1. Gunman in Orlando Pledged Allegiance to ISIS Before Attack
“The shooting was the worst terrorist attack on American soil since Sept. 11, 2001, and the deadliest attack in the nation’s history on a specifically gay gathering.”
2. Doctor’s Plan for Full-Body Transplants Raises Doubts Even in Daring China
“His plan: Remove two heads from two bodies, connect the blood vessels of the body of the deceased donor and the recipient head, insert a metal plate to stabilize the new neck, bathe the spinal cord nerve endings in a gluelike substance to aid regrowth and finally sew up the skin.”
3. Japanese Plant Seeds of Baseball Throughout Africa
“Baseball is called America’s pastime, but Japan has been cultivating the sport in soccer-crazed Africa for years.”
4. Muhammad Ali Inspires Writers in Life and Death
“Ali captivated writers for more than 50 years, and his death this month at 74 is unlikely to diminish his power as a literary muse.”
5. Inside the Ring or Out, Muhammad Ali Fought as if He Would Live Forever
“Boxing takes a heavy toll on those who practice the trade. In his career, Ali had 61 professional fights against 50 opponents. Twenty-nine of those men died before he did.”
“What if the world was set up in such a way that we could really believe — not just pretend to — that having spent a period of time concentrating on raising children at the expense of future earnings would bring us respect? And what if that could be as true for men as it is for women?”
7. The Russian Peasant’s Workout
“The scythe binds you to the landscape. You become part of it, in the picture. Looking across a mown meadow, you have the deep satisfaction of knowing that this was your handiwork.”
8. Yes, There Have Been Aliens
“Instead of asking how many civilizations currently exist, we asked what the probability is that ours is the only technological civilization that has ever appeared.”
“There are consequences for both expressing and suppressing anger.”
10. All That Sex and Blood, Mr. De Palma!
“If you miss homicidal mania, gonzo sexual desire, cruelty lugubriously avenged, camerawork and editing that never sleep, or arriving at the closing credits and exclaiming, ‘Again!’, ‘What the hell was that?’ or sometimes both, then you can certainly salute Mr. De Palma at home.”
“In a world in which a phone or computer is rarely more than arm’s length away, are we eliminating introspection at times that may have formerly been conducive to it? And is the depth of that reflection compromised because we have retrained ourselves to seek out the immediate gratification of external stimuli?”
12. In Defense of the Three-Week Vacation
“The ancient Romans believed in generous vacations: They took sightseeing tours for two to five years at a time. In more recent centuries, Europeans of means and faint constitutions spent multiple months languishing at spas. Even Jesus withdrew for 40 days and 40 nights to find some peace and quiet in the desert. Yet so many of us today — I’m speaking of those fortunate enough to have the resources and the vacation days — remain slavishly attached to our 24/7 connectivity and take only a week at a time, maybe two!, off work.”
13. Virginia Heffernan’s Magic and Loss
“Heffernan is a gleeful trickster, a semiotics fan with an unabashed sweet tooth for pop culture, who believes we shouldn’t confuse grief over the passing of our favorite technology with resentment because some digital alchemy failed to preserve analog experiences.”
14. In Praise of Forgetting, by David Rieff
“Rieff recoils at the conceit that memorialization is a moral and political duty, as well as a personal one in ‘our therapeutic age.’ To the contrary, he says, remembering is ultimately futile, since all societies will — like the mortal individuals who make them up — eventually crumble to dust.”
15. What if PTSD Is More Physical Than Psychological?
“Modern warfare destroys your brain.”
16. Mecca Goes Mega
“The ancient hills, the old stone homes and many of the sites linked to the life of the Prophet Muhammad have been obliterated by towering shopping malls, hotels and apartment blocks.”
Submitted For Your Perusal 