 | James McGirk is an MFA student at Columbia University. His bylines include TIME Asia, More Intelligent Life, Foreign Policy and The L Magazine. For more information you are welcome to visit his website at jamesmcgirk.com. Email: james.mcgirk [at] caa.columbia.edu List of writings at 3QD, in reverse chronological order:
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Category: Recommended Reading
Dave Munger
 | Dave Munger is a writer living in Davidson, North Carolina. He is a columnist for SEEDMAGAZINE.COM and editor of ResearchBlogging.org. Dave co-founded ResearchBlogging.org, which collects blog posts about peer-reviewed research, in 2007. The site now has over 1,500 registered blogs and features over 16,000 posts in six languages. For five years, Dave and his wife Greta maintained the psychology blog Cognitive Daily, which was chosen three times to appear in the Open Laboratory, an annual anthology of the top science blog posts on the web. It has appeared on numerous top ten lists including ranking seventh on Nature’s 50 popular science blogs list. The site has had over 2.5 million visits. Dave is the author of several college textbooks. Email: dsmunger [at] gmail.com List of writings at 3QD, in reverse chronological order:
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Justin E. H. Smith
 | Justin E. H. Smith is an American essayist, journalist, and satirist based in Montreal. He doesn’t want to write satire, but, as Juvenal said, the world leaves him no choice. He is a regular contributor to Counterpunch, and has written for numerous other online publications, including N+1. His work has been linked or cited in the online editions of the Guardian, the Atlantic Monthly, the Stranger, the Washington Post, and (probably a mistake) the National Review. His archive, www.jehsmith.com, brings together writing of his available on the Internet. Quite apart from all this, Smith is also a professor of philosophy and a specialist on the life and work of G. W. Leibniz. To see his academic profile, please visit www.jehsmith.com/philosophy. Email: [email protected] List of writings at 3QD, in reverse chronological order: |
Akim Reinhardt
 | Akim Reinhardt is an associate professor of History at Towson University in Maryland. Born and raised in the Bronx, he has also lived in Michigan, Nebraska, and Arizona. He currently resides in a Baltimore row home that he shares with a very old but surprisingly resilient cat. He is the author of Ruling Pine Ridge (2007) and blogs regularly at ThePublicProfessor.com. Email: yankeeslim [at] gmail.com List of writings at 3QD, in reverse chronological order:
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Namit Arora
 | Namit Arora grew up in the Indian cow-belt city of Gwalior, famous for its fort and the first epigraphic evidence of zero. After IIT Kharagpur he obtained a Masters in Computer Engineering from Louisiana, followed by a great escape in 1991 to Silicon Valley, where he played a cog in the wheel of Internet technology at three failed startups and at Nokia, Cisco, and McAfee. This didn’t make him wise but enabled him to attend lectures of dubious practical value at Stanford and to live, work, or travel in scores of countries, including yearlong stints in London and Amsterdam. He quit this profession in 2013 and moved from California to Delhi NCR. Namit’s essays have appeared in venues like the Humanist, Philosophy Now, the Times Literary Supplement, the Caravan, the Kyoto Journal, the Philosopher, Himal Southasian, and four college anthologies in the U.S. His review of Joothan won the 3 Quarks Daily 2011 Arts & Literature Prize. During a two-year break (2004-06), Namit traveled across India and created a photojournal. Over 15 museums, 30 academies, and 50 publishers have licensed his photos. His videography includes River of Faith, a documentary film about the Kumbh Mela. Contact him via email, blog or website. List of writings at 3QD, in reverse chronological order:
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Sue Hubbard
