Passions Over Torch Run Hot

The fourth and fifth stops on a planned 85,000 mile relay bearing the Olympic flame from the Acropolis in Athens, Greece to the site of this year’s Summer Games in Bejing, China turned ugly over the weekend, as thousands of protesters in London and Paris disrupted the procession, drawing attention to China’s reputation for human rights abuses and its heavy-handed suppression of internal dissent in Tibet.

• • •

Pass the Fork, Please.

Today the U.S. Supreme Court declined an opportunity for a peek at the man behind the curtain, refusing to certify for appeal a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of numerous Muslim lawyers, journalists and other American citizens, who argued the existence of the National Security Agency’s warrantless eavesdropping program rendered them unable to perform their jobs.

• • •

Who Loves Ya, Baby?

The true origins of celebrating the notion of romantic love on February 14 are not well documented, though the exchange of elaborate, handmade gifts between paramours was well established by the middle of the eighteenth century in England, and began to really take off in the United States once Esther Howland (herself now considered something of a saint by the American Greeting Card Association) began selling mass-produced Valentine’s cards in the 1840s.

• • •

The Winter of Our Discontent

…what is genuine, familiar, and identifiable is the way Americans beat the game: the land-taking before the airport is built, the quick bucks, the plagiarism, the abuse of trust, the near theft, which, if it succeeds, can be glossed over — these are the guilts with which Ethan will have to live in his coming prosperity…
     — Edward Weeks, in a review of the John Steinbeck novel
         The Winter of Our Discontent, The Atlantic Monthly, July 1961

• • •