Every Friday I point you towards some recommended reading around the blogosphere:

1. Loved, loved, loved this article on the enduring appeal of Joan Didion by Caitlin Flanagan in The Atlantic. (Hat tip: Communicatrix)

2. I was completely engrossed in this analysis of what we need to know about the teenage mind in The Wall Street Journal.

3. Frank Bruni gave a beautiful defense of what it means to be gay.

4. Drop everything and watch The Muppits attack Fox News.

5. On the e-Learning  Stuff blog, this video entitled “Every Presentation Ever” is LOL funny (and accurate). If you’ve ever given a talk on power point, you will wince with recognition.

6. Over on Letters of Note, an amazing letter written by a freed slave to his former Master. (Hat tip: Ben Casnocha)

7. If you’ve been following the whole Ryan Gosling Hey Girl meme, you’ll enjoy Hey Girl. I Heart NPR.

8. Finally, on Londontopia, check out this list of Top 100 Cockney Rhyming Slang Words and Phrases. My personal fave? Gypsy’s Kiss=piss. Love it!

Have a great weekend!

Every Friday I point you towards some recommended reading around the blogosphere:

1. Even though I haven’t seen half of these movies, I tend to think that – as usual – Roger Ebert is right about who got robbed in this year’s Oscar season. (As I die-hard fan of Hoop Dreams, I can’t believe they didn’t nominate The Interrupters!)

2. I thought David Hill’s article in the New York Times about the underlying pathos of stand-up comedy was brilliant.

3. As always, Alex Beam nails it in this hilarious take-down of the word “Dude.” (Which, by the way, I use all the time…)

4. Tear-jerker of the week – but worth it: two brothers sing a tribute to their dead mother to the tune of A Thousand Miles. (Hat tip: Lisa Belkin)

5. OK, OK. I know these “Sh*t X Say” videos are getting old, but as a former public radio employee (and ongoing fan!) I just had to laugh out loud at Sh*t Public Radio Listeners Say. The truth hurts. Ouch.

6. Over on Londontopia, check out these beautifully creative renderings of what London will look like in the future.

7. Finally, Facebook users:  if you’re even remotely interested in American politics (and laughing at it), you must, must, must friend Pour Me Coffee (or follow this person on twitter.)

Have a great weekend!

Every Friday I point you towards some recommended reading around the blogosphere:

1. Mega-blogger Heather Armstrong – aka Dooce – recently separated from her husband. Here, she talks about it on her blog. Very sad, indeed.

2. Equally moving – but more inspirational – is this documentary on Al Jazeera English about a boy from a Palestinian refugee camp who makes it all the way to Eton College. Talk about culture shock!

3. Over on The Daily Telegraph, we’ve got Dickens’s London: In Pictures, a collection of 19th-century photographs which has been published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the author’s birth. Spectacular.

4. Don’t miss this beautiful You Tube video entitled Speeding Around The World In Under 5 Minutes.

5. And, of course, I couldn’t resist tossing in Sh*t Nobody Says. My own fave?: “Does anyone know how to make papyrus my default font?”

6. Finally, because you should always go out on a bang, please take two minutes of your day and listen to the Peacherine Rag as performed by the St. Luke’s Bottle Band.

Every Friday I point you towards some recommended reading around the blogosphere:

1. We’ve got lots of fun and lovely fare this week on Friday Pix and what better way to kick it off than with a video from paris (im)perfect on How to fake French? Love it.

2. Oh, McSweeney’s! You really are too clever by half. Here’s the extremely witty, extremely meta personal essay by personal essay (by Christy Vannoy). Wish I’d thunk a that mee-self. (Hat tip: Lisa Romeo Writes)

3. The classiest “I just got sacked” letter ever written goes to J.Hoberman, former film critic for The Village Voice, who was shown his way out of the building after 34 years. (Hat tip: Freakonomics)

4. Because I linked last week to Shit White Girls Say…To Black Girls, I just had to follow it up with Shit Christians Say To Jews. I’m not even Jewish and I’ve heard half of these.

5. Finally, I absolutely adore the Doodling in Math Class videos on The Boston Globe’s Brainiac blog. Fab!

Have a great weekend!

Every Friday I point you towards some recommended reading around the blogosphere:

1. If you own a hand-held device (and these days, I think most of us do), then Roger Cohen’s New Year’s screed against our addiction to BlackBerries and the like  in the International Herald Tribune is a must-read for us all.

2. Further to yesterday’s post on Margaret Thatcher as a role model for women in the UK, here’s an interesting debate in the Guardian among British female journalists as to whether – and in what sense – Thatcher remains a feminist icon. (Hat tip: @suziparker)

3. If you’re curious about how the English education system works – and what’s wrong with it – then I heartily recommend that you read Side by Side: On Britain’s School Wars, Stefan Collini’s review in The Nation of Melissa Benn’s latest book. Riveting, disturbing and spot on, especially for those of us living this issue day to day.

4. And over on the other side of the pond, Paul Tough’s profile of Dominic Randolph in a September issue of The New York Times Magazine – which treats the broader issue of whether our kids would succeed more if we let them fail more – is equally thought-provoking. (Yes, I was *that* far behind on my autumn reading!)

5. Finally, in the LMAO category, I leave you with the video, Shit White Girls Say…to Black Girls. Thanks, Steph!

Have a great weekend!

Every Friday I point you towards some recommended reading around the blogosphere:

1. In the wake of Christopher Hitchen’s death yesterday, Slate ran a series of tributes to the larger-than-life writer/journalist. Here’s one I particularly liked by Matt Labash.

2. Another person who made her mark at a young age is Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, seen here giving her TED talk on why we have too few women leaders.

