Guest Thinkers — December 21, 2010

Mahri Poetry? I think, yes.

It is a bit too late, after that last post, for another one on al-Qaeda so instead we have one on Bedouin poetry.

This article features friend of this blog and the world’s foremost expert on Mahri poetry, Samuel Liebhaber. Quite a guy.

For anyone who has ever heard the old Orientalist joke about a word meaning itself its opposite and some part of a camel this article is for you, as well as those who like cars.

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

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Guest Thinkers

NYTimes Article on the South

Robert Worth does his typically solid job on summing up what is going on, and, more importantly, follows the new Law of Journalism- if you want to write a good […]