Recommended reading / viewing / listening

Most of these great items come from my Twitter feed or Facebook news feed. Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook for more fascinating videos, articles, essays and criticism.

1. Gerda Lerner, a Feminist and Historian, Dies at 92
By William Grimes | The New York Times | Jan. 3
“[The] scholar and author … helped make the study of women and their lives a legitimate subject for historians and spearheaded the creation of the first graduate program in women’s history in the United States. …”

2. Why You Won’t Be the Person You Expect to Be
By John Tierney | The New York Times | Jan. 3
“[W]hen asked to predict what their personalities and tastes would be like in 10 years, people of all ages consistently played down the potential changes ahead.”

3. What We Can Learn from the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan
The Takeaway | Jan. 3
“Americans should take note of the Soviets’ success in funding the Afghan government, and that the Soviet-supported Afghan government did not fall to the Mujahedeen until 1992, when the Soviet Union collapsed and Boris Yeltsin cut off aid to the country.”

4. Cannibal insect sex caught on video
By Joanna Carver | New Scientist | Jan. 3
“This video shows a female insect feasting on her partner’s hind wings then drinking the blood from his wound, apparently with little interest in procreation.”

5. How Obama Decides Your Fate If He Thinks You’re a Terrorist
By Daniel Byman and Benjamin Wittes | The Atlantic | Jan. 3
“A look inside the ‘disposition matrix’ that determines when — or if — the administration will pursue a suspected militant.”

6. Puerto Rico charts new course with new governor
By Danica Coto | Associated Press | Jan. 2
“Alejandro Garcia Padilla was sworn in on a stage overlooking the Atlantic Ocean outside the Capitol building in San Juan amid the cheers of thousands of supporters from his party, which opposes statehood.”

7. Beate Gordon, Unsung Heroine of Japanese Women’s Rights, Dies at 89
By Margalit Fox | The New York Times | Jan. 1
“A civilian attached to Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s army of occupation after World War II, Gordon was the last living member of the American team that wrote Japan’s postwar Constitution.”

8. Is America Still the Land of Opportunity?
By Marcus Mabry | IHT Rendezvous :: International Herald Tribune | Jan. 1
“Over the last decade or two, the American middle has been hollowed out, with an affluent, well-educated class growing on one side of the divide and a poor and working-class majority on the other, faced with limited opportunities to change their circumstances.”

9. European disunion done right
The Economist | December 2012
“The [Holy Roman Empire] offers surprising lessons for the European Union today”

10. Adding Missing Titles to iTunes Tracks
By J.D. Biersdorfer | Gadgetwise :: The New York Times | September 2012
“I have some old CDs that I want to convert to MP3 with iTunes. When I put the discs in the computer’s CD drive, iTunes lists the songs as Track 01, Track 02 and so on, instead of the titles. Where does this information come from and how do I get the song names on the files?”

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TUNES

Tonight I’m spending some time with the blues, specifically with the Texas Blues Café. Check out the line-up and then listen here.

1. Preacher Stone — Come Together
2. Hamilton Loomis — Bow Wow
3. Rocky Jackson — Shoulda Never Left Texas
4. Wynonna — Freebird
5. Lynyrd Skynyrd — T For Texas
6. Oreo Blues — Nobody Knows
7. Bluessmyth — Bluessmyth
8. Tommy Crain — Why I Sing The Blues