I’ve just gotten used to sneezing in my sleeve. And now it’s time to let the handshake meet its end. The Boston Globe’s Neil Swidey: With everything we now know about germs, about the ferocity with which trouble travels via hand-to-hand contact, why do we feel obligated to soldier on with this centuries-old tradition? It’s not clear exactly why and when the handshake became our default in-person greeting. The most common explanation is that it was how a man, upon meeting another,...

You might remember several months ago the case of the nine-year old Brazilian girl who was raped by her stepfather: Weighing just 79 pounds and barely four feet tall, the 9-year-old girl, from Alagoinha, a town in the northeast, underwent an abortion when she was 15 weeks pregnant at one of the 55 centers authorized to perform the procedure in Brazil. Abortion is legal [t]here only in cases of rape or when the mother’s life is at risk. The doctors’ actions set off a swirl of controversy. A Brazilian...

No inkling of a resignation in his 800-word OpEd in The State today. But he is really, really, sorry: It’s in the spirit of making good from bad that I am committing to you and the larger family of South Carolinians to use this experience both to trust God in his larger work of changing me and, from my end, to work to becoming a better and more effective leader. I think all that has transpired will be particularly relevant in the way I deal with the legislative body and other state leaders...

On Speaking of Faith this week, TV and Parables of Our Time. Krista Tippet says shows like Lost, The Wire, and Battlestar Galactica are “engaging grand themes of ethics and humanity and helping a new generation tell the story of our time.” Her guest, Diane Winston, a journalist and scholar of media and religion at USC, says we’re in a Golden Age of television: And it’s partly a result of the media breakthroughs. Because of digitization we have so many options and more stations...

The day after and the hubbub is dying down. Still, a quick follow-up to yesterday’s news that Amazon E-Deleted Bought And Paid For Orwell Titles From Kindles is in order. Here then, some thoughts from the legal eagles… Yale Law School’s Jack Balkin: This story is a perfect example of Jonathan Zittrain’s analysis of “tethered appliances,” that is, appliances like the Kindle and the iPhone that feature a combination of hardware and software services connected by...

LATER UPDATE — Amazon says it won’t happen again: These books were added to our catalog using our self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books. When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers’ devices, and refunded customers. We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers’ devices in these circumstances. Is that equivocation? If Amazon...

Newspapers act like they don’t have a clue. So Google directed this message at them: The truth is that news publishers, like all other content owners, are in complete control when it comes not only to what content they make available on the web, but also who can access it and at what price. This is the very backbone of the web — there are many confidential company web sites, university databases, and private files of individuals that cannot be accessed through search engines. If they...

If you missed Joe’s mention of John Avlon’s “Wingnut of the Week,” Audra Shay, the new chair of the Young Republicans [nothing to link to on their web page and this is the closest Wikipedia gets to her] OR if you are otherwise unfamiliar with her odious utterings, I will outline them below. But it was Rachel Hoff’s generous comments in defeat that moved me: She had been silent throughout the election process, even through an anonymous smear campaign that made insinuations about...

President Obama Spoke at the NAACP’s 100th Anniversary dinner tonight. From the transcript: The first thing we need to do is make real the words of your charter and eradicate prejudice, bigotry, and discrimination among citizens of the United States. I understand there may be a temptation among some to think that discrimination is no longer a problem in 2009. And I believe that overall, there’s probably never been less discrimination in America than there is today. But make no mistake: the...

Microsoft Will Open Retail Stores Near Apple Stores in the Fall On Monday I quoted Robert X. Cingely’s skeptical take in a NYTimes OpEd on the Microsoft/Bing Google/Chrome corporate competition: This is all heady stuff and good for lots of press, but in the end none of this is likely to make a real difference for either company or, indeed, for consumers. It’s just noise — a form of mutually assured destruction intended to keep each company in check. Today John Batelle voiced his...

In my How To Save The Newspaper post I promised I’d get to TV. I’m still working on it. But where I’m going is hinted at in a Jeff Jarvis Buzz Machine post today: Journalism and TV: an oxymoron? Well, not always. But often. Local TV news has sucked for years – that horse is out of the barn, over the horizon, and in the glue factory already. Fluff and fires, that’s most of local news on TV. So what is [FCC Commissioner Michael] Copps lamenting? The local broadcast business is...

Ouch: WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)–The fiscal year-to-date U.S. budget deficit broke past $1 trillion in June, a grim testament to the recession and financial crisis. The federal government spent $94.32 billion more than it made in the ninth month of fiscal 2009, the Treasury Department said Monday in its monthly budget statement. Aid to spur the slumping economy and a government bailout of Wall Street are driving the deficit. There are three months left in fiscal 2009. “Many private analysts...

