Everyone seems to have taken one step forward and two steps back this week. It’s like studying for midterms: you muster all your energy to study all weekend only to discover there is so much you have yet to learn. It’s like finally meeting your dining hall crush: you now know their name but realize you still have to get their phone number and their friends’ approval.
- EDUCATION: Just as Obama promised sweeping education reforms in place of No Child Left Behind and new national standards, Texas proposed some changes of its own, like eliminating Thomas Jefferson and Hip-hop from history books. Does this mean that the Declaration of Independence doesn’t apply in Texas?
- MASSA: I don’t want to mention Massa, I really don’t [so insert unsettling jumble about Tickling, Harassment, Strategyand Secrets here]
- GOOGLE: Google may be giving in to China and shutting down Google.cn, but one international writer, racer and sex symbol is not.
- ISRAEL: Just a week after Israeli president Benjamin Natanyahu offended Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reprimanded him personally…via telephone…for 43 minutes.
- MEDICINE: Sometimes, medicine does what it’s supposed to do. Vaccines don’t give babies autism. Birth Control makes you live longer. And scientists can map your genes to pinpoint the source of genetic diseases.
- SUPREME COURT: The people of the Supreme Court have been generating a lot of news lately. Chief Justice John Roberts has come out against Obama. Clarence Thomas’s wife has joined the Tea Party. And Justice Stevens just wants to retire to Florida.
- COOPERATION: You know things are bad when France and Germany can come together to bailout Greece before Democrats and Republicans can even talk rationally about finance or health care.
- FASHION: Now that former power brokers are falling apart, those in the fashion industry are rising to the top of the wealth scale, shopping at department stores, buying $5,000 ostrich handbags and worshiping lines like Alexander McQueen’s AW2010 (posthumous), all because of the industry’s unique business model based on creativity and innovation and imitation. Welcome to a post-financial meltdown world.
- LADY GAGA: See Gaga’s newest music video, “Telephone” ft. Beyonce. [NSFW]
Video of the Week: “So That Means You Love Each Other.” If kids keep thinking like this one, even more cities will be like DC.
