At first glance, David Hobby looks like just another casualty of the decline of print media: A longtime staff photographer for the Baltimore Sun , he was one of many employees who accepted a buyout in 2008 as part of broad staff reductions at the distressed newspaper. Yet last month he embarked on a…

Attunement: the ability to enter other minds and learn what they have to offer. Equipoise: the ability to serenely monitor the movements of one’s own mind and correct for biases and shortcomings. Metis: the ability to see patterns in the world and derive a gist from complex situations.…

Edward L. Glaeser is an economics professor at Harvard and the author of “Triumph of the City.” Stuart Isett for The New York Times Seattle has used high-rise construction and good public transportation to support growth and bolster its economy. As the 2010 Census rolls out, much of the attention of…

bourbon Stuart Tyson/Studio D This was going to be about so-called white whiskeys and baby bourbons: the numerous unaged or lightly aged whiskeys now appearing in liquor stores courtesy of the many new microdistilleries that have opened up all around the country. But then we looked at the prices,…

IN CONVERSATION Glenn Gets Closer Glenn Close on her Golden Globe win for The Wife and what her first Oscar would mean. by Julie Miller IN CONVERSATION Glenn Gets Closer Glenn Close on her Golden Globe win for The Wife and what her first Oscar would mean. by Julie Miller From the Magazine Majoring…

Business clichés MY only excuse for failing to produce any Johnsonia during R.L.G.'s absence last week is that I've been very busy on a new business venture here at The Economist —of which I can say little, except that it involves one hecka lot of meetings. And so I've been more exposed than usual…

Why, beyond middle age, people get happier as they get older ASK people how they feel about getting older, and they will probably reply in the same vein as Maurice Chevalier: “Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative.” Stiffening joints, weakening muscles, fading eyesight and the…

Kudos to Rowan Somerville for his humor and grace today in London when taking home the 2010 Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction award for his novel “ The Shape of Her ,” besting (or, in this case, worsting) the likes of Jonathan Franzen, Adam Ross, and Christos Tsiolkas. “There is nothing more…

This American Life Ira Glass, host of the public radio show This American Life , at the Brown Theatre, Louisville, Kentucky, January 2006 Radio receives little critical attention. Of the various methods for communicating ideas and emotions—books, newspapers, visual art, music, film, television, the…