Slate Magazine

Slate V: Dana's Home Theater: A Serious Man

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:29:03 -0800

Slate film critic Dana Stevens gives us the scoop on her favorite recent DVD releases. This week's pick: A Serious Man

Alice in Wonderland reviewed: Don't follow Tim Burton down this rabbit hole.

Dana Stevens — Thu, 4 Mar 2010 19:04:53 PST

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (Disney) represents the confluence of a number of depressing cinematic trends: the need to ransack classic children's literature for ideas, the unimaginative layering of 3-D technology onto a visual universe that would look just fine without it, and the belief that slathering familiar storylines with a superficial gloss of Gothic "darkness" constitutes a substantial reinterpretation. Lewis Carroll's eminently sensible British schoolchild has been taken on a shopping spree at Hot Topic (an experience that viewers are invited to share by donning the line of tie-in merchandise available for purchase at that teen-Goth chain), and the resulting makeover doesn't do her any favors.

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Lewis Carroll - Tim Burton - Alice in Wonderland - Hot Topic - Rabbit hole

A real-life soldier says The Hurt Locker is based on his life. How will the court decide?

Brian Palmer — Thu, 4 Mar 2010 18:45:09 PST

A real-life solder, Master Sgt. Jeffrey Sarver, has filed a lawsuit against the Oscar-nominated makers of The Hurt Locker for defaming his character by basing their film on his life. Sarver says he shares many traits with the hero of the film but claims that the movie version besmirches his reputation by carrying on in a reckless and disloyal manner. How much must he have in common with the guy in the movie in order to bring a defamation suit?

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Hurt Locker - Academy Award - Lawsuit - Defamation - Kathryn Bigelow

Obama held only one health care event in his first four months in office?

John Dickerson — Thu, 4 Mar 2010 18:35:30 PST

One of the theories going around about Barack Obama's political problems is that he has talked too much on health care reform and not enough about the economy. It's not just pundits who say this. Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson made a similar claim, arguing that Obama should not have started on health care first but put more effort into resuscitating the economy.

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Barack Obama - Ben Nelson - Health care - Politics - Democratic

The Political Gabfest for March 4, 2010.

Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz — Thu, 4 Mar 2010 18:29:18 PST

Become a fan of the Political Gabfest on Facebook. We post to the Facebook page throughout the week, so keep the conversation going by joining us there.

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Facebook - Online Communities - Social Networking - Political Gabfest - United States

How to understand late-period Steve Martin.

Nathan Heller — Thu, 4 Mar 2010 18:23:16 PST

For those who have some aspiration in the arts, this is a good time to aspire to be Steve Martin. The actor has spent so many hours on honorary daises of late that getting tapped to cohost the Oscars—this weekend he will lead the ceremony for the third time in a decade, more than any other recent host—seems less a tribute than a kind of expert summons. In 2005, Martin accepted the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, the closest thing to a lifetime achievement award that Washington bestows on funnymen. Two years later, he was feted at the Kennedy Center Honors. His bluegrass album, meanwhile—The Crow: New Songs for the 5-String Banjo—earned him, just a few weeks back, his second banjo Grammy of the new millennium. This sounds like, but is not, the basis for a joke that Steve Martin might make.

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Steve Martin - Banjo - Mark Twain Prize for American Humor - Kennedy Center Honors - Crow: New Songs For the Five-String Banjo

Why pledges to "clean up Washington" never work.

Christopher Beam — Thu, 4 Mar 2010 18:19:05 PST

When Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006 on a pledge to "drain the swamp" of corruption that is Washington, D.C., it seemed that Republicans would never escape the muck. Now, with November approaching, not only have Republicans reached dry land, they're poised to drown Democrats in their own ethical filth.

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Nancy Pelosi - Republican - Democratic - United States Congress - Washington

The Senate bill doesn't fund abortions. Here's why Stupak thinks it does.

Timothy Noah — Thu, 4 Mar 2010 17:35:41 PST

A central puzzle of the health reform debate is why Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., keeps saying that the Senate-passed bill allows taxpayer dollars to be spent on abortions. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says it, too. Really, though, it doesn't. This dispute is (or at least pretends to be) factual, not ideological. The question of whether the government funds a given medical procedure is not like the question of whether human life begins at conception. It's empirical, not ideological. And Stupak happens to be wrong.Stupak's and the bishops' claim is important because abortion is the single likeliest issue to scuttle the bill. Stupak says that "at least" 12 pro-life House members who previously voted aye on health reform, including himself, will vote against President Obama's package, which is based on the Senate bill, unless it contains abortion language that he inserted into the House bill. The trouble is, Stupak's language can't be shoehorned into President Obama's package, because it's nonbudgetary and therefore ineligible for inclusion in a budget reconciliation bill. Republican Scott Brown's Massachusetts Senate victory made reconciliation the only possible vehicle for passing health care reform.

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Bart Stupak - Abortion - Massachusetts Senate - Health care - Barack Obama

Apple's multitouch lawsuit is both dumb and dangerous.

Farhad Manjoo — Thu, 4 Mar 2010 17:24:11 PST

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone at 2007's Macworld conference, he began by describing the device's groundbreaking user interface. "We have invented a new technology called 'multi-touch' which is phenomenal," Jobs said. "It works like magic." In his superlative-laden way, Jobs explained that Apple's new touch screen was so sensitive that you could use it without a stylus, so smart that it could detect and ignore unintended touches, so elegant that it could understand elaborate multifinger gestures. And then he added five words to emphasize how special and unique this multitouch technology was: "Boy, have we patented it!"

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IPhone - Apple - Steve Jobs - Multi-touch - User interface

The Slatest: Evening Edition

Thu, 4 Mar 2010 17:02:40 PST

Michael Steele tells RNC donors they are very appreciated; the IDF scuttles an arrest operation when a soldier posts his unit's plans on Facebook; the most dangerous man on the Internet may be a defense contractor you've never heard of.

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Send Slate your hand-drawn maps!

Julia Turner — Thu, 4 Mar 2010 16:23:30 PST

A professor has been examining hand-drawn maps for three decades. Send him yours.

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Shopping - Maps - Ephemera - Antiques and Collectibles - England

Can better signs help pedestrians understand London?

Julia Turner — Thu, 4 Mar 2010 16:22:09 PST

Can better signs help people understand an extremely disorienting city?

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London - Business - Business Services - Business and Economy - Handcrafted

Let's talk Oscars: The Hurt Locker is a piece of chamber music. Inglourious Basterds is epic.

