But were afraid to ask. A window into the world of Mad Men and our parents. I found this link on a Mad Men message board, but the book is too, too interesting. [more inside]
posted by Ruthless Bunny on Oct 22, 2009 - 47 comments

Back in 2004, the Chicago Tribune published an investigative series about the state of Islam after 9/11. [more inside]
posted by reenum on Oct 19, 2009 - 4 comments

Breastfeeding in Mongolia The author describes the ubiquity of breastfeeding and breast milk in Mongolia, and her experience over a three-year period of breastfeeding her infant in Mongolia and in the West.
posted by five fresh fish on Oct 15, 2009 - 84 comments

The newspaper industry is facing challenges, and what might be done to ramify the situation Newspapers have been an institution for over a hundred years, but are now under threat of being undermined by the Internet and other sources. This article gives a decent background of the current crisis faced by the industry and how the industry might respond to the threats the printed paper faces.
posted by reenum on Sep 23, 2009 - 38 comments

Japan is facing a demographic crisis that will shrink the population dramatically. The Japanese aren't having babies, and the country won't accept immigrants to help bolster the population. Japan: Robot Nation looks at a uniquely Japanese solution. [more inside]
posted by Extopalopaketle on Sep 21, 2009 - 55 comments

Reinventing the Firm - "drawing on Ronald Coase, a firm is a political response to an economic problem: managerial power and hierarchy is one efficient way of dealing with the uncertainties attached to the employment relationship. But this doesn't prevent us from considering alternative political settlements, that are potentially more democratic and more productive." also see: Clay Shirky, Ronald Coase and, err, me (previously 1|2|3 via mm & ev) [more inside]
posted by kliuless on Sep 16, 2009 - 6 comments

Few things in history are as compelling as the duel. Refined and barbaric at the same time, this practice has had a checkered history. The rules of dueling were codified by the Irish in 1777 in the Code Duello (summarized here), which was codified at Clonmel Summer Assizes in 1777. As evidenced by these documents, dueling was in practice prior to the Irish rules being drafted. The procedure and philosophy behind duels is illustrated in this article. Dueling gained some traction in America in the 19th century, culminating in the famous Burr-Hamilton affair. There are many more resources to find out more here. For a list of famous duels, you can check out this list. Lest you think men were the only ones dueling, here are a few short anecdotes of women dueling. Reportedly, dueling is still legal in Paraguay, as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
posted by reenum on Sep 15, 2009 - 17 comments

How Wal-Mart's values are shaping America's economy -- and why this is a very bad thing:

Around the time that the young Sam Walton opened his first stores, John Kennedy redeemed a presidential campaign promise by persuading Congress to extend the minimum wage to retail workers, who had until then not been covered by the law. Walton was furious. Now the goddamn federal government was telling him he had to pay his workers the $1.15 hourly minimum. Walton's response was to divide up his stores into individual companies whose revenues didn't exceed the $250,000 threshold. Eventually, though, a federal court ruled that this was simply a scheme to avoid paying the minimum wage, and he was ordered to pay his workers the accumulated sums he owed them, plus a double-time penalty thrown in for good measure. Wal-Mart cut the checks, but Walton also summoned the employees at a major cluster of his stores to a meeting. "I'll fire anyone who cashes the check," he told them.

The Self-Storage Self (NYT) [more inside]
posted by backseatpilot on Sep 9, 2009 - 61 comments

Dominick Dunne died yesterday at the age of 83. was well known for his chronicling of the follies and crimes of the rich. You can read some of his pieces from Vanity Fair here.
posted by reenum on Aug 27, 2009 - 26 comments

Are the ties that bind gay men to straight women beginning to fray?
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Aug 18, 2009 - 99 comments

Kevin Smith on patronizing a strip club [more inside]
posted by reenum on Aug 8, 2009 - 158 comments

"I once proposed a solution somewhat tongue in cheek to the problem of pensions: turn retirement upside down ... people would be supported by society up to the age of 30. During that period they would study, travel, prepare for a profession, reproduce and give full-time care to their young ... After 30, they would work until they dropped dead or became incapacitated." Letter from physicist Cylon Gonçalves da Silva to The Economist in response to this original article on the problems of an ageing global population.
posted by rongorongo on Jul 28, 2009 - 32 comments

Tyler Cowen on why it's OK to pay for sex [more inside]
posted by reenum on Jul 22, 2009 - 111 comments

"To you, my friends, whose identity in these pages is veiled in fictional disguise, it is but fitting that I dedicate this book." Old school etiquette from the inimitable Emily Post and others. [more inside]
posted by lalex on Jul 16, 2009 - 12 comments

