It’s monday morning madness! Nah, not really, but here are some stories to keep your brain bubbling:
Ancient Greeks pre-empt Dead Parrot sketch. Old jokes die hard, apparently: a 4th century CE joke book has been found with a pre-cursor to the Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch (with a slave replacing the parrot, natch). Also in the book: jokes about lettuce.
I can has pathos. Salon has an earnest discussion about the way lolcats elicit empathy and recognition from Internet folk. “The sad lolcats represent people. We have seen the lolcats, and they are us,” argues Salon. Or, y’know, they’re just pictures of cats with stupid captions.
The global infertility crisis. With more women in developed countries putting off child-birth until later in life, a global ‘infertility crisis’ may be looming, writes the Daily Beast. Are the emotional and financial burdens of fertility treatments taking their toll? And does reproductive technology need stricter regulation?
Barack’s barren night table. GOOD blog tries to find a fictional black president in literature from whom Barack Obama can draw inspiration. Fails. But check out Wikipedia’s really long list of fictional presidents.