Troy Patterson and Dana Stevens — Thu, 4 Mar 2010 15:31:23 PST

The Hurt Locker is a piece of chamber music. Inglourious Basterds is epic.

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Hurt Locker - Inglourious Basterds - Arts - Academy Award - ChristophWaltz

A review of a new graphic novel based on the pornographic Story of O.

Sasha Watson — Thu, 4 Mar 2010 13:23:59 PST

A woman's existence, wrote French literary critic Dominique Aury in 1958, is "charged with truths of two kinds: those concerning submission and folly in love –– and those regarding daily life." These days, much of the writing about women's lives tends to concern daily life—work, child care, Internet dating—rather than passion. Occasionally, though, the folly bursts to the surface in all its tumultuous glory. One such moment has just arrived in the form of a graphic-novel adaptation of the dirtiest and most daring of French books—one that still feels shocking more than 50 years after it was first published.

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Graphic novel - Writing - Fiction - Literary criticism - Books

Post-bailout novel: A conversation with Adam Haslett, author of Union Atlantic.

Daniel Gross — Thu, 4 Mar 2010 12:17:50 PST

The Big Money presents "Every Day I Read the Book," featuring Daniel Gross. Dan's guest is Adam Haslett, author of Union Atlantic. Like many of the post-crisis narratives, Union Atlantic has as its main characters the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and aggressive, conflicted bankers. Unlike all the post-crisis narratives, Union Atlantic is a novel that delves into the hearts and minds of the protagonists—and those of their friends and families—as they cope with financial and emotional instability.

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Adam Haslett - Federal Reserve Bank of New York - Union Atlantic - Federal Reserve System - Daniel Gross

Slate Editor David Plotz and Daily Caller Editor Tucker Carlson chatted about Charles Rangel, David Paterson and health care reform. Read the transcript.

David Plotz — Thu, 4 Mar 2010 11:22:12 PST

Slate Editor David Plotz and Daily Caller Editor Tucker Carlson discussing the scandals of David Paterson and Rep. Charles Rangel, health care reform, and more in their weekly chat. You can read the transcript below.

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David Paterson - Tucker Carlson - Charles B. Rangel - David Plotz - Health

Jenny Woolf's The Mystery of Lewis Carroll.

Seth Lerer — Thu, 4 Mar 2010 09:57:57 PST

Toward the end of his life, in 1896, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (also known as Lewis Carroll) published a survey of his professional work as an Oxford mathematician. Symbolic Logic set out to clarify the confusion he saw at work among the academic logicians of his day. Logic emerges, in this volume, as something of a game: rule-governed, yet arbitrary. It is not the dry purview of the pedant, but the imaginative landscape of a creative mind. Indeed, the book concludes, logicians often think of things like the cupola of a proposition "almost as if it were a living, conscious entity, capable of declaring for itself what it chose to mean." But Dodgson warns that we should not simply "submit" to the "sovereign will and pleasure" of these terms. Instead, "any writer of a book is fully authorized in attaching any meaning he likes to any word of phrase he intends to use."

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Lewis Carroll - Oxford - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Mathematician - Writer

Slate wants your best ideas for how to live a cheaper, more energy-efficient life.

Daniel Gross — Thu, 4 Mar 2010 06:45:11 PST

Slate wants your best ideas for how to live a cheaper, more energy-efficient life.

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Energy - Technology - Conservation - Business - Organizations

Should I sleep with the nanny?

Thu, 4 Mar 2010 06:44:30 PST

Get Dear Prudence delivered to your inbox each week; click here to sign up. Please send your questions for publication to prudence@slate.com. (Questions may be edited.)

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Slate - Dear Prudence - United States - Home - Family

Lost: Smokey Locke, jungle genie.

Chadwick Matlin, Jack Shafer, and Seth Stevenson — Wed, 3 Mar 2010 18:52:26 PST

Gentlemen, I'm proud that you both got through your dispatches without calling anybody a zombie. After last night, I think we can say with certainty that there are no zombies on the island. There are only demon spawn.

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Lost - Television - Arts - Programs - Dramas

How to Judge the Best Art Direction Oscar

Wed, 3 Mar 2010 18:48:37 PST

A daily video from Slate V.

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Academy Award for Best Art Direction - Arts - Business - Visual Arts - Academy Award

Obama and Romney say the same thing about health care reform.

Timothy Noah — Wed, 3 Mar 2010 18:21:26 PST

President Barack Obama just gave a speech. Mitt Romney, his likeliest 2012 challenger, just published a book. The speech was about health care reform. So was a chapter in Romney's book. As Massachusetts governor, Romney led a 2006 reform of the state's health care system that provided the blueprint for President Obama's own health-reform plan. That's a source of tremendous discomfort to Romney, who, to judge from his unsuccessful 2008 nomination bid, intends to run not just as a Republican but as a conservative Republican. Nowadays, even moderate Republicans dare not whisper a kind word about Obamacare.Romney confronts this political difficulty by punctuating his discussion of Massachusetts' health reforms with ritual denunciations of Washington's. He insists that Obamacare is qualitatively different from and vastly inferior to Romneycare. How so? Romney grumbles a bit that the Obama bill doesn't do much about tort reform, and he contends Obama is overselling the benefits of electronic recordkeeping and greater transparency in pricing (both of which Romney favors, too). Mainly, though, his argument comes down to two points:

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Mitt Romney - Barack Obama - President of the United States - Washington - Massachusetts Governor

I've cut my electricity use because I can measure exactly how much I'm using. I want to do the same for heating oil, but …

Daniel Gross — Wed, 3 Mar 2010 18:16:53 PST

In this project, "The Efficient Life," Slate is seeking your best ideas for helping people use less energy at home and save money. You can read Daniel Gross' explanation of The Efficient Life here, his article about compact fluorescent light bulbs here, his article about utility bills and peer pressure here, his passionate exhortation that you get a home energy assessment here, and his speculation about whether we should pay fuel bills in cash here. You can submit your proposal here and scan all the proposals submitted by readers so far. Over the next six weeks, readers and judges will choose a dozen finalists, the top five ideas, and a winner.

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Energy - Electricity - Compact fluorescent lamp - Daniel Gross - Money

Nuclear policy matters, but the Nuclear Posture Review doesn't.

Fred Kaplan — Wed, 3 Mar 2010 17:49:25 PST

The once-great nuclear-arms debate is about to be shaken from its long, blissful slumber. A racket will ensue. You'd be wise to ignore it.

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Nuclear - United States - Nuclear weapon - Barack Obama - Nuclear Posture Review

What does a congressional "whip" actually do?

