Glenn Loury has an article in the March 11th Cato Unbound (also cited in the online Atlantic Monthly) with an excellent argument about why we need to reverse the trend in America of being a "nation of jailers" (cf Pew Trust recent survey on the incarcerated population of states):

...we benefit from a system of suffering, rooted in state violence, meted out at our behest. Put differently our society — the society we together have made — first tolerates crime-promoting conditions in our sprawling urban ghettos, and then goes on to act out rituals of punishment against them as some awful form of human sacrifice.

http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/03/11/glenn-loury/a-nation-of-jailers/

In the literacy category

Harvard has just announced a media tracking tool for the webm Media Cloud. It sounds like a fun way to explore which stories get covered where. See the article in The Chronicle of Higher Ed.

http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3654/harvard-unveils-web-tool-for-studying-media-trends?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Using the links on Media Cloud, I found this interesting site which posts front page headlines from various newspapers:

http://rayogram.com/news/

The economic future of newspapers is addressed very cogently in a current article in The American:

http://american.com/archive/2009/february-2009/preparing-the-obituary

The world would be better off if we would...

Help President Obama reach out to the moderate Taliban in Afganistan -- it's bound to be much easier than reaching moderate Republicans in the House.

Sell GM's Hummer division to the Iraqis, since they will need 4-wheel drive on their roads for decades to come.

Cut government spending by laying off politicians who never sponsor legislation or vote "yes."

Spend more money on military veterans and less on civilian contractors.

Take away the legal "privileges" of marriage to a man who abuses his wife and children and give them to a man who adopts a child with another man.