Morning Coffee (6/8/19)

Pure evil: Border Patrol is confiscating migrant kids' medicine, U.S. doctors say

Theresa May officially steps down as Tory leader

The corruption is just so OUT IN THE OPEN: A wealthy Iraqi sheikh who urges a hard-line U.S. approach to Iran spent 26 nights at Trump’s D.C. hotel

Good news for NH: Court finds school funding formula unconstitutional

IS HE, really? ‘Kill the problem’: Alabama mayor sorry for Facebook post accused of ‘inciting violence’ against gays

Oh, whoa! Central Park 5 Prosecutor Dropped by Publisher After Netflix Series Outcry

Biden’s First Run for President Was a Calamity. Some Missteps Still Resonate.

Ohio Doctor Charged With Killing 25 Patients in Fentanyl Overdoses

Undistorting the Civil War

Rock Art and Footprints Reveal How Ancient Humans Responded to Volcanic Eruption

Afternoon Tea (11/29/17)

Ooh, SPACE LAW: If No One Owns the Moon, Can Anyone Make Money Up There?

This interview is great and I'm excited to read her books: Alyssa Cole On the Magic of Writing Romance (Quote: "The Confederacy lost. They fucking lost. They didn’t lose by accident.")

An Unbiased Algorithm Could Help Put an End to Partisan Gerrymandering

Meet the Media Mogul of Maine

‘A woman actually voted!’: Lily Maxwell and the Manchester by-election of November 1867

Morning Coffee (11/6/17)

Me elsewhere: TV news for the week.

Well: Mueller Has Enough Evidence to Bring Charges in Flynn Investigation

What a shock: Commerce Secretary’s Offshore Ties to Putin ‘Cronies’

Kremlin Cash Behind Billionaire’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

Sounds like someone's consolidating power! Saudi Arabia Arrests 11 Princes, Including Billionaire Alwaleed bin Talal

OF COURSE: Women Are Even Farther From Equality Than We Were Last Year

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Trump-Endorsed Media Outlet Reports That Hitler Is Alive

The Murderer Who Started a Movement

Useful: Five Books to Make You Less Stupid About the Civil War

I guess this makes sense: Oprah will be Alexa’s first celebrity-voiced shopping assistant

Whoa: Storm Ophelia Unearthed an Ancient Skeleton in Ireland

Afternoon Tea (8/31/17)

A good piece on last week's YA drama: A first-time author unwittingly exposed the house of cards beneath “bestseller” books

Ruby Ridge, 1992: the day the American militia movement was born

The Holy Grail of Video Game History Is Probably an Office Memo

Interesting: One Scientist May Have Finally Figured Out the Mystery of Why a Civil War Submarine Sank

Shabbat in Zimbabwe

Afternoon Tea (6/20/17)

The Thrilling Tale of How Robert Smalls Seized a Confederate Ship and Sailed it to Freedom

The best TV adaptations aren’t direct translations. They’re windows into worlds.

People Used to Be So Scared of Coffee That Bach Wrote a Cantata About It

How Pasteur’s Artistic Insight Changed Chemistry

The Artful Propaganda of Soviet Children’s Literature

Morning Coffee (5/7/17)

ISIS is on the decline in the Middle East, but its influence in Pakistan is rising

Trump Can’t Win His Battle Against the Judges

100 days of gibberish – Trump has weaponised nonsense

Donald Trump May Also Be Violating a Different Emoluments Clause

Okay, this is old but was going around again this week: Donald Trump has plaque at his golf course commemorating Civil War battle that never happened Get a load of this quote: "Trump... questioned how historians could dispute the battle. 'How would they know,' he told the Times. 'Were they there?'"

The Danger of Trump’s Civil War Ignorance

The Surprising Wishes Of India's Sex Workers

German scientists to begin identifying Nazi victims' brain specimens

‘Excess’ Gamma-Rays at Milky Way’s Core Likely From Pulsars, Not Dark Matter

I AGREE: It’s Insane That Anyone Goes Camping

Afternoon Tea (4/12/17)

Romance Queen Lisa Kleypas Talks Consent, Trump, and Writing Ambitious Heroines

The Nile River Delta, once the bread basket of the world, may soon be uninhabitable

The Dark State of British Rhubarb

Afghan Women Say No To The Dress

Nativism, Violence, and the Origins of the Paranoid Style

Rediscovering the Civil War Heroics of a Tiny Massachusetts Armory

Morning Coffee (8/13/16)

Here is your most important weekend reading assignment: Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart (It's long, but worth it.)

This Daily Beast Grindr Stunt Is Sleazy, Dangerous, and Wildly Unethical

Gay Olympian Amini Fonua Has Words for the Grindr-in-Rio Journalist

Whoa: Arianna Huffington to leave the Huffington Post

At long last, The Wine Show premieres (for the U.S.) on Hulu today. This interview about it with Matthew Goode is a delight.

Vital and fascinating: My Crazy Year with Trump

“A Honeypot For Assholes”: Inside Twitter’s 10-Year Failure To Stop Harassment

Awesome: Goodbye to ‘Honeys’ in Court, by Vote of American Bar Association

OH NO: Brewers Are Running out of Pumpkin for Their Autumn Beers

How Left-Handed Penmanship Contests Tried To Help Civil War Vets After Amputation

Morning Coffee (9/30/15)

Me elsewhere: New Macbeth clip! I remain excited.