Christopher Beam — Wed, 3 Mar 2010 17:18:35 PST

TSenate Democratic leaders are moving ahead on a reconciliation vote for health care reform, Sen. Tom Harkin said on Wednesday. What remains to be seen is whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Whip James Clyburn have the votes necessary to pass the bill with a simple majority. What do party whips actually do?

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Tom Harkin - Democratic Party - Health care - Party whips of the United States House of Representatives - Nancy Pelosi

Slate on the 82nd annual Academy Awards.

Wed, 3 Mar 2010 14:31:02 PST

"Lucky Basterds: Tarantino will win best picture, if history can be believed," by Grady Hendrix. Posted Wednesday, March 3, 2010.

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Academy Award - Arts - Awards - Movies - Slate

Courts should offer domestic violence victims mediation for a divorce.

Mary Adkins — Wed, 3 Mar 2010 12:48:20 PST

The woman who David Paterson may have intimidated from going to court wasn't married to David Johnson, the Paterson aide she says choked her and smashed her into a dresser. But for every five married women, one is married to an abusive spouse. Domestic violence brings women to court seeking protective orders, as in the Paterson mess—and also divorces. But when women who say they've been beaten up try to end their marriages, they find themselves at a disadvantage. In family court, they probably won't be offered mediation—the cheaper, less antagonistic alternative to litigation.

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Domestic violence - David Johnson - David Paterson - Paterson New Jersey - Women

Tarantino will win best picture, if history can be believed.

Grady Hendrix — Wed, 3 Mar 2010 12:28:51 PST

Want to win an Oscar for best picture? Easy. Just release an R-rated period musical about a dead military figure that's based on a book and make sure it runs for two hours and 10 minutes.

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Academy Award - Academy Award for Best Picture - Movies - Military - Hurt Locker

12 movies that pandered to the academy but didn't even get a nomination.

Eric Hynes — Wed, 3 Mar 2010 11:51:51 PST

When Jamie Foxx took on the role of Nathaniel Ayers in the based-on-a-true-story melodrama The Soloist, it seemed like the perfect vehicle for the actor to take home another Oscar nomination. The film, about a mentally unstable homeless man who turns out to be a classically trained musician, had all the trappings of an Oscar-friendly inspirational weepy. But rather than open in time for a 2008 awards run, the film was pushed to spring 2009, and what had seemed like destiny in December looked misguided in the harsh light of April.

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Academy Award - Nathaniel Ayers - Jamie Foxx - Arts - Movies

The Political Gabfest for Feb. 26, 2010.

Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz — Wed, 3 Mar 2010 11:49:17 PST

A former military interrogator unearths the errors and fear-mongering in Marc Thiessen's Courting Disaster.

Matthew Alexander — Wed, 3 Mar 2010 11:45:48 PST

My gut reaction on reading Marc Thiessen's new book, Courting Disaster, was: "Why is a speechwriter who's never served in the military or intelligence community acting as an expert on interrogation and national security?" Certainly, everyone is entitled to a voice in the debate over the lawfulness and efficacy of President Bush's abusive interrogation program, regardless of qualifications. But if you're not an expert on a subject, shouldn't you interview experts before expressing an opinion? Instead, Thiessen relies solely on the opinions of the CIA interrogators who used torture and abuse and are thus most vulnerable to prosecution for war crimes. That makes his book less a serious discussion of interrogation policy than a literary defense of war criminals. Nowhere in this book will you find the opinions of experienced military interrogators who successfully interrogated Islamic extremists. Not once does he cite Army Doctrine—which warns of the negative consequences of torture and abuse. Courting Disaster is nothing more than the defense's opening statement in a war crimes trial.

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Central Intelligence Agency - Marc Thiessen - George W. Bush - War crime - National security

An aggregated list of expert Oscar predictions.

Cecile Dehesdin and Chris Wilson — Wed, 3 Mar 2010 11:16:27 PST

Last month, Slate asked readers to help us predict the Oscar results, which will be announced this Sunday. Nearly 3,500 people weighed in with their picks. If Slate readers are right, it's going to be a big night for The Hurt Locker. You heavily favored Kathryn Bigelow to beat James Cameron for the best-director award, and when we closed the voting this week, The Hurt Locker was also leading Avatar in the best-picture category by more than 400 votes.

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Hurt Locker - Kathryn Bigelow - AcademyAward - James Cameron - Avatar

"Playing With Pictures," at the Met.

Sarah Boxer — Wed, 3 Mar 2010 10:42:39 PST

Charles Darwin and Lewis Carroll helped inspire a curious Victorian passion for photocollage.

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Lewis Carroll - Darwin - Literature - Charles Darwin - Alice in Wonderland

Slate's Culture Gabfest on Joanna Newsom, The Marriage Ref, and rules for writing fiction.

Stephen Metcalf, Jody Rosen, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner — Wed, 3 Mar 2010 10:23:07 PST

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 76 with Stephen Metcalf, Jody Rosen, Dana Stevens and Julia Turner by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

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Slate - Jody Rosen - Arts - Relationships - Writers Resources

An admittedly irrational screed against popcorn.

Rosecrans Baldwin — Wed, 3 Mar 2010 09:35:24 PST

When I was too young and innocent to recognize obscenity, my family received a holiday popcorn tin from my father's office. I ate my way down to the bottom: through the fake cheddar soot, the caramel casings, the buttered nutmeat. And though I remember being sick, it's the stench that really lingers in memory—how the separate aromas oxidized and burned my sinuses.

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Popcorn - Food - Shopping - Snacks - Home

The new backlash against casual sex.

Jessica Grose — Wed, 3 Mar 2010 09:14:10 PST

Julie Klausner has slept with a lot of losers and perverts, she tells us in her funny, trenchant new collection of essays I Don't Care About Your Band. She is not permanently wounded by these encounters and yet she feels bad. And then she feels bad about feeling bad. "When you cry about things not working out, you're crying not only because a guy you slept with now doesn't seem to care you're alive," Klausner writes, "but also because you're ashamed of yourself for crying."

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Julie Klausner - Recreation - Humor - Adult - Advice

Obama's end game for passing health care reform.

John Dickerson — Tue, 2 Mar 2010 20:34:10 PST

If Barack Obama has his way, health care reform will be completed by Easter. That's fitting for a bill that was born on Christmas Eve, died, and that the president hopes will rise again. It's also a story that, like the resurrection of Jesus, calls on its adherents to take a leap of faith into the unseen. In Obama's case, he is selling the not-so-Biblical proposition that people will like health care reform that they don't appear to like right now.

