ynseng recommends: arts & letters daily

my professor in IR201 once asked us what we were reading at the moment. panic attacks suddenly filled my classmates' eyes as they dreaded th thought of the prof asking us one by one. lucky for me, i wasn't called. i don't think a jackie collins book would translate as "impressive," "clever," or even "cool" to my younger classmates.

but i did have a witty answer in mind. i would've been proud to let my classmates know that much of my "intellectual" reading is sourced from the arts and letters daily's collection of articles from the net.


i do recommend this site to the intellectually hungry. the writers are good, so unlike the assigned readings in my class. below are some of the articles i've noted. i haven't read them yet but i'm blogging about it to remind myself to read them.

Some Dark Thoughts on Happiness
>> Learn about the Authentic Happiness Inventory (i think it's supposed to be a tool that objectively measures authentic happiness. or something), and the people who study happiness for a living


'The Most Optimistic Country in the World'
>> Discover the growing purchasing power of the middle class of india. "Socially and economically, India is developing at a galloping pace when compared to the rest of the world." my professor warned the class about this. make way for the new india.


An excerpt from The Economics of Attention
>> I've read somewhere that while information technology is the thing of this century, the next will be creativity. Richard Lanham tells us more in this article as he claims that artists are the ultimate “economists of attention,” the real experts in grabbing their chunk of our mind-share.


The Freedom to Ridicule Religion -- and Deny the Holocaust
>> Although I don't absolutely agree, I have deep respect for Peter Singer's writings on philosophy, particularly on the subject of animal rights. Here, he maintains that "...we must preserve our freedom to deny the existence of God and to criticize the teachings of Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, and Buddha..." and that "freedom of expression must include the freedom to ridicule as well." surely, a good read...


Goodbye, Blog
>> Alan Jacobs explores the architecture of blogs and the impossibility of real conversation in the blogosphere. he's right: life is too busy to keep the momentum of debating. ironically (or perhaps intentionally), there is no "comments" link at the end of his article.