1. “Steve Jobs and the Economics of Elitism”
“Great products, according to Mr. Jobs, are triumphs of ‘taste.’ And taste, he explains, is a byproduct of study, observation and being steeped in the culture of the past and present, of ‘trying to expose yourself to the best things humans have done and then bring those things into what you are doing.’”
2. “High Jinks to Handcuffs for Landrieu Provocateur”
“They studied leftist activism of years past as their prototype, looking to the tactics of Saul Alinsky, the Chicago community organizer who laid the framework for grass-roots activism in the ’60s, as well as those of gay rights and even Communist groups. They held ‘affirmative action’ bake sales with prices set based on the age and race of the buyer, posed as donors to Planned Parenthood seeking to contribute to the abortion of African-American fetuses only, and held a mock ‘Love Thy Prisoner’ campaign to find American homes for Guantánamo inmates.”
3. “Type-A-Plus Students Chafe at Grade Deflation”
“The grading change at Princeton was prompted by the creep of A’s, which accelerated in the 1990s, and the wildly divergent approaches to grading across disciplines. Historically, students in the natural sciences were graded far more rigorously, for example, than their classmates in the humanities, a gap that has narrowed but that still exists.”
4. “Masculinity in a Spray Can”
“Boys themselves, at a younger age, have also become increasingly self-conscious about their appearance and identity. They are trying to tame their twitching, maturing bodies, select from a growing smorgasbord of identities — goth, slacker, jock, emo — and position themselves with their texting, titillating, brand-savvy female peers, who are hitting puberty ever earlier.”
5. “When Phones Are Just Too Smart”
“The next generation of gadget users might prove different, but for now it is clear that people prefer fewer choices, and that they gravitate consistently toward the same small number of things that they like. Owners of iPhones are no different from cable TV subscribers with hundreds of channels to choose from who end up watching the same half-dozen.”
6. “Talking About a Revolution (for a Digital Age)”
“As the studio-indie model disintegrates, a new nonstudio model appears to be emerging from the rubble. In recent years, for instance, novice filmmakers and longtime independent insiders have begun experimenting, and finding some success, with new approaches to releasing movies, including self-distribution. The D.I.Y. world isn’t new, but what is novel is how filmmakers and other industry insiders are sharing their nuts-and-bolts experiences and blue-sky ideas both in person and online, creating a virtual infrastructure.”
7. “One Noodle at a Time in Tokyo”
“Combine New Yorkers’ love of pizza, hot dogs and hamburgers, throw in some Southern barbecue mania, and you’ve still only begun to approximate Tokyo’s obsession with ramen.”
“Along the way, Menand notes that most graduate students don’t earn Ph.D.’s, and that most Ph.D.’s don’t get tenure-track jobs: ‘There is a sense in which the system is now designed to produce ABDs’ — graduate students who have completed all but their dissertations — who can teach introductory courses for a pittance.”
