Malcolm Gladwell

The internet is a-twitter with three things this morning: the anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the health care bill, and Maureen Tkacik’s Nation piece,  “Malcolm Gladwell for Dummies.” HTMLGIANT’s Justin Taylor sees the essay as more than just a piece on Gladwell, but also “worth looking at…in light of [the] ongoing discussion of what good criticism can or should look like.”  The Millions wonders if this is “a tipping point for Gladwell haters.”

Berlin Wall

Additionally, Philosopher Slavoj Zizek urges that post-Communist countries should not be written off as “immature.”  Indeed, capitalism did not rise romantically from the rubble of the Berlin Wall in 1989.  The Hegelian-Marxist-Lacanian superstar declares in his NY Times op-ed on today’s anniversary, that we’ve been “deceived by 20th-century Communism and disillusioned with 21st-century capitalism.”

Health Care

Conor Friedersdorf for The Daily Beast points out in light of new steps for the Reform that “neither Republicans nor Democrats adequately acknowledge that it is deeply weird to tie health insurance to one’s job, and even stranger to discuss health-care reform as though it is primarily a matter of getting everyone insured.”

Other interesting notes:

• Fictionaut interviewed Electric Literature.
• The most disappointingly missed Halloween costume of the year: We are all Tao.
• Paris’ Pompidou Center on wheels!  It is literally a circus tent filled not with abused elephants, but masterpieces of modern French art.  The Pompidou Mobile will be created to rove the artistically-deprived “rough” and “rural” areas of France, providing great art for all.  All hail the Pomp-Mobile.
• Martin Amis vs. Katie Price is London’s newest literary feud.
• The Smart Set line-reads William Blake‘s “A Sunshine Holiday.”
• Speaking of Blake, The Morgan Library’s exhibitions are on a role this season: first William Blake (which is still there), then Maurice Sendak, now Jane Austen.
• Wikipedia writer/editors are 80% male, 65% single, 85% without children, about 70% under the ago of 30.  Will we soon see the end of the online, democratic encyclopedia? (Thanks Art & Letters Daily)