Spokesperson: “The university published a brief line on each candidate in announcing the final list of confirmed nominees as part of a news release, and the process by which these were composed was the same for all candidates. Paula Claire expressed dissatisfaction with the wording of her description, and the description was duly changed as soon as her complaint was received.”

Mary Wright’s main interest was how the state coalesces again after a colossal civil war and an internal rebellion that led to fifteen to twenty million casualties. This enormous loss of life ended in 1864, and the ruling elite was able to reestablish itself for another forty-five years of imperial rule. Was there a valid tradition of Chinese conservative thinking that could be linked from the bureaucracy and the examination system to the practical skills that allowed the ruling elite to reestablish itself after the rebellion?

While many people say multitasking makes them more productive, research shows otherwise. Heavy multitaskers actually have more trouble focusing and shutting out irrelevant information, scientists say, and they experience more stress.

No matter what variations in domestic policies politicians invent, no matter what rhetorical claims of convenience are cited by polemicists, no matter what books we read, what schools we attend, what cars we drive, what taxes we pay—when it comes to outcomes, we all end up at about the same place at about the same time.

Opinion-shapers long hostile to the very fact of Israel’s existence have exploited the incident to incite against Israel’s right to defend itself from those who would destroy it. And, most worryingly, some leaders and nations who have hitherto shown the capacity to distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and malevolent discrimination against Israel have abandoned such reason.

Venter has taken just another incremental step in the human manipulation of life, which began millennia ago when our ancestors started breeding dogs and ducks and accelerated recently as a result of advances in biotechnology.

Is it true, as many people who have commented on the matter have claimed, that the recent decline in newspaper books coverage is a problem for the culture at large, and also representative of larger cultural problems? Are review sections disappearing or shrinking because they can’t turn a profit? Or is it because they can’t compete with material originating on the web?