From The Boston Globe's The Big Picture, a photo essay of the miners rescued in Chile.
From Harper's, Gary Grenberg on the war on unhappiness: Goodbye Freud, hello positive thinking. Harvard's Shawn Achor on how to be happier. The Spoils of Happiness: Whatever happiness may be, it's not a state of mind. A review of What Is This Thing Called Happiness? by Fred Feldman. More Money, Less Mirth: Economist Carol Graham tries to fathom the sometimes paradoxical relationship between prosperity and happiness. Here are 5 things you think will make you happy (but won't). A history of happiness: We've forgotten much of what older traditions knew about happiness. Medical journalist Ian Smith uses past experience to inform his book Happy: Simple Steps to Get the Most Out of Life.
An interview with Steven Rattner, author of Overhaul: An Insider's Account of the Obama Administration's Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry (and part 2 — and a response by Jonathan Bernstein). And here's Rattner on TARP, an unloved bail-out that saved America.
Andreas Follesdal (Oslo): Religious Liberty Versus Gender Equality: In Memory of Susan Moller Okin. Denise Walsh (Virginia): Culture Versus Women’s Rights Conflicts and Multicultural Policies. Charles Taylor on solidarity in a pluralist age. On multiculturalism, the cardinal rule is that all immigrants to Canada love their adoptive country but cling to the habits of home, but some immigrants chose Canada to get the hell away from their homescape and after arrival never gave the old country a second thought. How multiculturalism fails immigrants: Grouping people according to their "historical" cultural identity is both divisive and dangerous — migration is about change, not ossification. Slavoj Zizek on how liberal multiculturalism masks an old barbarism with a human face: Across Europe, the politics of the far right is infecting all with the need for a "reasonable" anti-immigration policy. From Alternative Right, Fjordman on Thilo Sarrazin vs. the multiculti oligarchs (and a response by Paul Gottfried). A review of Multiculturalism: Some Inconvenient Truths by Rumy Hasan. In the hands of today’s students, multiculturalism is a fruit that has over-ripened — the fact that all human beings are born equal has thoughtlessly become confused with the myth that all cultures are born equal.
The New York Times has a review of newly translated works by Roberto Bolaño. The man without a country: Robert M. Downey on the cottage industry of Roberto Bolaño (and more and more and more and more and more at Bookforum). From Swans, Peter Byrne on Roberto Bolaño's Poetic Justice.
