first chapter; and more). Private Worlds: Lives spent lurking too long in the shadows of the virtual. Stop your search engines: Forcing ourselves offline may be the path to true knowledge.