Jane Austen 'died from arsenic poisoning'. [The Guardian] Crime writer Lindsay Ashford bases claim on reading of author's letters and claims murder cannot be ruled out. Almost 200 years after she died, Jane Austen's early death at the age of just 41 has been attributed to many things, from cancer to Addison's disease. Now sleuthing from a crime novelist has uncovered a new possibility: arsenic poisoning.
posted by Fizz
on Nov 15, 2011 -
37 comments
Wikileaks has
alleged that Guardian editor David Leigh negligently leaked the encryption passphrase to the unredacted 'Cablegate' archive in an upcoming book.
The Guardian denies the charges, but states that
"[a] Twitter user has now published a link to the full, unredacted database of embassy cables", potentially putting informants at risk.
posted by p3on
on Aug 31, 2011 -
203 comments
"Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and their former editor Andy Coulson all face embarrassing new allegations of dishonesty and cover-up after the publication of an explosive letter written by the News of the World's disgraced royal correspondent, Clive Goodman.
In the letter, which was written four years ago but published only on Tuesday,
Goodman claims that phone hacking was "widely discussed" at editorial meetings at the paper until Coulson himself banned further references to it; that Coulson offered to let him keep his job if he agreed not to implicate the paper in hacking when he came to court; and that his own hacking was carried out with "the full knowledge and support" of other senior journalists, whom he named." (Most recent
previously.)
posted by Len
on Aug 16, 2011 -
77 comments
And the winner of the Good Sex Award is... "...recognizing the best sex writing in fiction from the past year. We've
[salon.com] convened a panel of literary star judges -- Walter Kirn, Maud Newton, Louis Bayard and Salon's own Laura Miller -- to reward the best-written, most interesting and most convincing piece of sex writing published in a novel in 2010."
No 2.,
No. 3,
No. 4,
No.5,
No. 6,
No. 7,
No. 8. The
2010 Bad Sex Award Winner.
posted by Fizz
on Feb 15, 2011 -
15 comments
Twelve Tales of Christmas is a podcast
just launched by The Guardian featuring notable modern authors, such as Jeanette Winterson, Ali Smith, Colm Toíbin and Julian Barnes, reading one of their favorite short stories, by authors including JG Ballard, Katherine Mansfield, Italo Calvino, Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Carver. A story will be posted daily for the next 12 days. The first author and story is
Philip Pullman reading The Beauties by Anton Chekhov (
mp3).
[rss, iTunes]
posted by Kattullus
on Dec 10, 2010 -
8 comments
Last week, the New York Times magazine
published an explosive article about the phone-hacking exploits at the Rupert Murdoch-owned British tabloid
News Of The World under the then-editorship of Andy Coulson, now the
the Government's chief of communications. Following the NYT's investigation, questions about the "unhealthy" relationship between the Metropolitan Police and the
press (particularly Murdoch's
News International, which also includes The Sun, The Times and the Sunday Times), and further claims that an independent inquiry was abandoned so as
not to upset the Metropolitan Police, assistant Met Commissioner John Yates was
questioned [video; 4 mins] on Tuesday by the Home Affairs select committee. Following an
emergency debate in Parliament today, which concerned the fact that MPs of all parties may have had their phones hacked (and therefore had their
Parliamentary Privilege breached), the
Standards and Privileges Committee, the most powerful committee in Parliament, is to
open an inquiry which will be able to compel witnesses to give evidence. Meanwhile, former News of the World reporters are coming out the woodwork, claiming that hacking at the paper was
"rife", and the pressure is on Coulson to resign his £140,000 job at No. 10, with a
poll [pdf] which says 52% of the public says he should go.
[more inside]
posted by Len
on Sep 9, 2010 -
46 comments
"Make no mistake, if the Liberal Democrats actually won the election – or held the balance of power – it would be the first time in decades that Murdoch was locked out of British politics." - David Yelland, former editor of Rupert Murdoch's The Sun, writes in The Guardian.
[more inside]
posted by memebake
on Apr 19, 2010 -
62 comments
"The editor's guidelines are as follows: First, remember the reader, and respect demands that we should not casually use words that are likely to offend. Second, use such words only when absolutely necessary to the facts of a piece, or to portray a character in an article; there is almost never a case in which we need to use a swearword outside direct quotes. Third, the stronger the swearword, the harder we ought to think about using it.Finally, never use asterisks, which are just a cop-out." -
Swearing in The Guardian:
A chart
posted by Artw
on Apr 3, 2009 -
31 comments
Love Thy Neighbor: Why Have We Become So Suspicious Of Kindness? Most people, as they grow up now, secretly believe that kindness is a virtue of losers. But agreeing to talk about winners and losers is part and parcel of the phobic avoidance, the contemporary terror, of kindness. Because one of the things the enemies of kindness never ask themselves - and this is now an enemy within all of us - is why we feel it at all. Why are we ever, in any way, moved to be kind to other people, not to mention to ourselves? Why does kindness matter to us?
posted by jason's_planet
on Jan 3, 2009 -
71 comments
The Guardian has a nice interview with
Ursula
K. Le Guin about utopian science fiction, anthropology, ethnicity in Earthsea and the
differences between her two Earthsea trilogies. She also comments on the upcoming
miniseries.
The Lathe of Heaven is a taoist novel, not a utopian or
dystopian one.... There
is an old American saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The novel
extends that a bit - "Even if it's broke, if you don't know how to fix
it, don't."
posted by KirkJobSluder
on Mar 11, 2004 -
20 comments
Journalists say off the record "it was Karl Rove that I spoke to..." (RealPlayer)
Julian Borger of the Guardian reveals that several journalists have revealed "off the record" that Karl Rove revealed the identity of the CIA operative, but that the reporters aren't publicly admitting it, in order to protect their source. But aren't they also material witnesses to a federal crime? Does not revealing their source make them accessories to that crime?
posted by insomnia_lj
on Sep 30, 2003 -
51 comments
Met by "howls of outrage" and questions about his sanity,
Michael Meacher, the ex-Environment Minister for the UK, known mostly for his opposition to GMOs, and revelations about the less than honest and upright behaviour surrounding the issue, has spent some time thinking, free from the constraints of Ministerial duties.
"
the PNAC blueprint of September 2000 states that the process of transforming the US into "tomorrow's dominant force" is likely to be a long one in the absence of "some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor". The 9/11 attacks allowed the US to press the "go" button for a strategy in accordance with the PNAC agenda which it would otherwise have been politically impossible to implement."
- Commentary - Commentary - Commentary
posted by Blue Stone
on Sep 6, 2003 -
24 comments
Elliott could no longer bear the waste. He had six staff and a budget of £3.5m a year. He had a potential client group of 25,000 users ... but at the end of all his work and all that public money, the total number of detox beds he was able to provide was five. The Guardian reports from the front-line of the drugs war. (
part two) You may have no interest in Drugs or the UK but read this superb piece for a profile of a bureaucracy in farcical, tragic, total collapse.
posted by grahamwell
on May 23, 2003 -
5 comments
ill take some Xhoba with that shake "Hunters would cut a slice, munch it, and within minutes hunger and thirst would evaporate, leaving a feeling of strength and alertness. They could travel for days eating nothing else"
guardian.co.uk i hope the kalahari do receive some compensation if this is effective as it sounds.
posted by specialk420
on Jan 4, 2003 -
16 comments
