
"Why the right hates Detroit." By Andrew O'Hehir, for Salon. Related: "Detroit: Myths and truths about bankruptcy," by Greg Gardner of The Detroit Free Press.

"Is it pure coincidence that these two landmark cities, known around the world as fountainheads of the most vibrant and creative aspects of American culture, have become our two direst examples of urban failure and collapse? If so, it’s an awfully strange one. I’m tempted to propose a conspiracy theory: As centers of African-American cultural and political power and engines of a worldwide multiracial pop culture that was egalitarian, hedonistic and anti-authoritarian, these cities posed a psychic threat to the most reactionary and racist strains in American life. I mean the strain represented by Tom Buchanan in 'The Great Gatsby' (imagine what he’d have to say about New Orleans jazz) or by the slightly more coded racism of Sean Hannity today. As payback for the worldwide revolution symbolized by hot jazz, Smokey Robinson dancin’ to keep from cryin’ and Eminem trading verses with Rihanna, New Orleans and Detroit had to be punished. Specifically, they had to be isolated, impoverished and almost literally destroyed, so they could be held up as examples of what happens when black people are allowed to govern themselves."
"Measles is back. It had help." Margaret Wente of The Toronto Globe and Mail on how the phone "vaccines cause autism" rumor helped contribute to the return of a disease that had been largely eradicated."The modern anti-vaccination scare began in the late 1990s, when a British physician named Andrew Wakefield began warning people that the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps and rubella) causes autism in children. Medical experts refuted his claims, but parents panicked. Vaccination rates in Britain sank from 92 per cent to 73 per cent. Dr. Wakefield’s research has since been widely condemned as a giant fraud, and many of the current crop of measles victims were never vaccinated because of him."

"Eliott Gould on throwing his lunch at Robert Altman and Saturday Night Live's Five-Timers Club." Interview by Will Harris for The AV Club.