good:
Why the Most Literate Cities in America Aren’t the Wealthiest
Apparently, money can’t buy literacy. Dr. John Miller says he “learned that wealthier cites are no more likely to rank highly in literacy than poorer cities.” Although “poverty has a strong impact on educational attainment,” Miller says, cities that are “truly committed to literacy” can find a way to “create and sustain rich resources for reading.”
![jesuisperdu:
[December 21, 2011. Mourners follow the car carrying a casket with remains of late Czech president Vaclav Havel on their way through central Prague to Prague Castle on Prague, Czech Republic. The body of the former playwright was moved from a church, where it had been laid out for public viewing for the last two days, to Prague Castle—where Havel will lie in state—before the burial on 23 December.]](http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwp8aaUFSW1qzt15co1_500.jpg)
[December 21, 2011. Mourners follow the car carrying a casket with remains of late Czech president Vaclav Havel on their way through central Prague to Prague Castle on Prague, Czech Republic. The body of the former playwright was moved from a church, where it had been laid out for public viewing for the last two days, to Prague Castle—where Havel will lie in state—before the burial on 23 December.]
“I’m calling on G.O.P. leadership to immediately bring up the Senate’s two-month extension for an up or down vote,” said Representative Sean Duffy of Wisconsin, who voted against the deal earlier in the week. “Middle-class families deserve a Congress that will rise above the squabbling and ensure their taxes don’t go up right after Christmas.” (via House Republican Leaders Agree to Extend Tax Cut Temporarily - NYTimes.com) Awesome combination of stupidity and moronism.
If the euro is preserved and Europe moves toward a more unified future, Mrs. Merkel will probably win the lion’s share of the credit, perhaps one day being hailed as Europe’s savior. But if her prescriptions turn out to be inadequate, she could reap the blame for presiding over the collapse of the euro, with untold consequences for the world economy.
Either way, Mrs. Merkel, a steely champion of austerity and fiscal discipline, seems to have assumed the nickname of her 19th-century predecessor Otto von Bismarck: the Iron Chancellor.
tetw:
by Tom Wolfe
The space program, the greatest, grandest, most Promethean quest in the history of the world, died in infancy at 10:56 p.m. New York time on July 20, 1969, the moment the foot of Apollo 11’s Commander Armstrong touched the surface of the Moon.