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Barack Obama - Christmas Eve - Health care - Easter - United States

Why do so many Chilean politicians have French names?

Jessica Dweck — Tue, 2 Mar 2010 18:48:31 PST

In the wake of Saturday's massive earthquake, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has appealed to foreign nations for aid. Several Explainer readers noted that Chile's former dictator, Augusto Pinochet, also had a curiously Francophonic name. Do the French have a strong influence in Chile?

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Chile - Augusto Pinochet - Michelle Bachelet - Earthquake - South America

What the president's health reform letter really means.

Timothy Noah — Tue, 2 Mar 2010 18:37:01 PST

On March 2 President Obama sent a letter to congressional leaders to thank them for attending his Blair House meeting on health care reform and to reflect on what was accomplished. Below is an annotated text.

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Blair House - Healthcare reform - Health - United States - Barack Obama

Bogus trend story of the week: The Wall Street Journal discovers a zillion playwrights writing for TV!

Jack Shafer — Tue, 2 Mar 2010 18:27:11 PST

The Wall Street Journal takes bogus trend story of the week honors with its Feb. 26 piece "The Teleplay's the Thing: A Growing Number of Top Playwrights Are Migrating to TV." After noting in the fifth paragraph that playwrights such as David Mamet and Theresa Rebeck "have found a second home on TV before," the Journal makes this sweeping statement:

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Wall Street Journal - David Mamet - Theresa Rebeck - Arts - Television

How to suss out bad tech predictions.

Farhad Manjoo — Tue, 2 Mar 2010 17:26:37 PST

In 1995, Clifford Stoll, an astronomer, author, and mad-scientist type, published a column in Newsweek with a doozy of a headline: "The Internet? Bah!" The piece was based on Stoll's book, Silicon Snake Oil, in which he argued that we were all being taken for a ride by tech pundits who offered dreamy visions of a coming "information superhighway." "Baloney," Stoll wrote. "The truth is no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works."

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Clifford Stoll - Newspaper - Newsweek - Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway - CD-ROM

Why is Chile so long and skinny?

Jessica Dweck — Tue, 2 Mar 2010 16:49:10 PST

The magnitude-8.8 earthquake that struck off the coast of Chile on Saturday was just one of more than a dozen catastrophic quakes to strike the country in the last half-century. Seismologists blame Chile's serpentine, 4,000-mile Pacific border, which runs directly astride the convergent boundary of the Nazca and South American plates. How did Chile get to be so long and skinny, anyway?

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Chile - South America - United States - Nazca Plate - South American Plate

Why the economic model predicting Olympic medal counts drastically underestimated the U.S. haul.

Daniel Gross — Tue, 2 Mar 2010 15:40:36 PST

At the outset of the Olympics, I checked in with Colorado College economist Daniel Johnson, the Canadian-born curling enthusiast who has developed a model that generates pretty accurate predictions about countries' medal performance. The model, you'll recall, is simple. The economist studies only five variables: population, income per capita, climate, political structure, and host-nation advantage. Johnson's predictions for 2010, which include only those nations expected to win 10 medals or more, can be seen here (PDF). Now that the Olympics have ended, Johnson and I conducted a postmortem to see which sporting nations outperformed and which disappointed. Here's the full 2010 medal count table.

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Colorado College - Daniel Johnson - Canada - Curling - Olympic Games

Why do filmmakers like Joel and Ethan Coen use pseudonyms?

Gabriel Snyder — Tue, 2 Mar 2010 12:45:33 PST

Joel and Ethan Coen are up for two Oscars this Sunday for their work on A Serious Man. As always, the brothers worked together to write, direct, and produce their film. They also edited the movie under the pseudonym "Roderick Jaynes." In 2007, Gabriel Snyder explained why a well-known filmmaker might use a fake name in the credits. That column is reprinted below.

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Coen brothers - Academy Award - Movies - Arts - Filmmaking

Leno returns to the Tonight Show.

Troy Patterson — Tue, 2 Mar 2010 12:03:56 PST

The rebirth of the Tonight Show—its still-rebirth as sprung from the bullhead of an ungracious Jay Leno—began last night with an homage to The Wizard of Oz. Perhaps, having abetted NBC's booting of Conan O'Brien and thus tarnishing one of the greatest brands in the history of broadcasting, Jay has developed a taste for defiling American culture and thus arranged to desecrate a much-cherished film. The cold open depicted him awaking in a black-and-white farmhouse, a Dorothy Gale coming to, as his bandleader, other subordinates, and also a slumming Betty White crowded round his bedside. The implication was that Leno's months away from Tonight and his prime-time sojourn did not represent a disastrous misadventure but rather a magical mystery tour. The bit was no less shameless than we might expect. And no less unfunny. Pay no attention to the man in front of the curtain.

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Tonight Show - Conan O'Brien - NBC - Jay Leno - Betty White

Revisiting A Serious Man, the most puzzling of the best-picture nominees.

Juliet Lapidos — Tue, 2 Mar 2010 11:23:46 PST

Avatar is a model best-picture candidate—it's brassy and has a discernible point to make. You hardly need a Ph.D. in political science to get that James Cameron worries about military imperialism and the squandering of our natural resources. A Serious Man, also in contention this year, is a more unusual choice, even allowing for the fact that its creators, the Coen brothers, have slipped some difficult fare into the proceedings before. Enigmatic to the point of inscrutability, A Serious Man leaves audiences in a state of interpretive uncertainty, popcorn uneaten, wondering what the Coens are getting at. The Times' A.O. Scott summed up the critical consensus when the film came out in theaters last fall: "The story is at once hilarious and horrific, its significance both self-evident and opaque." Horrific and opaque? The academy usually quarantines those qualities in the screenwriting category

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James Cameron - Serious Man - Coen brothers - Avatar - Political science

Did we save the whales or what?

Nina Shen Rastogi — Tue, 2 Mar 2010 10:30:43 PST

By now, you've caught us up on acid rain and the Amazon rainforest. Now I want a status report on the "Save the Whales" campaign. Did it work?

[more ...]

Rainforest - Amazon Rainforest - Amazon - Deforestation - Environment

The four rules of action movies that The Hurt Locker's Kathryn Bigelow breaks every time.

Jessica Winter — Tue, 2 Mar 2010 10:06:58 PST

In June, when The Hurt Locker first hit theaters, Jessica Winter looked back on the career of its director, Kathryn Bigelow. Winter noted that Bigelow's stock in trade is the hard-charging action spectacle. But though a Bigelow movie may occasionally look like a Jerry Bruckheimer production, she refuses to conform to the genre's conventions. Looking back at films ranging from the surfing/heist picture Point Break to the submarine thriller K-19: The Widowmaker, Winter enumerated the four action movie rules Bigelow most loves to break. The article is reprinted below.

