One way of reading.

Yesterday, I bought five books -- a diverse array. I've been reading them in a sequence, four to twenty pages in one book and then in th...

Is dyslexia a hearing problem?

A new study suggests that dyslexia originates in difficulty distinguishing the spoken word from surrounding noise, a problem that then car...

"Maybe I am already dead. But I will continue to believe that I am alive."

That's an example of the rather cool blogging style of 82-year-old King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia.

"I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat."

That's a funny way to put it , isn't it? As if we'd stopped talking about Watergate long ago and the memory of it had gone all f...

RLUIPA and the Establishment Clause.

The Supreme Court has held that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), which requires states to accommod...

Great ad.

Check out how the new blogad over there links to my post about Camille Paglia's reading here in Madison. UPDATE: The Blogads blog blogs...

The difference between men and women -- at the spa level.

Here 's an article about the business of spas: how do you get men to go? Well, put some chunky, dark brown furniture in the waiting roo...

"We are not interested in ideas."

Stanley Fish designs a writing class that banishes ideas, opinion, content . Why would you want to do that? "We don't do content i...

"If the theory's right..."

NYT's John Tierney is still promoting the theory that men are by nature more competitive than women. Harvard president Lawrence Summers...

Memorial Day.

(An enlargement from the "Salute" set of drawings in the previous post.)

WAC Life.

Both my parents served in the Army in WWII, and one of my personal treasures is War Department Pamphlet 35-3 May 1945: "WAC Life."...

Is it good for young children to believe they are cute?

This is a belief parents inspire in their kids, some more than others. A lot more. UPDATE: Oh, good, they're gone.

Lefty lawprofs.

Lawprof Scott Gerber complains about "The Radicalization of American Legal Education." Does it hurt law students if lawprofs lean...

Altoids, Sharpies, and Purell.

And the question is: What's in the bag the President's personal assistant carries around? The assistant -- more or less a butler -...

The tempting marketplace.

Obesity researchers are using mapmakers to graphically demonstrate that kids walk home from school past lots of places that sell the kind o...

How offensive does something need to be before you see what is offensive?

Yesterday, I wrote with some enthusiasm about a podcasting project given high-profile publicity in the NYT . Singled out for praise was the...

The pacifist sermon.

"My rector's sermons tend to be merely vapid, digressive, undisciplined, and soporific, but today's was the biggest pile of ho...

Dark sky.

Here at my upstairs study table, I'm watching a storm gather. Curious Althouse readers wonder what's in the vial??

How easy it is to be original!

RLC muses about how the internet puts so much writing so close at hand that it makes everybody seem like a plagiarist. You write something,...

"What, exactly, do you think cowboys represent, other than the triumph of alpha males?"

I liked the very cranky interview Larry McMurtry gave to the NYT Magazine's Deborah Solomon, who asked that question. He answers: Cowbo...

"World War I people are getting scarce."

"Nothing can be done about that."

"The attorney ... was brilliant, impassioned and sarcastic..."

"... moving and moved. He played the entire scale of emotions with confident precision." If you're keeping a list of movies ab...

W.

We love W so much here at the University of Wisconsin that we plant a giant W every spring. (Click to enlarge.) Later in the summer, it will...

The iPod and the art museum.

I love these new iPod museum guides , which rival those pompous, official museum audio-tours. [David Gilbert, a professor of communication a...

"What Lincoln Believed."

Michiku Kakutani writes about writing about Abraham Lincoln: He has been feted as a noble visionary who liberated America's slaves and ...

"These people don't even know they are pagans."

So says a woman in a position to organize the Earth Day celebrations in her town and including "events with ritual content," accor...

Strange things.

Things keep looking like other things today. (Click image to enlarge.) A dying bat fluttering on the lawn? A strawberry on the ground? A bus...

The ethnicity of pain.

From the Journal of Pain.

At the café with an old notebook, trying to remember "Dog Day Afternoon."

I've got my New York Times, my large latte -- yes, large, not venti, this is not Starbucks -- my pen and little notebook. No computer to...

My holiday weekend.

Blogging, Site Meter-checking, you can see that people go off and do things on holidays. For me, it's that period between semesters, and...

Holding out, until the very end.

The last hold-out Japanese soldiers from WWII, Yoshio Yamakawa, 87, and Tsuzuki Nakauchi, 85.

The graceful Condoleezza.

Condoleezza Rice did a nice job of responding to protesters: [A]bout five minutes into the secretary's 30-minute speech [at the Commonw...

About a girl.

Leave Courtney Love alone. She looks happy , and Frances Bean is utterly adorable. Oh! They were in the audience at the "American Idol...

Quadrupling Shuffle memory.

Great! I love my 1GB iPod Shuffle -- the way it looks, its near weightlessness -- but more memory is always nice.

When bloggers travelblog.