A new US study, recently published in Social Science Quarterly, has shown that the more uncommon or feminine a boy's first name is, the greater the likelihood that he will end up in prison. [more inside]
posted by acb on Jul 14, 2009 - 103 comments

Too Complex To Exist? [1] Paul Kedrosky has been pondering complex social systems and why they sometimes fail. Apparently it has something to do with "normalization of deviance," "tight coupling" [2] and "slack." [3]
posted by kliuless on Jun 24, 2009 - 7 comments

"The design of the Society is specially to afford, to dwellers in remote parts of the country, by means of postal facilities, the advantages derivable from interchange of thought on such subjects of common interest as may be elucidated by the microscope." from the Journal of the Postal Microscopical Society c. 1882. It might interest you to know that the Postal Microscopical Society is still in existence and that there are other microscopical societies around the world. Now you can look at slides from the Victorian Era or present day without waiting for the mailman. [previously]
posted by jessamyn on Jun 21, 2009 - 5 comments

"When masses of people who own the means of production work toward a common goal and share their products in common, when they contribute labor without wages and enjoy the fruits free of charge, it's not unreasonable to call that socialism."The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online, a provocative article in the new Wired magazine, examines the effects of the growing influence of online collectivism. I thought this might make for an interesting read and discussion by members of an online community.
posted by Benny Andajetz on May 27, 2009 - 63 comments

NRW 1946—2006. Short articles chronicling North Rhine-Westphalia. The site has one rather large shortcoming though, the video clips cannot be accessed (only available on VHS within the State!).
posted by tellurian on May 12, 2009 - 10 comments

Jared Diamond on the Evolution of Religions. (SLYT)
posted by Artw on Apr 8, 2009 - 46 comments

British academics Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett believe they've discovered the underlying cause of all modern society's ills: inequality. In their book, The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, they explain how health and social problems follow a strikingly similar pattern, being closely correlated with income distribution (pdf). To spread the word, they've founded The Equality Trust
posted by Elizabeth the Thirteenth on Mar 15, 2009 - 99 comments

Explore the History of the Ancient Greek World from the Neolithic to the Classical Period. Covering important topics, such as Art and Architecture, Mythology, Wars, Culture and Society, Poetry, Olympics, History Periods, Philosophy, Playwrights, Kings and Rulers of Ancient Greece.
posted by netbros on Feb 21, 2009 - 3 comments

Can you say Hero? The Life and Times of Mr. Fred Rogers One of the most influential people ever to grace television, Mr. Rogers was a neighbor to millions of children across the US. His legacy has left a long lasting impression on the fabric of society. With today's children being force fed Hanna Montana, and Joey 101, wouldn't it be nice if we could go to the kingdom of make believe, just one more time?
posted by Heliochrome85 on Feb 11, 2009 - 57 comments

The Virtues of Godlessness. "It is not the most religious nations in our world today, but rather the most secular, that have been able to create the most civil, just, safe, equitable, humane, and prosperous societies."
posted by plexi on Feb 1, 2009 - 108 comments

"It became an accessory of fashion. Status symbol like jewels, the fan had some additional advantages: you could hide behind, spy through tiny holes in the fan, swirl the fan coquettishly, or move the fan according to difficult fan language conventions, a kind of early telecommunication." [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Jan 14, 2009 - 20 comments

The Revolutionary Pleasure of Thinking for Yourself
posted by divabat on Jan 3, 2009 - 30 comments

John Taylor Gatto's newest book, Weapons of Mass Instruction, is out today. Gatto, a former New York State "Teacher of the Year" (1991), is a critic of state education and compulsory schooling in general: "When you take the free will out of education, that turns it into schooling." [more inside]
posted by symbollocks on Dec 10, 2008 - 129 comments

Second Great Depression? We should be so lucky. Or so Dmitry Orlov says. Orlov, an engineer who watched the collapse of the Soviet Union, argues that the United States is well into a similar process of collapse. In Orlov's model, collapse is divided into five stages: financial, commercial, political, social and cultural. The first one is currently happening, and the next two are guaranteed to follow; as for cultural collapse, that happened a long time ago, but people were to narcotised by consumerism to notice. And things look set to get very, very dire indeed, with runaway hyperinflation, shortages, the breakdown of political institutions, the fragmentation of the US, and, if the "social collapse" stage is reached, roaming gangs and ethnic cleansing.
posted by acb on Dec 3, 2008 - 65 comments

Depression 2009: What would it look like? "Lines at the ER, a television boom, emptying suburbs. A catastrophic economic downturn would feel nothing like the last one." [Via]
posted by homunculus on Nov 21, 2008 - 48 comments

The Tibet Album: British photography in Central Tibet 1920 - 1950 [previously] via The Best of The Asian Studies WWW Monitor [more inside]
posted by tellurian on Nov 10, 2008 - 15 comments