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Kathryn Bigelow - Hurt Locker - Point Break - K-19: The Widowmaker - Film

A conversation with The Hurt Locker's Kathryn Bigelow.

Willa Paskin — Tue, 2 Mar 2010 10:08:12 PST

Despite its modest box office, The Hurt Locker is among the favorites to win best picture at Sunday night's Academy Awards, and its director, Kathryn Bigelow, is a frontrunner for the best director award. Last summer, DoubleX's Willa Paskin talked with Bigelow about her background in the fine arts, her decision to set a film on the ground in Iraq, and The Hurt Locker's tense, poignant juice box scene. The interview is reprinted below.

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Kathryn Bigelow - Hurt Locker - AcademyAward - Film director - Iraq

Because of the recession, kids are leaving private school.

Katharine Mieszkowski — Tue, 2 Mar 2010 09:30:30 PST

Alex, 43, a father of two who lives in San Francisco, is an alum of a private high school in the city that today charges upward of $30,000 a year. But while his eighth-grader and fourth-grader now attend private school, they won't be continuing on to posh high schools like the one he graduated from. "Hope to be a private school refugee family," Alex writes in an e-mail with the subject line, "Many of our friends are doing the same thing."

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Private school - High school - San Francisco - Education - School

Readers solve the problem of oversize air travelers.

William Saletan — Tue, 2 Mar 2010 08:24:38 PST

In the last two weeks, Slate readers have posted more than 600 comments on the problem of oversize air travelers. Some passengers are too fat to fit in a standard plane seat; others are too tall. The original question presented for discussion was: "Would you give the fat guy next to you the same deference as the tall guy behind you? Why or why not?" But your answers went far beyond that. Yesterday I posted your 10 best insights on how to think about the problem. Today we'll honor your 10 best ideas for solving it. The envelopes, please:

[more ...]

Slate - Recreation - Math - Shopping - Business

Why you've never really heard the "Moonlight" Sonata.

Jan Swafford — Tue, 2 Mar 2010 07:06:20 PST

You find the denizens sitting silently and waiting in the old library. They look lonely, huddled against the midwinter chill, until they start to speak. All of them are old. Some of them were once noted for their voice and personality, but now they are remembered mainly in obscure pages of history. Some of them are spindly and whispery, others burly and assertive. They used to be companions of famous people. Their intimates included Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and Debussy. Which is to say: This library is filled with the pianos great composers wrote for. Instruments like these were etched in the composers' consciousness; they were co-creators of splendid music. Their retirement home lies in a little town in central Massachusetts. They aren't allowed to molder, however—their supervisors keep them active.

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Ludwig van Beethoven - Franz Schubert - Music - Claude Debussy - Piano Sonata No. 14

"Hydrangea"

Rosanna Warren — Tue, 2 Mar 2010 07:00:22 PST

Click the arrow on the audio player to hear Rosanna Warren read this poem. You can also download the recording or subscribe to Slate's Poetry Podcast on iTunes..

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iTunes - Slate - Arts - Poetry - Rosanna Warren

The mathematics of a reconciliation health reform bill.

Timothy Noah — Wed, 3 Mar 2010 18:09:07 PST

The Democrats' strategy for passing health care reform is taking shape. The House will pass the Senate bill. Then the House will pass (through the budget reconciliation process, under which legislation can't be filibustered) a bill making certain changes to the Senate bill to bring it in line with President Obama's Feb. 22 proposal. For a while it was unclear whether the House or Senate would pass reconciliation first, but House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., cleared the matter up in a Feb. 28 appearance on CBS News' Face the Nation. "The House will have to move first on some sort of corrections or reconciliation bill," Hoyer said.

[more ...]

Democratic - Steny Hoyer - Party leaders of the United States House of Representatives - Senate - United States Senate

Is there any relationship between the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti?

Brian Palmer — Mon, 1 Mar 2010 18:01:21 PST

An 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck near Concepcion, Chile, on Saturday, killing more than 700 people and displacing millions. The quake comes less than two months after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake killed 230,000 in Haiti. Are the two quakes related?

[more ...]

Chile - Earthquake - Concepción Chile - Haiti - Earth Sciences

Books, music, and movies Slate writers recommend.

Mon, 1 Mar 2010 17:28:37 PST

Slate critics and columnists often recommend all sorts of useful and fascinating stuff: books, documentaries, albums, television shows, new gadgets, and the like. Sometimes these endorsements appear in obvious spots (like our movie reviews), but just as often they come in unexpected places, like a "Dear Prudence" or "Fighting Words" column. So at the start of every month, we'll be publishing a handy roundup of all the things we like, since we figure you'd like some of these things, too. Take a look at our latest favorites, and remember you can purchase Slate T-shirts, mugs, and other merchandise at the Slate store.

[more ...]

Slate - Dear Prudence - Arts - Entertainment - Television program

When should sexting be illegal?

Emily Bazelon — Mon, 1 Mar 2010 16:34:42 PST

A teenager in Wisconsin named Anthony Stancl set up a fake Facebook profile, pretending to be a girl. Seventeen or 18 at the time, Stancl used the profile to lure 30 of the boys he went to high school with to send him nude pictures or videos of themselves. Then Stancl threatened to post the material on the Internet unless they performed sex acts with him. Seven of them say they did—and that Stancl took pictures of them with his cell-phone camera.

[more ...]

Facebook - Wisconsin - Human sexual behavior - Anthony Stancl - Mobile phone

Slate's sports podcast Hang Up and Listen for the week of March 1, 2010.

Stefan Fatsis — Mon, 1 Mar 2010 15:52:50 PST

Listen to "Hang Up and Listen" with Stefan Fatsis, Josh Levin, and Mike Pesca by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

[more ...]

Podcast - Slate - Mike Pesca - Recreation - Directories

Dear Prudence chats live with readers at Washingtonpost.com.

Mon, 1 Mar 2010 15:17:29 PST

Emily Yoffe: Good afternoon. Let's get started.

[more ...]

Dear Prudence - Emily Yoffe - Arts - Sport - Chat Rooms

If you paid your utility bills in cash, you'd use a lot less energy.

