Higher life expectancy leads to new moral and practical problems.

Quoted: she showed graphs describing the three most common ways that old people die and the trajectory and duration of each scenario

Quoted: “We’re doing this so badly because we’ve never been here before,” Dr. Lynn said. “But the care system we’ve got didn’t come down from the mountain. We made it up, and we can make it up better.”

Schools are evil, here's why.

Quoted: Teaching means many different things, but six lessons are common to schoolteaching from Harlem to Hollywood. You pay for these lessons in more ways than you can imagine, so you might as well know what they are

It occurs to me that I like the idea of the Dalai Lama, but don't know the historical context. This article describes some harsh criticism of Tibetan Buddhism and recent Dalai Lamas.

Quoted: The authors’ most provocative contention is that the global spread of Tibetan Buddhism may be laying the seeds for a new, highly aggressive, and virulently anti-Islamic form of fundamentalism.

Clinton's approach to democracy. Link from Tim.

Quoted: The Dallas Morning News gets hold of Clinton caucus "training materials," in which supporters are instructed to fight for procedural control of caucuses. The materials say:

"DO NOT allow the supporter of another candidate to serve in leadership roles."

"...If our supporters are outnumbered, ask the Temporary Chair if one of our supporters can serve as the Secretary, in the interest of fairness."

"The control of the sign-in sheets and the announcement of the delegates allotted to each candidate are the critical functions of the Chair and Secretary. This is why it is so important that Hillary supporters hold these positions."

Same destruction, less lasting pollution. Now spot the non sequitir:

"The defense ministry stresses this military invention does not contradict a single international treaty. Russia is not unleashing a new arms race."

Quoted: Russia has tested the world's most powerful vacuum bomb, which unleashes a destructive shockwave with the power of a nuclear blast, the military said on Tuesday, dubbing it the "father of all bombs."

These things look ugly-cute, the dodo was too. Are pugs next?

Quoted: Another day, another extinction: after a comprehensive six-week study scientists fear that the rare Chinese Yangtze river dolphins, known as “baijis”, may be extinct. Having failed to find any of the baiji, which were already classified as “critically endangered” by the World Conservation Union’s Red List of Treatened Species, the research team blamed unregulated fishing for the disappearance.

Quoted: Charles Simic is the new Poet Laureate of the United States - or PLOTUS, to borrow the jolly acronym his predecessor, Donald Hall, liked to employ.

Quoted: Simic is an inspired choice. His poems are cerebral, surreal and uncanny, yet they are defiantly plainspoken. They are not, most of them, beyond the grasp of non-subscribers to Poetry magazine. Read them, if you haven’t.

HISTORY

On a gray evening
Of a gray century,
I ate an apple
While no one was looking.

A small, sour apple
The color of woodfire,
Which I first wiped
On my sleeve.

Then I stretched my legs
As far as they’d go,
Said to myself
Why not close my eyes now

Before the Late
World News and Weather.

Ashgabat sounds like a surreal city.

Quoted: For all of their efforts at grandeur, the monuments are in their way a distraction. Much more interesting are the ways that social pressures in a police state, combined with the barrage of propaganda used to maintain Mr. Niyazov’s lingering personality cult, can twist public speech into forms at once safe and absurd.

Notable articles gathered from the Stranger's archives.

Quoted: Seattle's #1 Weekly Newspaper. Covering Seattle news, politics, music, film, and arts; plus movie times, club calendars, restaurant listings, forums, blogs, and Savage Love.