Google rolls out Mail Goggles, designed to prevent drunk or otherwise impaired emailing by forcing you to answer basic math questions. And no, it's not April 1st.
posted by mattholomew on Oct 7, 2008 - 67 comments

"I would like to take a broader look at the Web. I would like to consider what the Web can do for society on a scale we have not yet seen. And I would like to enlist your help to get us there." ― Tim Berners-Lee announces the World Wide Web Foundation [more inside]
posted by netbros on Sep 20, 2008 - 30 comments

The Role of Inconvenience in Designing Social Systems (slyt via robowhiz) [more inside]
posted by kliuless on Sep 19, 2008 - 26 comments

Goth. You just can't kill it.
posted by plexi on Sep 18, 2008 - 87 comments

Overcoming Bias [via]
posted by fantabulous timewaster on Sep 10, 2008 - 26 comments

"Political content aside, the discussion provided a lovely example of how a term from literary theory has established itself in American political discourse." via Language Log

"We may expect the following. Language will be carefully crafted. Advertisements will focus on personal narratives. The campaign will employ “attack” advertisements that emotionally sway voters. Policy will be sketchy with vague descriptions that emotionally satisfy Americans while offering scant details. The emphasis will be on creating narratives that resonate with the values, beliefs, and identities of prospective voters."
– Literary Gulag, on Lakoff, Nunberg, Westen, and the narrative of the 2008 presidential election. [more inside]
posted by iamkimiam on Sep 9, 2008 - 26 comments

Towards a culture of responsible drug use - an essay by the creators of Erowid [via]
posted by daksya on Sep 8, 2008 - 53 comments

Out There: People Who Live Without TV. About one to two percent of Americans do not watch television, which it turns out, is a common ground for the very liberal and the very conservative. [more inside]
posted by stbalbach on Sep 4, 2008 - 183 comments

A New State of Mind. "New research is linking dopamine to complex social phenomena and changing neuroscience in the process."
posted by homunculus on Aug 12, 2008 - 25 comments

The late, great Tony Wilson is being honoured today with a 24-hour long "intelligent" conversation in Manchester, England. Wilson was a musical Svengali par excellence. He co-founded Factory Records, helped discover both Joy Division and the Happy Mondays and has been credited with reviving the city that was cradle to the industrial revolution. [more inside]
posted by MrMerlot on Jun 21, 2008 - 16 comments

Why do New Yorkers seem rude? A quirky and interesting article about the culture of New Yorkers.
posted by SeizeTheDay on May 20, 2008 - 163 comments

The Most Civilized Country. Fascinating article challenging conventional notions of how best to have a society. [more inside]
posted by five fresh fish on May 17, 2008 - 78 comments

The messy 3-way interaction between grassroots Chinese nationalism, foreign opposition, and the quiet hand of China's media censors continues.
posted by Tlogmer on May 6, 2008 - 21 comments

Gin, Television, and Social Surplus — Clay Shirky on post-broadcast societal outlets.
posted by blasdelf on Apr 26, 2008 - 40 comments

In an artificial world, only extremists live naturally. Or: You weren't meant to have a boss. On the other hand, maybe you are.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Mar 21, 2008 - 36 comments

The International Institute of Social History was founded in 1935. It is one of the world's largest documentary and research institutions in the field of social history. From their collections: Secret Societies: Documents and illustrations of Freemasons, Jesuits, Illuminati, Carbonari, Burschenschaften and other putative secret societies and clandestine organizations.
posted by nickyskye on Feb 24, 2008 - 11 comments

Virginia Woolf: A feminist's view on why we go to war.
posted by hadjiboy on Feb 24, 2008 - 25 comments

The Ephemera Society was glancingly mentioned prior, but deserves a better mention. It includes:
—An exhibit, an article, and links to Michael Ragsdale's 9/11 ephemera.
—A history of Coca-cola print ephemera.
—An article by Will Shortz on the ephemeral history of the crossword.
—Articles from the Louisiana Library Association's journal issue on ephemera, including Principles for Organizing an Ephemera Collection and an Overview of Political Ephemera.
posted by klangklangston on Jan 5, 2008 - 11 comments

The Howling Mob Society. Looking out over the burning Strip District from the safety of his office in Pittsburgh's Union Station, Thomas Alexander Scott must have been humbled. Only days before, as president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Scott famously suggested that impoverished and striking railroad workers be given “a rifle diet for a few days and see how they like that kind of bread.” Now, with the local Pittsburgh militia all but mutinied and the State Militia rapidly retreating, he must have wondered if his hard-line stance had backfired… [more inside]
posted by damnthesehumanhands on Dec 3, 2007 - 9 comments