Daniel Gross — Mon, 1 Mar 2010 14:37:56 PST

In this project, "The Efficient Life," Slate is seeking your best ideas for helping people use less energy at home and save money. You can read Daniel Gross' explanation of The Efficient Life here, his article about compact fluorescent light bulbs here, his article about utility bills and peer pressure here, and his passionate exhortation that you get a home energy assessment here. You can submit your proposal here and scan all the proposals submitted by readers so far. Over the next six weeks, readers and judges will choose a dozen finalists, the top five ideas, and a winner.

[more ...]

Energy - Compact fluorescent lamp - Daniel Gross - Slate - Peer pressure

Why are the signs at New York's Penn Station so confusing?

Mon, 1 Mar 2010 14:20:53 PST

Why are the signs at the nation's busiest train hub so confusing?

[more ...]

Pennsylvania Station - New York - United States - New York City - Business

Signs: The most useful thing you pay no attention to.

Mon, 1 Mar 2010 14:20:29 PST

They're the most useful thing you pay no attention to. Start paying attention.

[more ...]

Business - Volkswagen - Thing - Recreation - Makes and Models

Canada's classic win over Team USA redeemed a crummy Winter Olympics.

Charles P. Pierce — Mon, 1 Mar 2010 13:25:27 PST

Someday, someone will have to tell Al Michaels that what he did 30 years ago in Lake Placid was call a hockey game.

[more ...]

sport - United States - Winter Olympic Games - Lake Placid New York - Olympics

The Supreme Court tosses a bad ruling in Kiyemba v. Obama.

Rebecca Crootof — Mon, 1 Mar 2010 13:17:28 PST

In a "Jurisprudence" last week, Rebecca Crootof and Oona Hathaway urged the Supreme Court not to duck Kiyemba v. Obama, this year's big Guantanamo case, which involves seven Chinese Uighur detainees whom the government has conceded are not dangerous. Crootof and Hathaway also argued that the most important outcome was for the Supreme Court to vacate the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's previous ruling, which held that the government had the authority to detain the Uighurs indefinitely. The Supreme Court did this today, wiping out the D.C Circuit's earlier decision and sending Kiyemba back to that court. "Each of the detainees at issue in this case has received at least one offer of resettlement in another country," the Supreme Court's order states. "Most of the detainees have accepted an offer of resettlement; five detainees, however, have rejected two such offers and are still being held at Guantanamo Bay. This change in the underlying facts may affect the legal issues presented. No court has yet ruled in this case in light of the new facts, and we decline to be the first to do so." Crootof and Hathaway's article is reprinted below.

[more ...]

Supreme Court - United States - Government - Supreme Court of the United States - Law

Chile will survive the earthquake because its democracy works.

Anne Applebaum — Mon, 1 Mar 2010 12:30:24 PST

To say that Santiago, Chile, looks far better today than Port-au-Prince, Haiti, is of no comfort to the people of Chile. It will not rebuild their ruined houses, nor will it bring back their dead. It will not reconstruct the damaged airport or mobilize the field hospitals and emergency supplies needed to keep the death toll from rising further. It will not inspire charitable donations from around the world.

[more ...]

Chile - Earthquake - Santiago Chile - Haiti - South America

Chile survived its huge earthquake relatively well. Iran would be a different story.

Christopher Hitchens — Mon, 1 Mar 2010 10:32:40 PST

In his days on the staid old London Times of the 1930s, Claud Cockburn won an in-house competition for the most boring headline by coming up with "Small Earthquake in Chile: Not Many Dead." The shelf-life of this joke—which, I hasten to add, was at the expense of the Times, not the people of Chile—was so durable that when the anti-Allende and pro-Kissinger historian Alistair Horne came to write his book on the Unidad Popular government of the 1970s, he called it Small Earthquake in Chile. At approximately the same time, composing his memorable epitaph for Salvador Allende, Gabriel García Márquez spoke of the likable peculiarities of the Chileans and exaggerated his non-magical realism by only a few degrees when he said:

[more ...]

Chile - Salvador Allende - South America - 1970s - Gabriel García Márquez

DNA testing makes it easy to find the identity of anonymous sperm donors.

Rachel Lehmann-Haupt — Mon, 1 Mar 2010 09:36:34 PST

When Donor 3066 signed up with the California Cryobank, he offered some basic information about himself on a piece of paper: that he had a BA in theater; that his mother was a nurse and his father was in the Baseball Hall of Fame; that his birthday was Sept. 18, 1968. He made it clear that he didn't want to be found by signing a waiver of anonymity.

[more ...]

Sperm donation - National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum - California - California Cryobank - Baseball

The Sap-o-Meter's says an emotional goodbye to Vancouver. Plus: the Sappiest Word of the 2010 Olympic Games.

Josh Levin, Jeremy Singer-Vine, and Chris Wilson — Mon, 1 Mar 2010 08:32:30 PST

The Sap-o-Meter says an emotional goodbye to Vancouver. Plus: the Sappiest Word of the 2010 Olympic Games.

[more ...]

2010 Winter Olympics - Vancouver - sport - Events - Olympics

Readers debate the problem of oversized air travelers.

William Saletan — Mon, 1 Mar 2010 07:42:07 PST

Two weeks ago, I asked you and other Slate readers to weigh in on the problem of oversized air travelers. Some passengers are too fat to fit in a standard plane seat; others are too tall. I put the question this way: "Would you give the fat guy next to you the same deference as the tall guy behind you? Why or why not?"

[more ...]

Slate - Materials and Supplies - Shopping - Recreation - Business

Joanna Newsom's Have One on Me, reviewed.

Jonah Weiner — Mon, 1 Mar 2010 06:53:24 PST

As demanding albums go, Joanna Newsom's Have One on Me is pretty smooth going. Songs amble along leisurely, heavy on warm, plucked strings, stately piano, and bright horns, as Newsom sings in a voice that's both resolute and vaporous: an amplified sigh. Some agitations and eruptions breach the surface here and there, but mostly the pond just shimmers. And yet the album is demanding because it wants us to do something that we've grown largely unaccustomed to doing in the digital-music era: namely, to stop what we're doing—close all the tabs in our browsers—and give it our undivided attention.

[more ...]

Joanna Newsom - Piano - Music - Have One on Me - Album

Sam Lipsyte's The Ask.

Michael Agger — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 06:59:18 PST

We walk the halls of Barnes & Noble, lost, pale, and discontent. Surrounded by rows and rows of Nice Writing, we search in vain for a novel that will make us laugh. We gaze fondly at the Amises, remember our dear friend Bonfiglioli, reread the best passages of Scoop and A Handful of Dust, salute Joseph Heller, give Vonnegut a friendly page riffle, and end up where we always do. Right ho, Jeeves.

