From Mute, is the convergence of art and sport under the pressure of pseudo-participatory spectacle undermining the utopian potential of both? If almost every species on Earth was killed some 250 million years ago, how did our ancient ancestors survive and evolve into us? Lily Burana reviews Alexandra Fuller’s The Legend of Colton H. Bryant. A review of How’s Your Drink? Cocktails, Culture, and the Art of Drinking Well by Eric Felten. Richard Hansen on the collapse of the public financing system for US presidential campaigns: Blame Congress, not the candidates. Tired of the mommy wars? Perhaps we should start blaming our mothers instead of our kids. Jeffrey Rosen on how George Bush's legal war against the environment backfired. Stephen Kinzer on the Petraeus effect: The promotion of George Bush's favourite general is a dangerous miscalculation. The young and the restless: A new generation drawn to politics by Obama could just as easily become alienated. Slate presents a series of online discussions with leading environmental advocates. From The Economist, an article on Europe's Marxist dilemma: It is easier to influence a country before than after it joins the club. The fantastic appeal of fantasy: The more rational the world gets, the more we demand the irrational in our fiction. From Carnegie Ethics, here are five international questions for the National Basic Income debates.
