September 18th is the tercentenary of Samuel Johnson, whose Dictionary of the English Language was one of the first and most influential. His format – with head words, etymologies and sample sentences – remains unchallenged. But his standard – what dictionaries stand for – has been undergoing a ...

25 years ago the Russian computer programmer Alexey Pajitnov created the ur-video game Tetris. Simple to play, hard to win and ubiquitous, the game continues to frustrate and entertain the masses. We speak with Pajitnov about how he started the shapes falling.

There’s a name for how cruel people can get given a little anonymity on the internet. It’s called “online disinhibition effect” and the resulting venom can ruin your day or worse, destroy your good name. Bob looks at the fraught relationship on the web between reputation, privacy and ...

The basic architecture of the Internet hasn't changed since it was conceived 40 years ago. But what was once the playground of wonks is now the main staging area for the global economy and open to an array of security vulnerabilities. Brooke talks with Internet experts who ponder a vexing ...

Throughout this week’s flying shoe coverage, the comedic details of the debacle dominated headlines. But humor couldn’t dominate the essential moral. Bob ruminates on what the hurling of the footwear revealed about the extent of Iraqi discontent and of President Bush’s denial of the same.

What are the rules that govern journalistic portrait photography? Wide-angle lenses, nonstandard lighting, shooting from below – they’re all fair game and frequently employed by photogs working for major publications. But what obligation is there to the subject? Bob searches for answers.

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Everyone's speculating on whether this election will produce a Bradley effect, a phenomenon where white voters tell pollsters they'll vote for the black candidate but actually pull the lever for the white candidate. The term comes from Tom Bradley's 1982 California gubernatorial run, but Democratic and ...

It was billed as nothing less than an epic battle - Palin v. Biden. Expectations were raised and lowered, gaffes and non-answers were played and replayed, moderators were accused of bias. But according to Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of the Pew Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, the ...

Think you know reality? Ayn Rand did, and through her novels and nonfiction she gave legions of followers a practical philosophy by which to live. Brooke looks at the enduring legacy of the original Objectivist.

Our interview with Naseem Mithoowani a couple weeks ago sparked a heated debate on our site about free speech, xenophobia, and a clash of cultures when it comes to Muslim immigrants in western societies. This week Bob takes a broader look at some of those issues in Europe, ...

Despite the modern Olympics rhetoric about peace through sport, its history is rife with politics and protest. Olympic historian David Wallechinsky explains how the Games became a contest for attention.

In the windy realm of political oratory, boosting words or cadence or even whole sentiments is nothing new. Did it stick, then, when the Clinton campaign invoked the P-word after Obama borrowed a few sentences from Gov. Deval Patrick? Copy that!

The story of Haditha is one of a massacre of Iraqi civilians at the hands of American Marines, a low point among low points of the War in Iraq. That was the first draft. However, two of the Marines are about to face Courts Martial. And the defense will try ...

The first piece in the The New York Times’ “War Torn” series – about Iraq War veterans who’ve committed homicide here at home – sparked criticism and praise among the military and the blogosphere. It also contributed to the emerging narrative in the media about the Iraq War ...

With a tricky definition and a lag-time to compile statistics, it may take up to a year to know if we are indeed in a recession right now. In the meantime, the media speculate. Critics from the left and right weigh in ...

The release of a new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran prompted mea culpas and soul searching from pols and the press. Bob talks with two White House correspondents, the Chicago Tribune’s Mark Silva and US News and World Report’s Ken Walsh, about how the President and ...

Both voters and the national media have taken a shine to presidential contender Mike Huckabee in the last few weeks. But some Arkansas reporters are finding that Huckabee’s ethical history isn’t making the news as much as his folksy conservative bona-fides. Arkansas Times reporter Max Brantley ...

Robert Mukasey was confirmed this week as attorney general. The process moved the definition of waterboarding into the spotlight. As media struggle to find out what the interrogation technique entails, the working definition has been "simulated drowning." But those who've experienced and performed it say

40 years after his death, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara remains a ubiquitous symbol of anti-imperialism, defiant martyrdom and radical chic. Biographer Jon Lee Anderson explains Che’s ongoing appeal and the struggle to add flesh to the bones of an enduring myth.

The news this week was filled with images of devastating fires ripping through Southern California. But Mike Davis, author of Ecology of Fear, explains that fires, floods and other natural disasters, while newsworthy, are anything but new in SoCal.