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The Modern World Killed Off The Nap
by Kurt Kleiner, Toronto Star
A tribute to the soft pleasures of dozing, backed up by hard science.

The Church Of The Non-Believers
by Gary Wolf, Wired
A band of intellectual brothers is mounting a crusade against belief in God. Are they winning converts, or merely preaching to the choir?

Game Master
by John Seabrook, New Yorker
Will Wright changed the concept of video games with the Sims. Can he do it again with Spore?

How The Web Prevents Rape
by Steven E. Landsburg, Slate
All that internet porn reduces sex crimes. Really.

Ghosts In The Machines
by Neil Gaiman, New York Times
We are gathered here at the final end of what Bradbury called the October Country: a state of mind as much as it is a time. All the harvests are in, the frost is on the ground, there's mist in the crisp night air and it's time to tell ghost stories.

Trolling For Treats, Trunk To Trunk
by Fernanda Santos, New York Times
In suburban and exurban communities across the country, trunk-or-treating is the latest twist on the quintessentially American ritual of door-to-door candy-collecting, bringing Halloween from the uncertain streets to the safety of church and school parking lots, turning the backs of minivans and sport utility vehicles into the new front porch.

History As Written By A "SimCity" Freak
by Scott Rosenberg, Salon
Gifted amateurs defeated London's cholera epidemic in the 1850s, says culture/tech visionary Steven Johnson, and today a similar bottom-up approach to knowledge can improve neighborhoods, reform cities, even thwart terror.

Ready To Be Dads, But They're Going To Need Help
by Kevin Sack, Los Angeles Times
For a bab of their own, David and Chad will have to draw on science, the law, their families — and most of all, each other.

How To Be Funny
by Jimmy Carr and Lucy Greeves, Telegraph
Why are comedians such good liars? How hard do they work on their jokes? And how important is... timing?

EST. CST. MST. PST. NOT!
by Tim Harford, Slate
Would the United States be better off with only one time zone?

Finally, A Life Resumed
by Jeff Vandam, New York Times
After 22 years in Dannemora, Sing Sing, Attica, Great meadow, Elmira and the Downstate Correctional Facility at fishkill, Alan Newton came home to the Bronx one unremarkable day last July, his age doubled, his life renewed. As had been proven incontrovertibly, he did not commit the crimes that made the prisons of New York State his home for more than two decades.

On The Rio Grande, The World's A Stage
by Pam Houston, New York Times
In a community with less than 1,000 residents, good will is what it is all about.

Learning To Love The Ban
by Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times
In Italy — where laws are often enforced with a large degree of latitude and where red lights are ignored if they are deemed inconvenient — there is nearly 100 percent compliance with the antismoking statutes.

Good News Day
by Scott Adams, Dilbert Blog
I still don't know if this is permanent. But I do know that for one day I got to speak normally. And this is one of the happiest days of my life.

Breakfast Is Served, Never Mind The Hour
by Lou Elliott Jones, Washington Post
It's growing dark, and there's a hungry person on the sofa. He's got the look: "Come up with something interesting for dinner."

These Dark October Mornings
by Verlyn Klinkenborg, New York Times
I barely notice the morning darkness in the country, where we really do rise with the roosters, who rise with the sun, and everything seems just the way it's supposed to be, only a little later by the clock. But in the city, where life moves at an inorganic pace, the effect is powerful.

Dinner, With Dawn As A Chaser
by Peter Meehan, New York Times
It was 4:30 in the morning, and customers were clamoring for the kimchi hot dogs, kalbi burgers and other Korean-accented bits that Sam talbot, the cart jockey, was dishing out on the Lower East Side.

If You Don't Buy This Newspaper...
by Jack Shafer, Slate
We'll shoot your democracy.

At Long Last, A Neglected Language Is Put On A Pedestal
by Larry Rohter, New York Times
The Museum of the Portuguese Language dedicated to the proposition that Protuguese speakers and their language can benefit from a bit of self-affirmation and self-advertisement.

And The Winner is?
by Jason Cowley, The Guardian
The culture of prize-giving has gone mad. It has replaced the art of criticism in determining cultural value and shaping public taste. We enjoy the glamour of a Booker or an Oscar night, but we lose something too in this orgy of awards.

The Starbucks Aesthetic
by Susan Dominus, New York Times
The chain is increasingly positioning itself as a purveyor of premium-blend culture.

And In The End
by Joan Anderman, Boston Globe
I had a dream, andi it had nothing to do with civil rights. I wanted to work at a record store.

Walk With Me
by D. T. Max, New York Times
Parents don't remember their own agonizing struggle to learn to walk — pulling up on furniture, trying to balance on unsteady legs, those first tentative steps that seem to defy the more natural act of crawling, and then trumumph, the wonderment that af aster way to get around has been found. But I learned how hard it was to walk when I nearly lost the ability to.

Googling My Mother
by John Dickerson, Slate
Writing a biography in the digital age.

Entrees Reach $40, And, Sorry, The Sides Are Extra
by Jodi Kantor, New York Times
A new dish is appearing on menus across the nation. Restaurateurs say they have little choice other than offer it, though it horrifies many customers. That item is the $40 entree.

Market Value
by Joanthan Ansfield, Newsweek
Wal-Mart's looking to expand its presence in China, one tray of carved pig's head at a time.

West 12th Street, By The Numbers
by Mimi Sheraton, New York Times
A walking tour of one of Greenwich Village's corridors, from the Hudson River to Fifth Avenue.

Reading, Writing, And Righteousness
by Beth Hawkins, City Pages
That teacher who made the news for coming out to his second-grade class? My son is in that class.

Faith-Based Sizing
by Susanna Schrobsdroff, Newsweek
Designers are introducing new supertiny sizes. Are American women getting smaller, or is the fashion industry messing with our minds?

