God, this is depressing. Louis Menand, in the New Yorker presents evidence that most voters in America don’t know a damn thing about anything. If you like being depressed about stuff, read this article and wallow in it.

I don’t know if anyone else will appreciate this, the LiveJournal of a swimmer on scholarship at Miskatonic but I did, and the internet is FOR ME.

“At any given time, there are about 3,300 Marine recruiters looking for prospects across the country.”
This is the story of one.

The first step is admitting you have a problem.

…then don’t pick anything back up.

The Guardian publishes a great essay on the virtue of idleness. So, so great. My favorite extract:

When the sickly velvet-coated dandy Robert Louis Stevenson fell ill in 1873, aged 23, the diagnosis was “nervous exhaustion with a threatening of phthisis” and the prescription was a winter on the Riviera, “in complete freedom from anxiety or worry”. Once upon a time, we knew how to be ill. Now we have lost the art.

(via Crooked Timber)