 | Sue Hubbard is an award-winning poet, novelist, short-story writer and freelance critic living and working in London.Variously an antique dealer and a small holder she has written about the visual arts for twenty years for such publications as Time Out, The Independent on Sunday, The Independent and The New Statesman. She has published two collections of poetry, Everything Begins with the Skin (Enitharmon) and Ghost Station (Salt) and appeared in the Oxford Poets series (Carcarnet). She was the Poetry Society’s first ever Public Art Poet, responsible for London’s largest public art poem at Waterloo station, and has published a novel, Depth of Field (Dewi Lewis) and a collection of short stories Rothko’s Red (Salt). Her selected art writing is to be published next year by Damien Hirst’s Other Criteria. Website: http://www.suehubbard.com Email: info [at] suehubbard.com List of writings at 3QD, in reverse chronological order: |
Gautam Pemmaraju
 | A Hyderabad native, Gautam has been a Bombay based writer/director since his return to India 14 years ago from NYC. With a couple of Masters degrees, in Communication from the University of Hyderabad and Television-Radio- Film from Syracuse University, he worked as a producer for three and half years at the music TV station Channel[V] during the height of its influence. As an independent since 2000, he works in Broadcast Design, Promotion & Brand Identity as well as in non-fiction TV shows & documentary. Contributing off and on to a few publications, post-colonial India and its strange cities is a primary interest of his, amongst several unrelated, excursionary ones. Email: gautam.pemmaraju [at] gmail.com List of writings at 3QD, in reverse chronological order:
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Richard Eskow
 | Richard (RJ) Eskow is a consultant and writer who has worked as a Fortune 500 executive, a software designer, a professional rock musician. He’s been a consultant in health policy, technology, and medical issues for public and private clients, domestically and in over 20 foreign countries. Richard has conducted interviews with politicians such as John Kerry and Russ Feingold, musicians like Richard Thompson and Billy Joe Shaver, and figures in the worlds of religion and science. He is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and is an occasional co-host for “The Young Turks” radio show, despite being neither Turkish nor particularly young. Email: reskow [at] att.net List of writings at 3QD, in reverse chronological order: |
Ryan Sayre
 | Ryan is currently out east finishing a PhD in socio-cultural anthropology. He works on security and seismicity in Tokyo and posts intermittently on architecture, earthquakes, and anthropology at www.architectonictokyo.com. Email: ryan.sayre [at] yale.edu List of writings at 3QD, in reverse chronological order:
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Nick Werle
 | Raised in modern-day East Egg, Nick has watched two boom-bust business cycles up close. After concentrating in physics and modern critical philosophy at Brown, he has begun studying the history of modern physics and political economy. Currently an Affiliated Scholar at the Pembroke Center studying the history of physics and political economy, he teaches economics at The Wheeler School, in Providence, RI, and works as a writing tutor at the Brown University Writing Center. In addition to reading and writing, Nick enjoys long distance backpacking, cooking, and arguing. Email: nickwerle [at] gmail.com Website: www.runningthezoo.com List of writings at 3QD, in reverse chronological order:
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Rishidev Chaudhuri
 | Rishi was born in Colombo, and grew up in Bangalore before going to college in Massachusetts, where he had a suitably unfocused liberal arts education. Afterwards, he drifted about India, and briefly worked as a journalist for a paper in Calcutta, interviewing local celebrities and struggling artists. He is now working towards a Phd in Applied Mathematics at Yale. In the meanwhile, he tries desperately to keep his literary and scientific interests away from each other, and to shield his worldview from the tentacles of modern science. Email: rishidev.chaudhuri [at] yale.edu List of writings at 3QD, in reverse chronological order:
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Liam Heneghan
 | Liam Heneghan, a Dubliner, is an ecosystem ecologist working at DePaul University in Chicago where he is a Professor of Environmental Science and co-director of DePaul University’s Institute for Nature and Culture. His research has included studies on the impact of acid rain on soil foodwebs in Europe, and on inter-biome comparisons of decomposition and nutrient dynamics in forested ecosystems in North American and in the tropics. Over the past decade Heneghan and his students have been working on restoration issues in Midwestern ecosystems. Heneghan is co-chair of the Chicago Wilderness Science Team. He is also a graduate student in DePaul University’s philosophy program, a part-time model, and an occasional poet. Email: lhenegha [at] gmail [dot] com List of writings at 3QD, in reverse chronological order:
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Jim Culleny
 | Jim Culleny is the Poetry Editor of 3 Quarks Daily. After a stint in the navy, Jim received a BA in Art Education from William Paterson University and did graduate work in art at NYU. He taught art for several years in NJ public schools in Newark and Bergen County. Taught a little bit of everything else during two years at a remote residential community school in New York’s Adirondacks. Was a social worker in Lower Manhattan before Soho was Soho. Made a living most of his life as a carpenter, designer, and builder. Did regular radio commentary for about 10 years during Morning Edition on WFCR.FM in Amherst, Mass. and some for NPR on All Things Considered. Played and sang his way from rockabilly to jazz in numberless band permutations over a period too long to believe. Came to poetry through songwriting. Has had work published in The Third Muse Poetry Journal, the Christian Science Monitor, Penthouse Journal, and in 5-Minute Pieces, a chapbook published in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. He’s also been writing a regular op-ed column for the past 12 years for the Greenfield Recorder along the beautiful Connecticut River, and is presently making a living as project manager for an Architectural firm. Jim lives with his wife, Pat, of 31 years, and his 17 year old granddaughter. He has three daughters and four other grandchildren. Email: jimculleny [at] comcast.net Jim’s poems at 3QD, in reverse chronological order: |
Saifedean Ammous
 | Saifedean Ammous lives in New York and is a candidate for a PhD in Sustainable Development at Columbia University. He grew up in Ramallah in Colonized Palestine and has a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering from the American University of Beirut and a Master’s in Development Management from the London School of Economics. He supports Liverpool FC rabidly, cooks the undisputed best shrimp pasta in the world, and blogs at TheSaifHouse.wordpress.com Email: Saifedean.ammous [at] gmail.com List of writings for 3QD, in reverse chronological order: |
The Ultimate Obit – The periodic table
Of course, it’s even worse to know what the first line in your obit should be—and then not rate an obit at all, because people forgot you. Such was the fate of Albert Ghiorso (hard “g”), who helped discover more chemical elements, a dozen, than any human being who ever lived. Yet his death earned just three measly mentions in newspapers across the country (and those weeks after he died). I’d like to do the little I can to rectify that.
I wrote about Ghiorso in a recent book, and beyond the wizardry of his science, I remember most of all his mischief. He specialized in building radiation detectors that could pick out the presence of just a few atoms of new elements. The discovery of a new element was always a celebratory event—the periodic table is the most precious real estate in science—so during one experiment Ghiorso decided to wire his radiation detector to his building’s fire alarms at the University of California at Berkeley, so it would briiiiiing every time an atom appeared. For various reasons his team ran the experiment at night, and they cheered all through the a.m. as the atoms rang out. It was a complete success, except Ghiorso forgot to unwire the fire alarm the next morning. While he was at home sleeping, it went off during the day, forcing a panicked evacuation. The administration was not amused. In discovering a different element, berkelium, element 97, Ghiorso suggested using “Bm” as the chemical symbol for it, because it had been such a “stinker” to discover. To the eternal disappointment of every sophomore chemistry student in the world, the idea was vetoed.
perceptions
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Old Man in Winter
It is a time of dreariness and decay. I'm speaking of winter, of course. I always think, when thinking of winter, of the opening lines of Richard III. Richard, the king-to-be, is musing upon the ascension to the throne of his brother, Edward IV. He says, in lines that are burned into the deep pathways of our neural networks, “Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this son of York.”
