Well, that's probably an exaggeration but today's was pretty darn good so I'm weekend blogging about it.
The front page featured two will-be classic articles, the first by Alan Cullison on how new technology is keeping our soldiers alive after battlefield wounds that is filled with gee-whiz science and medicine and affecting personal stories as well as a second admittedly less consequential one by Tamara Audi on how abandoned Easter Bunnies have overrun Long Beach City College in California. That one features great characters, hilarious unexpected consequences and politics around rabbit control.
Money quote: "As a destructive force cloaked in cuteness, bunnies are hard to beat."
Moving from page one, Carl Bialik contributes another thought-provoking "Numbers Guy" column, this one on why the fatter you get, the harder it is to get even more fat, dispelling a myth of statics behind the "burn 3,500 calories, lose a pound" math that underpins at least part of the recently passed health bill.
I don't usually blog about WSJ articles that aren't about business but it's a weekend so I'll make note of a few more interesting articles that are outside the normal scope of this blog.
Colombia's successful war on drug cartels has pushed them into Mexico, which is what counts as a win in the war on drugs, and Matthew Bristow contributes an article on how the drug economy has shrunk as an overall component of the Columbian economy.
Reporting from Berlin, Laura Stevens writes about the continued problems Germany has assimilating its Turkish guest workers, an eye-opening piece about ethnic minority politics and how they work in places where there is much less separating the populations from their homelands.
Doug Belkin writes a powerful story about Washington Park, IL, a town so hopeless that its mayor was just murdered in a robbery gone bad when out surveying a building set for demolition.
From the tragic to the - well also tragic but less so because no one was murdered - New York State Government, Jacob Gershman covers a rift between Governor Paterson and his Lt. Governor Richard Ravitch on how to handle the budget mess and how they might conspire to inadvertently let the legislature get away with not controlling spending, again.
Silvana Paternostro writes the weekend interview column, this time with pop-star Shakira on her efforts to improve schooling in her native Colombia, where Paternostro is also from.
Been frustrated with telephone customer service? Try beating American Samantha Carney's problems getting a credit card in the U.K. Douglas Adams, British author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy among other works, once wrote a video game whose objective was to get a bank to recognize your change of address statement, so this doesn't surprise much.
Op-ed columnist Peggy Noonan, the greatest Republican speechwriter in living memory, has been hit-and-miss as a columnist but she hits just the right emotional tone in calling out the people running her Catholic religion on how they are trying to turn themselves into victims. She sternly reminds them that the press is doing them a favor by helping them confront endemic problems with sexual abuse within the clergy - and that the real victims are the congregants, not the Pope and his allies.
Author Jonah Lehrer contributes a "Weekend" article on how the presence of superstar competition intimidates athletes and others, pegged to Tiger Woods' return to golf. Apparently, even top tier golfers shoot .8 strokes more in tournaments he competes in, just because his presence gets into their heads. Lehrer extends the research into how entry-level associates perform at law firms.
My favorite film critic in journalism, Joe Morgenstern, takes to the South Pacific to see Vanuatu, an Island he romanticized as a kid following World War Two as it was being fought and comes to terms with his childhood perspective in a moving, evocative piece.
Terry Teachout, the Journal's great theater critic, writes about the naming of a theater after Stephen Sondheim and mentions other luminaries worthy of such honor, including Orson Welles. Coincidentally, Arthur Anderson, one of Welles' acting troupe who is still among us is doing a radio interview about his career at 3:30 p.m. today on WTBQ 1110AM, Warwick, NY, if you're interested.
Finally, Rick Brooks contributes an article about a vulture investor buying up failed community banks on the cheap, looking for a rebound, in a more typical numbers-and-investment-risk-analysis article that most days is what the Journal does best.
Cover to cover that was a great reading experience. I see from an ad in the paper that today's WSJ online is free to all viewers. They couldn't have picked a better day for it.
So far, this is my post popular post ever (Virginia's Twitter feed must have a lot of followers) so I thought I'd feature it for anyone who might have missed it over the weekend.
Posted by: Sean Dougherty | 04/05/2010 at 08:59 AM