With all the news focused on Sonya, you will be forgiven for missing that Obama announced his Surgeon General nominee today. Sue Sturgis at Facing South calls her: …a trailblazing African-American physician with a long record of service to the rural poor in Alabama. Dr. Regina Benjamin’s perspective as someone who has provided care in an under-served community — and whose own family has been touched by America’s various public health crises — will be critical as Congress...

Robert X. Cingely says in the NYTimes today that the Microsoft/Google competition will come to naught: Yes, Google would love to get a toehold in the netbook and smart-phone markets, especially at Microsoft’s expense. The Chrome OS and Android are both ideal for pushing Google’s net-centric view of computing. But the company worries far more about protecting its current cash cow — search — and says as much when it is unwilling to claim that Android and the Chrome OS will be better for Web-based...

LATER — Reuters on scenarios for how events might unfold; Smooth, messy or military takeover. And the BBC on S Korea and China discuss North amid the unconfirmed reports of Kim Jong-il’s cancer. ++++++++++++++ Reuters: North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has pancreatic cancer and the illness is life-threatening, South Korean broadcaster YTN said on Monday based on information gathered by Chinese and South Korean intelligence sources. Kim’s health is one of the most closely guarded secrets...

A fan of Behavioral Economics, I’m also interested in Neuroeconomics. Krista Tippett’s guest this week on Speaking of Faith was Paul Zak, one of the founders of the field: Mr. Paul Zak: Markets are human creations, and they reflect our own human nature. In the kind of decentralized economies we live in, it is based on trust and faith and belief, and that’s a good thing. I think it recognizes human dignity. It recognizes that most human beings in most situations are moral creatures...

#6 – Michael Jackson. drugs. Palin. What’s that? A 24-year-old Brooklyn musician named Michael Gregory has combined a number of evening news broadcast clips and turned them into a vaguely acceptable faux R&B series called Auto-Tune the News…. For those unaware, Auto-Tune is a software program that alters singers’ voices to achieve perfect pitch. Used too much — or when they’re not actually singing because, y’know, they’re on the news — it makes...

I don’t think it is news that the health care industry had a plan to discredit Michael Moore’s documentary film, Sicko. Or that they seek to demonize “government run” health care. That’s simply and self-evidently true. But it is news when an industry executive who was charged with that demonization as head of corporate communications for CIGNA goes On Bill Moyers Journal to discuss it. Wendell Potter had “the ultimate PR job.” He’s changed his tune:...

Among those things I miss most about my NYC home are the summer sunsets: Built into the streets of New York City is a solar calendar on a truly massive scale. Every year around July 12th, New Yorkers are treated to a spectacular phenomenon as the setting sun aligns directly with the east-west streets of Manhattan’s main grid, turning them into canyons filled with golden light. The effect is known as Manhattanhenge in reference to the much older stone monument near Salisbury. The term was coined...

The latest in Facebook fun: [T]he rules of this wonderfully batty pursuit are very simple. You have to find the weirdest place possible for anyone to lie down in. And that’s where you lie down, face down, and have someone take a picture of you.

I admit it. I’m a rubbernecker. I can’t look away from a car wreck… Peggy Noonan: In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn’t say what she read because she didn’t read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan...

Even I’m surprised that they actually did it: General Motors completed a major step in its turnaround on Friday and closed the sale of its good assets to a new, government-backed carmaker, at a speed unimagined by auto and bankruptcy experts even six months ago. The government and G.M. signed the documents at 6:30 a.m. at the offices of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, the company’s chief bankruptcy counsel, according to a person briefed on the matter, after a bankruptcy court order staying the...

If you missed my post last night, today Pogue posted the video version of his NYTimes rave review of Microsoft’s Bing search engine. While not as complete as the print version, it has the advantage of show and tell…

Westboro’s latest hatefest. At first I didn’t believe it was real. Even as I recognized some of those singing. Here then, Westboro Baptist’s God Hates the World. It’s a surprisingly (disturbingly!) well-produced website. You can click on a country to see why God hates it. (Most of Africa, Eastern Europe and much of South America is “Coming Soon.”) And it’s Westboro’s take on the 1985 Michael Jackson song that raised over $63 million for famine relief....

In a post yesterday I asked, Should someone who teaches Human Rights support human rights for lgbt people? The question is raised by NYU’s invitation to Thio Li-ann to teach Human Rights in the fall. Thio is an outspoken opponent of gay rights who has argued repeatedly and graphically that her country should continue to criminalize gay sexual acts. While I quoted extensively from the Inside Higher Education piece, I did not quote any of Dr. Thio’s fiery response to the concern over her...