[more ...]

Joseph Heller - A Handful of Dust - Arts - Sam Lipsyte - Literature

Slate on the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 10:54:03 PST

A roundup of Slate's coverage of the Vancouver games.

[more ...]

2010 Winter Olympics - Winter Olympic Games - olympic - Sports - Winter Games

Can a family court prevent a parent from taking his daughter to church?

Dahlia Lithwick — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 06:42:39 PST

Joseph Reyes, an Afghanistan war veteran and second-year law student, converted to Judaism when he married Rebecca Shapiro in 2004. When they split up in 2008, Rebecca won primary custody of their daughter, and Joseph got regular visitation. The couple had allegedly agreed to raise their child Jewish, but Joseph, seeking to expose his 3-year-old to his Catholic faith, had her baptized last November. When she learned that her daughter had been baptized without her consent, Rebecca obtained a temporary restraining order in December 2009, forbidding Joseph from "exposing Ela Reyes to another religion other than the Jewish religion during his visitation." In January of this year, Reyes again took Ela to Mass at Holy Name Cathedral, with a local TV news crew in tow. His ex-wife's lawyers demanded he be held in criminal contempt—with a maximum punishment of six months in prison.

[more ...]

Judaism - Religion - Catholic Church - Joseph Reyes - Conversion to Judaism

Can Vail's ski resort cut its energy use 10 percent?

Daniel Gross — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:23:13 PST

The balmy weather in Vancouver, which delayed some of the Olympic downhill events, highlights the danger warmer winters pose to ski resorts. The situation isn't as dire in the higher-elevation resorts of the Rockies, but these large businesses—think of the Trapp Family Lodge on steroids—still worry that a warming planet could melt their businesses.

[more ...]

sport - Ski - Vail Colorado - Winter Sports - Olympic Games

Kim Yu-Na's performance was the climax of the Olympiad.

Troy Patterson — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:08:07 PST

Yesterday afternoon, I mused on the pressing matter—the J. Press-ing matter—of the fancy-lad Ivy League look Bob Costas has affected in Vancouver. Then, last night, he switched up his game, going for a more authoritative image. In his pinstriped suit and starched blue shirt, he was anchorly and bankerly. The sartorial shift was only appropriate for a man helming network coverage of the ladies' figure-skating finals, which—sorry, puck bunnies—was the climax of this Olympiad.

[more ...]

Kim Yu-Na - Figure skating - Bob Costas - Vancouver - Sports

Bidenisms: A collection of the vice president's gaffes and head-slappers.

Jeremy Stahl — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:24:05 PST

Vice president Joe Biden produced three fresh Bidenisms this week. Please continue to send your nominations (with a link, please) to slatebidenisms@gmail.com. For more, and our stab at a definition, see "The Complete Bidenisms."

[more ...]

Joe Biden - Vice president - United States - Gmail - Complete Bidenisms

The angelic lightness of Yu-Na, the profound sorrow of Joannie.

Meghan O'Rourke — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:37:27 PST

The Winter Olympic ladies' free skating competition ended up being about two strikingly different narratives. First, the nationalistic competition between Japan and South Korea, embodied here in the elegant forms of the top two skaters, silver medalist Mao Asada and gold medalist Kim Yu-Na—who, it must be said, blew the field away, winning by more than 23 points. Second, the communal intimacy of watching bronze medalist Joannie Rochette skate mere days after her mother died suddenly at the age of 55, soon after she arrived in Vancouver to watch her daughter skate. If Olympic officials and commentators had distressingly glided past the death of the Georgian luge competitor Nodar Kumaritashvili (as Nancy Franklin argued in The New Yorker), in Rochette's case they had managed, for once, to appropriately handle death. They did not overmilk the pathos of the situation.

[more ...]

Joannie Rochette - Kim Yu-Na - Mao Asada - South Korea - sport

Kell on Earth star Kelly Cutrone's secret spiritual side.

Marisa Meltzer — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:26:35 PST

Kelly Cutrone, the plain-spoken head of a PR firm with a high-minded name, People's Revolution, has spent the last few seasons berating her vacant employees Lauren Conrad and Whitney Port as a peripheral character on MTV's reality soap operas The Hills and The City. Now, she has her own show on Bravo, Kell on Earth, which chronicles her life as a fashion publicist. Watching Cutrone admonish her idiotic underlings is psychic relief for the engaged TV fan: For once, everything you'd like to shout at the screen is being said for you by a woman who dresses exclusively in black and has the pallor of someone who eschews both under-eye concealer and sunlight.

[more ...]

Kelly Cutrone - Whitney Port - Lauren Conrad - MTV - Television

Purim's violent beginnings—and what they mean for the Jewish future.

Steven I. Weiss — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:52:34 PST

Much like Halloween, the Jewish holiday of Purim carries a veneer of boisterous and innocuous fun overlaid on some ghoulish history. Of all the "they tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat" holidays in the Jewish calendar, Purim has been the most responsible for shaping the Jewish view of other nations—and the theology behind that worldview has rung many alarm bells over the potential for Jewish violence.

[more ...]

Purim - Jewish holiday - Judaism - Religion and Spirituality - Hebrew calendar

The Crazies reviewed.

Dana Stevens — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:29:19 PST

If a horror movie can be described, without insult, as "comforting," that would be the word for Breck Eisner's The Crazies (Overture Films), an adaptation of the 1973 George Romero film about a murderous contagion spreading through a small town. The Crazies scares you in exactly the way you think it's going to scare you; it hits all the expected schlock-horror beats but still manages to conjure a scream when the bad guys loom up from the shadows. It isn't a period-obsessed riff on '70s gore or a somber deconstruction of it, just a modestly budgeted and not terribly ambitious updating of the formula. That sounds like faint praise, but I quite liked The Crazies. It lacks the fevered sincerity (and the political timeliness) of Romero's original, but it's tightly scripted, cleverly cast, consistently scary, occasionally funny—everything you could ask from a well-made and completely unnecessary remake.

[more ...]

Crazies - George Romero - Breck Eisner - Overture Films - Movies

In search of the world's rarest ape.

Ben Crair — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 09:41:13 PST

Two days after I saw a Hainan gibbon, the world's rarest ape, I found myself trailing a Muslim woman through a Buddhist theme park. The experience came as a surprise: Originally, I had not planned to visit Sanya, the main resort city on Hainan.

[more ...]

Sanya - Hainan - Buddhism - Amusement park - Muslim

American Idol this week.

