Like all Eternals, he can never go back to his own century, not only because the rules forbid it, but because if he went back he would, like Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life, find everything horribly changed; he would learn that he had never had a home or a mother or an existence of any kind, because the ongoing series of Reality Changes (some, perhaps, implemented by himself) would have wiped him off the record. So instead he travels light, moving from one century to another, putting in the fix as needed, obeying his superiors, and only occasionally wondering why life is structured the way it is and whether Eternity really lasts forever. (Apparently it doesn’t: even the Eternals cannot get into the “hidden” centuries between the 70,000th and the 150,000th, and when they enter the system after that, all they find is a dead, uninhabited, featureless world.) —“The End of Eternity,” Wendy Lesser, Threepenny Review
It’s good to be the Putin;
secret sauce revealed!
Charlie Rangel will take your children (and your apartments, and your money, and your vacation home…)
O. J. Simpson is a cold-blooded, vicious killer. My daughter was his babysitter. And we lived across the street from him. I know about all the spousal abuse. I’ve had fights with him about it. In jail, I screamed at him and said, “Look at the good Rock Hudson did before he died, by acknowledging his sexuality and his illness!” I said, “If you get out of this fucking mess”—I didn’t say “fucking mess,” but—“If you get out of this, if you’re judged to be innocent, you should go out and talk about spousal abuse. Do you realize how many women and men you could help?” “I never did anyth—” I said, “Fuck you, O. J.” Of course, he continued to deal with me… but he’s a cold-blooded killer. —“Interview with Lawrence Shiller,” Suzanne Snider, The Believer
Context-schmontex, Mr. Stone;
demonic corporate villain “demonised and villified” in rare act of equitable public justice;
damn right she’s got the high cheese
To get a longer attention span — even a span long enough to read this article — don’t worry about managing the information. Worry about managing your attention. Paying attention, for long periods of time, is a form of endurance athleticism. Like running a marathon, it requires practice and training to get the most out of it. It is as much Twitter’s fault that you have a short attention span as it is your closet’s fault it doesn’t have any running shoes in it. If you want the ability to focus on things for a long period of time, you need attention fitness. —“How to Rebuild Your Attention Span and Focus,” Clay Johnson, Lifehacker
