The New Yorker, 2008-03-31, a

[fiefoe]

"Out of Print" / Eric Alterman
__ Dewey did not dispute Lippmann’s contention regarding journalism’s flaws or the public’s vulnerability to manipulation. But Dewey thought that Lippmann’s cure was worse than the disease... The foundation of democracy to Dewey was less information than conversation.

"Penny Dreadful" /  David Owen

• North America’s largest copper mine—a vast open-pit complex in Arizona—usually has to process a ton of ore in order to produce ten pounds of pure copper; Luhrman’s mine, by contrast, yielded the same ten pounds from just thirty or forty pounds of ore.
• In 1702, the alchemy-obsessed master of the British Royal Mint, Isaac Newton, melted down and minutely analyzed the coins of a number of countries to determine their exact content. The results of Newton’s assay were used, among other things, to set the bewildering, constantly shifting exchange rates that were a part of daily commercial life in England and America in the early eighteenth century.
• The 2006 nickel, which features a likeness of Jefferson.... is considered by coin aficionados to be an engraving tour de force.
• Pocket change leaks from the economy the way air leaks from a balloon, and most of what leaks is pennies.
• Today, Coinstar’s kiosks can be found in more than fifteen thousand supermarkets and other locations, including the lobbies of some banks.
• The modern five-cent piece was introduced in 1866, and was made of the same copper-nickel alloy that is used today. Its weight was set at exactly one gram per cent, and it therefore memorializes a moment in American history when the United States was thinking somewhat seriously about adopting the metric system.

"Shouts & Murmurs: How I Want To Be Remembered" / Jack Handey {A gem!}

__ He was quick with a laugh, but just as quick to point at what he was laughing at.
__ Perhaps the greatest tragedy is that a lot of the things Jack said and did seemed wrong at the time, but now we realize it wasn’t him; it was we who were wrong. Let us hope we don’t make the same mistake with his clones.

__ This is not something where rock beats scissors or paper covers rock or rock wraps itself up in paper and gives itself as a present to scissors. This isn't anything like that. Or where paper types something on itself and sues scissors.

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