The Pan Am Building
The architectural story of "New York's ugliest building," and the plan that almost destroyed Grand Central Station: Click here: BOOKFORUM | apr/may 2005
Tone Deaf
Music and the mind, with music: Click here: Cognitive Daily
A Case Against Ideological Diversity
Intelligence as a Cult
This piece by Steven Lagerfeld in the Wilson Quarterly is, like, you know, really intelligent:
It may seem implausible to speak of a cult of smarts in the age of Paris Hilton and 30-second political attack ads, when it appears that America is being relentlessly dumbed down. But don’t blame dumb people for that. Dumbing down is the idea of film and television executives, political consultants, newspaper magnates, and other very intelligent people. It’s a shrewd moneymaking strategy. It also reveals one of the problems of putting too much stock in pure brainpower: Smart people are uniquely capable of producing noxious ideas. http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=105057