America’s war on tourists. Since 9/11, increased security measures and visa restrictions have made travel to the US an increasing hassle. Earlier this month, President Obama announced plans to attract twice as many tourists to America in the next decade. He projected that the initiative would add two-to- three million jobs and result in $250 billion in revenue by the end of 2021. Matthew Yglesias is on board.
CHARLES WHEELAN, professor at Dartmouth College and the University of Chicago and is author of 10 ½ Things No Commencement Speaker Has Ever Said and Naked Economics, veered off the motivational script when addressing the 2011 class at Dartmouth, telling the graduates “your worst days lie ahead.”
A Soviet news reel shows teary mourners shuffling past the body of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The Bolshevik leader and chair of the soviet state in its early years died of a he died of an apparent massive stroke in 1924 at age 54. His embalmed corpse still throngs of visitors to his tomb in Moscow’s Red Square, and was the topic of an annual clinicopathological conference held at the University of Maryland.
America loves amateurs. The country was founded by dilettantes and enlightened rebels. Cities, farms and businesses were seeded by adventurous greenhorns and neophytes. Writer Jack Hitt argues that the DIY spirit that generated untold number of patents and subscriptions to Popular Mechanics drives the country’s success and identity. The popular TV shows The Voice and Project Runway continue a long tradition of discovering and rewarding talent.
Five years ago, the New York Times moved into a gleaming new office tower in mid-town Manhattan. The shimmering structure by Starchitect Renzo Piano was commended for being green and digital-ready. Half a block away, the paper’s archives could not be more dissimilar. The sub-sub-basement -- affectionately known as the Morgue -- is cramped with hundreds of cabinets, stuffed with twelve million clippings and more than six million photographs from the paper’s 160-year history.