Katherine Meizel — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:54:07 PST

There were some important Idol moments on television this past week—Jennifer Hudson, Jordin Sparks, and Randy Jackson in "We Are the World 25 For Haiti"; Nikki Yanofsky's Clarkson-esque, melisma-laden Canadian anthem in Vancouver. But this week's American Idol, with all of its intrigue, psychological torture, and inexplicably arbitrary timestamps, felt like a subliminal plug for another Fox show. And now, on (Top) 24: The following takes place between 6:00 p.m. and sometime last month when these decisions were actually filmed: 71 contestants are divided into three rooms (that's 23.666 singers per room, which explains how the judges dealt with all of Mary Powers' personalities) where they cry and hold hands like they are waiting out a hostage situation. The Russians have the uranium at this point, I think. 11:00 p.m.: They are still crying and holding hands five hours later when Ellen lets Room 1 know its fate, when at 11:30 Room 2 gets let down easy and Room 3 runs out into the hallway to be free and belatedly celebrate the end of the Cold War or something.

[more ...]

Randy Jackson - American Idol - Television - Jordin Sparks - Canada

The Olympics Sap-o-Meter: Courage, determination, and passion at the ladies' figure skating finals.

Josh Levin, Jeremy Singer-Vine, and Chris Wilson — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:26:44 PST

Courage, determination, and passion at the ladies' figure skating finals.

[more ...]

Figure skating - Sport - Skating - Ice Skating - Figure

Searching for Saddam: Why social network analysis hasn't led us to Osama Bin Laden.

Chris Wilson — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:16:26 PST

Why social network analysis hasn't led us to Osama Bin Laden.

[more ...]

Osama Bin Laden - Terrorism - United States - Terrorist Organizations - Al-Qaida

Corrections from the last week.

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:06:59 PST

In the Feb. 24 "Prescriptions," Timothy Noah erroneously referred to Mitch McConnell as the Senate majority leader. He's the Senate minority leader. He also referred to Sen. Bill Nelson, D.-Fla., as Sen. "Ben" Nelson. Sen. Ben Nelson is a Democrat from Nebraska.

[more ...]

Ben Nelson - Mitch McConnell - Democratic - United States Senate - Nebraska

Slate Magazine

Slate V: Dana's Home Theater: A Serious Man

Alice in Wonderland reviewed: Don't follow Tim Burton down this rabbit hole.

A real-life soldier says The Hurt Locker is based on his life. How will the court decide?

Obama held only one health care event in his first four months in office?

The Political Gabfest for March 4, 2010.

How to understand late-period Steve Martin.

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Why pledges to "clean up Washington" never work.

The Senate bill doesn't fund abortions. Here's why Stupak thinks it does.

Apple's multitouch lawsuit is both dumb and dangerous.

The Slatest: Evening Edition

Send Slate your hand-drawn maps!

Can better signs help pedestrians understand London?

Let's talk Oscars: The Hurt Locker is a piece of chamber music. Inglourious Basterds is epic.

A review of a new graphic novel based on the pornographic Story of O.

Post-bailout novel: A conversation with Adam Haslett, author of Union Atlantic.

Slate Editor David Plotz and Daily Caller Editor Tucker Carlson chatted about Charles Rangel, David Paterson and health care reform. Read the transcript.

Jenny Woolf's The Mystery of Lewis Carroll.

Slate wants your best ideas for how to live a cheaper, more energy-efficient life.

Should I sleep with the nanny?

Lost: Smokey Locke, jungle genie.

How to Judge the Best Art Direction Oscar

Obama and Romney say the same thing about health care reform.

I've cut my electricity use because I can measure exactly how much I'm using. I want to do the same for heating oil, but …

Nuclear policy matters, but the Nuclear Posture Review doesn't.

What does a congressional "whip" actually do?

Slate on the 82nd annual Academy Awards.

Courts should offer domestic violence victims mediation for a divorce.

Tarantino will win best picture, if history can be believed.

12 movies that pandered to the academy but didn't even get a nomination.

The Political Gabfest for Feb. 26, 2010.

A former military interrogator unearths the errors and fear-mongering in Marc Thiessen's Courting Disaster.

An aggregated list of expert Oscar predictions.

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"Playing With Pictures," at the Met.

Slate's Culture Gabfest on Joanna Newsom, The Marriage Ref, and rules for writing fiction.

An admittedly irrational screed against popcorn.

The new backlash against casual sex.

Obama's end game for passing health care reform.

Why do so many Chilean politicians have French names?

What the president's health reform letter really means.

Bogus trend story of the week: The Wall Street Journal discovers a zillion playwrights writing for TV!

How to suss out bad tech predictions.

Why is Chile so long and skinny?

Why the economic model predicting Olympic medal counts drastically underestimated the U.S. haul.

Why do filmmakers like Joel and Ethan Coen use pseudonyms?

Leno returns to the Tonight Show.

Revisiting A Serious Man, the most puzzling of the best-picture nominees.

Did we save the whales or what?

The four rules of action movies that The Hurt Locker's Kathryn Bigelow breaks every time.

A conversation with The Hurt Locker's Kathryn Bigelow.

Because of the recession, kids are leaving private school.

Readers solve the problem of oversize air travelers.

Why you've never really heard the "Moonlight" Sonata.

"Hydrangea"

The mathematics of a reconciliation health reform bill.

Is there any relationship between the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti?

Books, music, and movies Slate writers recommend.

When should sexting be illegal?

Slate's sports podcast Hang Up and Listen for the week of March 1, 2010.

Dear Prudence chats live with readers at Washingtonpost.com.

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If you paid your utility bills in cash, you'd use a lot less energy.

Why are the signs at New York's Penn Station so confusing?

Signs: The most useful thing you pay no attention to.

Canada's classic win over Team USA redeemed a crummy Winter Olympics.

The Supreme Court tosses a bad ruling in Kiyemba v. Obama.

Chile will survive the earthquake because its democracy works.

Chile survived its huge earthquake relatively well. Iran would be a different story.

DNA testing makes it easy to find the identity of anonymous sperm donors.

The Sap-o-Meter's says an emotional goodbye to Vancouver. Plus: the Sappiest Word of the 2010 Olympic Games.

Readers debate the problem of oversized air travelers.

Joanna Newsom's Have One on Me, reviewed.

Sam Lipsyte's The Ask.

Slate on the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Can a family court prevent a parent from taking his daughter to church?

Can Vail's ski resort cut its energy use 10 percent?

Kim Yu-Na's performance was the climax of the Olympiad.

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