These opening lines of the play are actually quite hopeful. The first word, “now,” looks forward to the “made” in the next line. Shakespeare, in that clever way of his, makes the language fresh by making you pay attention. The “now” is a placeholder for the thought to come. It sets the scenario, grabs us with its immediacy, and lingers there for a moment while we wait for the thought to develop. The thought develops into the idea that “now” is being “made glorious summer” by this son of York. The winter of our discontent is in the past. “Now” is, in fact, a time of glorious summer, a renewal brought about by the reign of Edward IV, son of York.
But the phrase “now is the winter of our discontent” is so powerful that it often gets picked out of context and made to stand alone. When you do that, it seems as if “now” is the winter of our discontent. The winter of our discontent isn't going anywhere. It is simply the way it is right now.
Sometimes when I hear that line I even hear it as a statement not about “now” but about winter. If you think of it as a winter statement, you can almost replace the word “now” with the word “winter,” i.e., “winter is the winter of our discontent.” I don't take this as a simple tautology, “winter is winter,” but the equation of winter the season with winter the mood. Winter, the season, is a time of general discontent. Winter, in its dreariness and decay, is the season of wanting things to be otherwise.
And yet, some part of us wants winter, some part of us glories in the winteriness of winter.
Mondo Weiss
When Philip Weiss, the Jewish anti-Zionist writer and blogger, compares himself to Theodor Herzl, he’s not being ironic. “I actually am like him in certain ways,” he says. “Herzl said, ‘Anti-Semites made me Jewish again.’ I would say that neo-conservatives made me Jewish again.”
To the legion of Jews that Weiss has enraged, this will sound perverse. It’s certainly self-aggrandizing. But it also gets at the way that Weiss has abandoned a deeply assimilated life for a profound—if idiosyncratic and tortured—engagement with Jewish questions. As the founder of Mondoweiss, a blog that has become a nucleus of anti-Zionist writing, and a co-editor of a new book about Richard Goldstone’s report on Israel’s 2008 invasion of Gaza, Weiss says that he now thinks about Jewishness all the time. In his fierce critique of tribal identity, he’s found his tribe—one he believes is growing.
“I think I was alienated from a lot of Jewish communal life in my 20s, 30s, 40s,” Weiss says. “One symptom of that is the fact that I’d never been to Israel until 2006. I was 50 before I got to Israel.” Now that he is 55, Israel has become the center of his life. He goes to rabbinical conventions and corresponds with left-wing Israelis. “I love what I’ve undergone in the last few years,” he says. “And I love my engagement with Jewish communal life now.”
Of course, much of that engagement comes in the form of relentless criticism. Weiss’ blog is fulsomely, intensely anti-Israel—it’s a universe in which even Noam Chomsky, hero of anti-imperialists worldwide, is criticized for his residual attachment to the Jewish state. His obsessive focus on Israel has come at the expense of a successful career as a magazine journalist. Harvard-educated, he got his start writing for the New Republic and later contributed features to New York, and the New York Times Magazine and wrote a column for the New York Observer. Initially he launched Mondoweiss as a general-interest blog on the New York Observer website. When he started to focus on Israel, his editor warned him that he was becoming a crank.
He didn’t listen, and in 2007 he left the Observer, taking the blog with him. Today it operates under the umbrella of the nonprofit Nation Institute, which allows Weiss to solicit tax-deductable contributions. But its budget comes entirely from donations, and Weiss has to rely on his wife, the writer and editor Cynthia Kling, to help support him.
It’s a little hard to figure out why Weiss threw so much away for a cause that was so new to him. Naturally, he sees a linear moral logic to his journey. He looks at contemporary Israel and is appalled.
Is 50 really the new 34, or is it a licence to wear elasticated waistbands?
From The Guardian:
Nevertheless there's something newly cool about turning 50. Just ask George Clooney – whose birthday falls in May and who has almost single-handedly ignited a revival of the Cary Grant/Spencer Tracy brand of suave older man – or Barack Obama (50 in August), still the closest thing we've got to a real-life superhero. As Michelle Pfeiffer said when she reached the landmark: “You just take stock and count your blessings.”
More here.