They blog about internet access: here , here , and here . And that's just one blogger. This blogger does occasionally have something on...

Look what's happening at the Mr. Snuff trial!

Oh, noooo!

People keep telling me to leave Blogger...

After my recent problems. They say they're not having problems where they are. But their place is much smaller than Blogger. How do I kn...

I'm not Anne Elk.

And my body, in fact, does not resemble that of John Cleese .

School not fun.

WaPo discovers. Click on the link to read plenty of quotes from high school kids who didn't like that the teachers assigned so much rea...

Inviting you into the army with a video game.

WaPo on the Army's on-line video game : There are no statistics about how many people have joined the Army because of the game, or after...

Postsecret.

Secrets on homemade postcards . Fascinating, even though most of the secrets are quite ordinary. (Via About Last Night , via Asymmetrical In...

Brazilian Institute for Oriental Studies ... really?

Don't click here if you're very prudish or near someone who is, but these Phallic Logo Awards are hilarious. Via Metafilter .

Pie and surrealism.

Sissy Willis comments on that Huffington's Toast photoshop . Speaking of Althouse-related photoshopping, remember this one ? AND: Littl...

Sitting in a café.

I'm sitting in a café here in Madison, doing a little blogging, answering my email, listening to samba music, gazing out the window at t...

"How did you prepare for the role?"

Merv Griffin reveals that when a talk show host asks that question, he's "in terrible trouble." Griffin's proud of never ...

"Everything Bad Is Good For You."

There's this theory going around that pop culture things like TV and video games improve the mind because they've become quite compl...

Listening to books.

Should people who read books look down on people who listen to audiobooks ? Many do: "I like to read my books," they say. And the ...

The new "Idol."

And so, Carrie wins "American Idol." You probably think I'm upset about the outcome, if you've been reading my comments al...

The blog is back!

Yay! I hope you found Althouse2 , my (thus far) faithful backup blog. I'll add it to my blogroll, so in case this ever fails again, chec...

Blogger woes.

Things are looking nearly hopeless with Blogger and me... UPDATE: I haven't been able to get my posts to show since yesterday evening, a...

Fidget.

Or be fat.

"My dreams came true/When I found you."

It's finale night on "American Idol," and, of course, that means they're going to inflict original songs lyrics like that ...

About that filibuster compromise...

Yes, I know I haven't written anything about it yet. I feel that I can't even really see what the true agreement is : what's goi...

Madison almost accidentally banned the Wienermobile!

Trying to ban one thing -- the billboard on a flatbed truck -- the Madison City Council drafted a law that would have also banned a local ...

"Common fear" and "severe misunderstandings."

The city of Eugene, Oregon is about to consider banning discrimination based on "gender identity." Among other things, it would b...

The usual strategy for talking about sex differences.

A modern convention: To write or talk about how women and men are different, make sure you portray whatever attribute you ascribe to women a...

"It's the Chinese leadership itself that is digging the Communist Party's grave, by giving the Chinese people broadband.'

Nicholas Kristof on blogging, chat rooms, and ineffective censorship in China. I tried my own experiment, posting comments on Internet chat...

Time's "Top 100" Movies.

Time's list of 100 Movies is bugging me. Why? Clearly, they are trying to represent different genres and different countries, but even...

I don't want to agitate you, adulate you, or masticate you.

Donovan gives his side of his run-in with Bob Dylan, depicted in the documentary "Don't Look Back" : Viewers divide into tho...

Blogebrity.

Metafilter's talking about whether Blogebrity is a hoax. I know linking to them helps them in the Contagious Media contest, but I alr...

"I am Blog."

The other day the TiVo dragged in a very old episode of Saturday Night Live -- so old Chevy Chase was on it. One segment floored me. Steve M...

Draft Condi.

USNews reports (via Wonkette ): Political associates of Secretary of State Condi Rice are stirring the 2008 presidential pot on her behalf....

New cases.

SCOTUSblog has details on four Supreme Court cases announced today.

The new abortion case.

The Supreme Court has just taken up a new abortion case : Justices will review a lower court ruling that struck down such a law in New Hamps...

"Abortion and choice aren't core principles of the Democratic Party. Rather, things like a Right to Privacy are."

Kos is tired of the way single-issue groups -- well, basically NARAL -- run the Democratic Party. The Republicans -- he worries -- have a p...

Do bloggers create the buzz?

Tom Zeller (in the NYT) thinks bloggers only have much influence to decide what's news when they get their hands on a smoking gun. Thus...

Keep an eye on him while I go grab a disposable camera.

Baby's day at WalMart.

China bans naked sushi.

Really! The practice of eating sushi off naked or nearly-naked women has long been popular with a certain clientele in Japan. But the author...

"Sky of blue and sea of green."

Donovan -- interviewed on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his first recording and the reissue of four key albums -- reveals that he...