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Monday, May 21, 2012

The Browser daily newsletter [21 May 2012]

21 May 2012
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 Best of the Moment

The Yankee Comandante

David Grann | New Yorker | 21 May 2012

Long, gripping story of William Alexander Morgan, US citizen and one of only two foreign nationals (the other was Che Guevara) to hold rank of comandante in Cuban revolutionary army. But who was he really? Comments

A Life Worth Ending

Michael Wolff | New York | 20 May 2012

Son's plea to let his mother go. "By promoting longevity and technologically inhibiting death, we have created a new biological status held by an ever-growing part of the nation, a no-exit state nearly as remote from life as death" Comments

Welcome To The Multiverse

Brian Greene | Newsweek | 21 May 2012

Notion that there are more universes separate from ours is one of the most polarising concepts to have emerged from physics in decades. Is it the next phase in our understanding of reality, or nonsense? And why should we care? Comments

Brothel, Washington DC

Michael Merriam | n+1 | 17 May 2012

In which the author manages a brothel in the nation's capital for a few weeks until fired for alcoholism. The money isn't much good. But the work is varied, the people interesting and the fund of filthy stories incomparable Comments

The Trouble With Scientism

Philip Kitcher | New Republic | 4 May 2012

Superb short essay in defence of the humanities as a form of knowledge, and as a valuable partner for science. "Culture appears to be at some level autonomous and in some sense irreducible, and this is what scientism cannot grasp" Comments

The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn't A Crook - He's An Artist

David Wolman | Wired | 18 May 2012

Story of Hans-Jürgen Kuhl. Made fortune in leather hot pants. Bankrupt, turned to "art". His quest? A perfect $100 bill. "Warhol copied currency, and his prints are now priceless. Kuhl copied currency, got busted, and is now broke" Comments

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