The San Francisco Paradox
by Witold Rybczynski, Slate
When good cities have bad architecture.

Dare To Be Stupid
by Jonathan Zwickel, Village Voice
In defense, praise, and unrelenting awe of the increasingly vital Weird Al.

Real Estate: Not Your Father's Retirement
by Daniel McGinn and Andrew Murr, Newsweek
Boomers are redefiing the 'golden years' by buying into communities that feature Pilates over shuffleboard, moving back downtown — or even staying put.

Why Everyone You Know Thinks The Same As You
by Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post
Homophily may help explain some of the bitter partisanship of our times — when your friends are drawn exclusively from one half of the electorate, it is not surprising that you will find the views of the other half inexplicable.

One More Daring Step
by Scott Sutherland, Boston Globe
From performing on New York's subway trains to dancing topless in white paint and a mohawk, it's been quite a journey to Boston Ballet for Tai Jimenez.

Bending The Elbow In Bangkok
by Bruce Wallace, Los Angeles Times
A night-life tour turns up sleek clubs, hip vibes and a terrace view that can be appreciated even with a fuzzy head.

Pigeon Wars
by Jon Mooallem, New York Times
For much of the 20th century, controlling pigeons primarily means killing them. But, as we have become less tolerant of the birds, we have also, somehow, grown more concerned about their well-being.

An Accidental Canadian Finds Her Environmental Footing
by Ian Austen, New York Times
One afternoon 33 years ago, Elizabeth May was picked up outside her dorm at Smith College for what she thought was a weeklong study break. She never returned.

Meet. Mate. Multiply.
by Rachel Lehmann-Haupt, New York
From singleton to family of three in less than two years.

Last Orgasm In Hollywood
by Judith Lewis, LA Weekly
Movie sex, dirty and clean, through the ages.

Oh, For The Flesh
by Max Smith, Newsweek
Single and fortyish, I'm learning what it means to be attractive but older.

Weapon Of Self-Destruction
by Art Buchwald, Washington Post
When scientists at MIT developed e-mail in 1961, they said it was a giant step for mankind. They didn't realize it was a weapon that could destroy the lives of many people.

The Case Of The Missing Logo
by Kate M. Jackson, Boston Globe
Forget labels. The fashion elite turn to 'stealth wealth.'

Researchers See A Downside As Keyboards Replace Pens In Schools
by Margaret Webb Pressler, Washington Post
The computer keyboard helped kill shorthand, and now it's threatening to finish off longhand.

In Marine's Death, Clues To A Son's Life
by Dan Morse, Washington Post
Mother finds answers in effort to understand sergeant killed in Iraq.

Seduced By Snacks? No, Not You
by Kim Severson, New York Times
According to Professor Brian Wansink's research, people make over 200 food decisions a day — and are outwitted at every turn.

Thailand Tourists: 'Coup? What Couop?'
by Austin Considine and Newley Purnell, New York Times
Coup? What coup? That seems to be the attitude among travelers and travel professionals as the recent political turmoil in Thailand appears to have had little or no effect on tourism there.

Hustle And Grow
by Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates, Time
Big publishers discover that entrepreneurial street-lit authors have written the book on reaching an untapped market.

Make It Weird
by Jessica Winter, Boston Globe
Feel like the fiction you've been reading has been missing something — aliens perhaps, or the occasional occult incursion of rabbits? A new literary movement, based in Northampton, has just the thing for you.

Forget The L.A. Times; How About A National Tribune?
by Michael Kinsley, Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a collection of mostly superb journalists who on many days put out the best newspaper in America. But what is the point of publishing a national-quality newspaper if it can't be obtained in Thousand Oaks, let alone Washington or New York?

The Blue And Gray And Black
by Jacqueline Trescott, Washington Post
In some parts of the country, the Civil War is still being fought. And perhaps nowhere are the aftershocks and viewpoints as evident as in Richmond, where a new museum is attempting to tell the history of the war from three angles. That would be: the Union, the African American and the Confederate.

The Long Zoom
by Steven Johnson, New York Times
There is probably no one alive who has a comparable track record of combining arcane scientific theories and compulsively addictive entertainment. But even Will Wright hasn't tried to simulate an entire universe before.

The Bloomberg Lesson
by Jack Shafer, Slate
How a fledging news organization got big while others shrank.

Eight Rooms, Well, Nine, But That's Their Secret
by Matthew Summers-Sparks, New York Times
Although hard data is not available, architects report an increase over the last five years in the number of clients installing concealed rooms.

Is Anyone Else Out There?
by Bruce Jakosky, Chronicle Of Higher Education
Determining whether humans are alone in the universe certainly is of profound significance. This is the case whether we are thinking of the possible existence on other planets of intelligent life or the simplest kind of microbes.

Packing It In
by Nina Shapiro, Seattle Weekly
A great Northwest pasttime — backpacking — is getting a little too gray.

Design Opportunities, Everywhere You Look
by Glenn Pushelberg, New York Times
I'm always paying attention to deisgn when I go places. I can't help but look at each hotel, each aircraft interior, each terminal, with a cirtical eye.

The Score
by Atul Gawande, New Yorker
How childbirth went industrial.

Shop Class As Soulcraft
by Matthew B. Crawford, The New Atlantis
Perhaps the time is ripe for reconsideration of an ideal that has fallen out of favor: manual competence, and the stance it entails toward the built, material world.

Row, Row, Row The Boat
by Keith O'Brien, Boston Globe
Four years after a gruesome sculling accident on the Charles, John Yasaitis is back to finish what he started at the famous regatta.

Last Words
by Walter Benn Michaels, New York Times
The good news is that progress has been made; no one any longer thinks that one language is better than another. But the bad news is that many languages are dying anyway.