DanKohn.com

A photo essay.

I’m happy to admit to being a bright. As Daniel Dennett says in an NYT op-ed: “A bright is a person with a naturalist as opposed to a supernaturalist world view…. We are, in fact, the moral backbone of the nation: brights take their civic duties seriously precisely because they don’t trust God to save humanity from its follies.”

How nuts is this doll from FAO Schwartz?

Clever test. I missed the Moses question.

“After a year of painstaking scientific research, the world’s funniest joke was revealed on Thursday.” Don’t get your hopes up. Since the methodology is what joke is funniest across all cultures and types of people, the outcome was predestined to be pretty mild. Here is the study’s website, with some descriptions on why the jokes are funny.

Young Natalie Krinksy gets her 15 minutes of fame on the front page of the NYT. Here’s the oral sex article that the Times mentions but is too timid to quote from. And, how about this for an NYT double entendre:

But with interest in student papers waning along with the rise of the Internet, some undergraduate newspaper editors may see the discussion of breast stimulation and favorite positions as a great way to increase circulation.

Hard to believe that’s an accident.

Michael Kinsley on journalistic cliches: “Sentiment belongs in a special category, along with partisan differences, of things that exist primarily to be put aside. When sentiment and partisan differences are put aside, there is room for good will and reason and common sense and maybe even a small refrigerator where cooler heads can prevail.”

Damning detail about English men:
What Is it About British Men? Cheap, Drunk and Stiff Lipped:

“Since moving to London, my romantic life has been characterized by last-minute text messages, incomprehensible drunkards, first-date coke bingers and split bar tabs,” Ms. McLaren, who clearly had better luck at home in Canada, wrote in the magazine. Describing a series of disastrous dates with a series of disastrous men, none of whom laid even a finger on her, she concluded that most English males suffer from “glaring sexual insecurity” and secretly prefer the company of other men.

The author, “Ms. McLaren was not the only foreign woman who has hoped for Mr. Darcy, only to be saddled with Austin Powers.”

Why are the state quarters so ugly?

Things to do when you retire: pass the sommelier SATs:

Which of the following wine label descriptions would likely indicate the presence of grenache? 1) Chateauneuf-du-Pape; 2) Pomerol; 3) Gevrey-Chambertin; 4) Mosel-Saar-Ruwer; 5) Somontano.

Seems like a pleasant way to work on self-improvement: “High school is a pretty apt description, except that here the teachers pour you booze instead of confiscating it.”