3. Love The Guardian’s 2011 Year in Lego. Check out the pepper spray rendering!

4. As someone who loves tales of professional second acts, I was enchanted by this story over at Salon of a couple who re-invented themselves as grocers.

5. Just in time for Christmas!  Bryan Miller’s (post-50) holiday gift guide at The Huffington Post. Tongue broom, anyone?

6. And finally, it just wouldn’t be a holiday without The Oatmeal. Here’s how different age groups celebrate Christmas.

And with that, dear friends, I leave you. Have a fabulous holiday and I’ll see you in January!

Every Friday I point you towards some recommended reading around the blogosphere:

1. I don’t know about you folks actually living through the 2012 presidential campaign in America, but it sure is fun to watch from the sidelines. Check out Rick Perry’s “Strong” ad campaign and The Partisans: Rick Perry – Weak, man response.

2. All week long, The Guardian has been running a fascinating series analyzing the causes of this summer’s riots in London. Here’s a really neat interactive post on how rumors about the riots spread on Twitter.

3. As always, Joan Wickersham has a fabulous meditation in The Boston Globe on connectedness and human nature (via Charles Dickens.)

4. And speaking of literature, I’m absolutely loving Lisa Belkin’s Parentlode blog over at The Huffington Post. This is a recent, highly-trafficked post she did on Children’s Books Parents Either Love or Hate and a companion piece along the lines of  “if your child liked reading X, he or she will also like reading Y.” (BTW, do some people really not like The Runaway Bunny? I’m shocked. Shocked!)

5. From the ever-arch McSweeneys, I give you excerpts from steamy romance novels for parents of young children.

6. Two fascinating, holiday-themed fact sheets: from the Los Angeles times, the history of Christmas Carol lyrics. (I always wondered what “wassailing” meant.) And from my brother (!) at the New York Public Library, how (and when!) to buy a diamond. (Well, OK, it’s Christmas-themed for some of us…)

7. And finally, this week’s LOL award goes to Dahlia Lithwick’s essay on how Jews deal with Christmas specials, appropriately titled: Oy, Hark!

Every Friday I point you towards some recommended reading around the blogosphere:

1. In case you haven’t seen it, here’s a fascinating, plausible account in the New York Review of Books for why former IMF Chairman Dominique Strauss Kahn may well have been set up on charges of rape in a New York hotel room earlier this year. (And here’s the BBC’s well-reasoned rejoinder.)

2. As always, I loved Alex Beam’s arch take-down of the Royal Family in the Boston Globe. He may be the only person on the planet who is actually sympathetic to Prince Philip.

3. I enjoyed thumbing through Time Magazine’s list of 12 things we buy in a bad economy. Doughnuts, anyone?

4. Anna Breslow’s scathing review of Jeffrey Eugenide’s new novel, The Marriage Plot, on The Hairpin is laugh-out-loud funny.

5. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more apt rendering of Thanksgiving anywhere. Thank you, Oatmeal. (P.S. Check out Aunt Milga’s boobs!)

6. And speaking of the holidays, the 27 worst Nativity Sets (the annual, growing list) on whyismarko is absolutely priceless. (I personally think that #34 is meant to be a placenta, but maybe that’s just me.)

7. Finally, best gift idea ever? Wire fans, eat your heart out…

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Every Friday I point you towards some recommended reading around the blogosphere:

1. Here’s an absolutely fabulous interview between New York Times London correspondent, Sarah Lyall, and former BBC correspondent for America, Justin Webb, about the cultural differences across the two nations. Laugh out loud finny, but also quite insightful.

2. If, like me, you harbor a not-so-secret obsession with the Oscars, you’ll love this walk down memory lane with this year’s host, Billy Crystal, as they play back some clips from previous years.

3. And speaking of film, here’s the amazing Roger Ebert analyzing the powerful role of the sex drive in movies and in life.

4. And speaking of Roger Ebert, I got a huge kick out of these 1980′s outtakes from the Siskel and Ebert show. Man, were they harsh to one another.

5. Check out this way-cool video of what earth looks like from outer space on The Huffington Post.

6. Finally, my favorite viewing pleasure of the week. I give you: Catvertising. Enjoy!

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Apologies if you have not been getting your normal updates from the blog this week. I’ve been having trouble with the feed and am working to resolve this problem. I appreciate your patience.

Every Friday I point you towards some recommended reading around the blogosphere:

1. Apropos of the burgeoning Herman Cain sex scandal, my colleague Melinda Henneberger offers a detailed account in the Washington Post of the sexual harassment that she, several of our colleagues and random women off of the street have encountered throughout their working lives. It’s why, as she argues, sexual harassment is a ‘real issue’, not something to get past so that we can move on to what really counts. Amen.

2. Proving that he truly is one of the strangest – and funniest – guys out there, here’s a replay of John Hodgman’s speech at the 2008 TED conference, entitled “Aliens, Love – Where Are They?” (Hat tip: Quiet: The Power of Introverts)

3. Surprisingly moving: The New York Times’ Philip Galanes explains why he became a gossip columnist.

4. This American Life fans will adore the Ira Glass Sex Tape which appeared in The Village Voice. Remarkably credible!

5. I was absolutely mesmerized by the Museum of Obsolete Objects. Be sure to check out the entry on the mouse! (Hat tip: Very Short List.)

6. In response to my post earlier this week about why I envy atheists, a friendly reader sent me The Atheist Song by Steve Martin. This is why I love blogging. Thanks, Alex!

7. Finally, your week would not be complete with out a quick peek at this extremely strange German fellow who apparently does not like the term “Daddy Long Legs.’ Kindly drop whatever you’re doing and have a look-see.