Ozymandias Source: Jack Cohen Art, Shadows exhibit

The universe is destined to die. Some physicists believe that this death will occur as the rate of expansion tears every atom apart. Others believe that the Second Law of Thermodynamics means that, trillions of years into the future, all that will be left is the universal background radiation, after all the suns have burned out and all the black holes have even evaporated. But even before the Big Rip or the heat death of the universe, entropy – the degree of disorder in our own systems – is destined to rule our future. We can struggle against it, and we can even beat it back for a time, but ultimately entropy wins and we die. Our works fall apart. And memory fades.

Today, we explore entropy in the written word. Full story »

Beginning tomorrow, S&R’s weekly literature feature, VerseDay, becomes WordsDay. We love poetry, but we felt like we were ignoring other literary forms, so it just made sense to expand the field.

WordsDay will continue to address poetry, but now we’ll also be writing about fiction and creative non-fiction, as well.

We hope you enjoy it.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court threw our entire diplomatic corps, the State Department, and possibly every treaty the U.S. has ever signed that is still in force, into complete disarray. And in the process, the Court may have inflicted more harm to our national authority and international standing than anything President Bush II has done to date, including invading Iraq. And that harm may turn out to have fantastic reach and duration if Congress and the President don’t immediately step in to rectify the Court’s gross error.

The Supreme Court essentially invalidated an international treaty by blocking federal enforcement of the treaty’s obligations. Full story »

For those who believe that the key to lowering the political temperature in the Middle East lies in snuffing out the pilot light on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Senator Obama’s otherwise transcendent race speech offered little of his trademark hope.

A view “that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam,” as he characterized that of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, is “profoundly distorted.” Once again, whatever you may think of them, Israel’s policies toward Palestine were accepted as Bible. Full story »

According to the New York Times, the U.S. has begun exporting coal to countries like Japan, Germany, India, and China. In the process, our domestic coal prices have risen more, percentage rise, than oil prices have risen over the last year. And the reason we’re voluntarily increasing the prices of our electricity and steel? Foreign demand and expected federal curbs on carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions have made the domestic markets risky, and foreign markets represent a growth opportunity. Put simply – higher profits. Full story »