The next government shutdown fight, explained

This is completely horrifying on many different levels: The Police Told Her To Report Her Rape, Then Arrested Her For Lying

Ryan Adams’s 1989 and the mansplaining of Taylor Swift (Seriously. MAKE IT STOP.)

They exhumed Nicholas and Alexandra!!!

I have mixed feelings about this: Twitter Plans to Go Beyond Its 140-Character Limit

Training Midwives to Save Expectant Mothers in Chiapas

Yes: A Proposal to Change the Words We Use When Talking About the Civil War

Fascinating: Inside The Duggars' Deep Ties With A Once-Powerful, Now-Scorned Ministry

Want to see how a bunch of famous composers wrote treble clefs? Of course you do.

Ayn Rand's 'The Little Match Girl'

Morning Coffee (9/9/15)

Me elsewhere: I'm not sure how to feel about the Shannara trailer.

Today Queen Elizabeth II becomes England's longest reigning monarch, passing Queen Victoria. Let's look at some rarely seen pictures of the young Elizabeth. (You know you pay too much attention to these things when almost all the "rarely seen pictures" look familiar.)

Fascinating and important: Jihad and Girl Power: How ISIS Lured 3 London Girls

NOPE: "Trump said that his experience at the New York Military Academy, an expensive prep school where his parents had sent him to correct poor behavior, gave him 'more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military.'"

Speaking of: Nixon sent Trump a letter in 1987 saying Pat Nixon thought he should run for office. SO. (Yes, Dad, this one was for you.)

Sam Smith is doing the new Bond song. I am . . . underwhelmed by the choice, but had to bring you an article that features someone called Barbara Broccoli who is apparently a real person and not a Sesame Street character.

I really feel like Julie Plec understands me on a deep level.

I'm excited about PBS's new Civil War drama Mercy Street, but it's going to take some time to see Josh Radnor as an old timey surgeon without just giggling. (In the video linked there he says his character is arrogant. That must have been SUCH A STRETCH for him.) (I mean, because of his HIMYM character. I have no reason to think Radnor himself is anything but delightful.)

"hi i’m so sorry to bother you
it’s me
Dante Alighieri
from life?
from being alive?"

Morning Coffee (9/7/15)

I know I said I might take today off, but! I had to come tell you that the remastered The Civil War is starting on PBS tonight. I've never seen The Civil War, somehow, so I'm excited, but even if you saw the original, you should probably read Alyssa Rosenberg's piece on the remaster and consider giving it a try. And make sure you check out this interactive graphic that shows the differences. It's really neat.

Me elsewhere: Lots of TV news!

I've seen several friends asking for basics on the refugee crisis and why it has suddenly become such a big thing, so here's a combination of three pieces that I think do a good job of making things clear while not eliding too much of the complexity: start with the New York Times's Desperate Crossing interactive photo essay; then read Vox's explainer; then head to Slate for We Could Stop More Refugee Children From Drowning. But We Won’t.

Inside Jeb Bush’s fall strategy to deflate Trump and court conservatives

I'm curious to see the outcome if Iowa Democrats have satellite caucuses and Republicans don't. It's not like the parties are up against each other at that point, so relative turnout doesn't matter in that way, but how will it affect the type of candidates who do well (and get momentum) or don't?

The Witches of Salem is what finally pushed me over the edge to resubscribe to the New Yorker. (I tried giving it up to save money. I lasted eight months. It was TERRIBLE.)

The Fascinating Afterlife of Peru's Mummies

I have fond memories of a school field trip to the Wadsworth Atheneum, and I'm curious to see its big new renovation.

The Onion: I-90 Adds Lane For Drivers Traveling Cross-Country To Stop Woman From Marrying Wrong Man

Morning Coffee (10/15/14)

Me elsewhere: My pilot post on Jane the Virgin (which I loved!) and thoughts on this week's Sleepy Hollow.

'Massacre' threat forces Anita Sarkeesian to cancel university talk

Let's all put this on our Christmas lists: Washington Post Dismisses 500-Page Civil War Nonfiction Book As Girly

Noreen Malone's takedown of "basic bitch" is great.

11 ways race isn't real

The Evolution of Nobel Prize Betting

Senate Control Could Come Down To Whole Foods vs. Cracker Barrel

Fascinating: In Spain, Politics Via Reddit

Ooh, dishy: Confederate Officer's Wartime Diary Decoded

Morning Coffee (9/18/13)

Me, elsewhere: I wrote about new Fox comedies Brooklyn Nine-Nine (good) and Dads (not good) at TheTelevixen.com
And I reviewed the Sleepy Hollow pilot and wrote up a few thoughts on the Bones premiere at Read the Screen.

Why The New Fox Comedy “Dads” Is Actually Evil

Here's the Bryan Goldberg piece you've been wanting.

Ooh, here's the trailer for the Grace of Monaco biopic.

Delightful: Literary Trysts It Gives Me Great Joy To Think About: Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman

A Chat With Rainbow Rowell About Love and Censorship (Eleanor and Park is great. You should read it.)

This gorgeous chart attempts to represent the whole Civil War.

Dog: Medieval Man's Best Friend

Pretty Pincushions, Embroidered by British Soldiers in WWI and Sent To Their Sweethearts Back Home