[Phayul.com]
Chinese authorities have warned Norway that relations between the two countries would suffer if Norway awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese human rights activist Rebiya Kadeer.

[Poets Against War]
Howard Zinn: Whenever I become discouraged (which is on alternate Tuesdays, between three and four) I lift my spirits by remembering: the writers are on our side! I mean those poets, novelists, playwrights and songwriters who speak to the world in a way that is impervious to assault because they wage the battle for justice in a sphere which is unreachable by the dullness of ordinary political discourse.

[The Washington Post]
Charles Krauthammer: Religious fanatics, regardless of what name they give their jealous god, invariably have one thing in common: no sense of humor. Particularly about themselves.

[The Washington Post]
Anne Applebaum: If stray comments by Western leaders—not to mention Western films, books, cartoons, traditions and values—are going to inspire regular violence, I don't feel that it's asking too much for the West to quit saying sorry and unite, occasionally, in its own defense. The fanatics attacking the pope already limit the right to free speech among their own followers. I don't see why we should allow them to limit our right to free speech, too.

[Times Online]
A Turkish court today found in favour of the freedom of expression by acquitting writer Elif Shafak of "insulting Turkishness" through the characters of a novel. Shafak faced up to three years in jail if she had been convicted, over comments made by characters in her book The Bastard of Istanbul about the massacre of Armenians in the last days of the Ottoman Empire. Turks strongly deny that the shameful historical episode was genocide.

[BBC News]
The Pope is only infallible when he says he is.

[Medical News Today]
Of working-age U.S. residents who sought individual health coverage in the last three years, 89% were rejected for medical reasons or felt that the available plans were unaffordable.

[Peter Callesen website]
Cut paper art.

[Daily Lit]
Read books by email.

[BBC News]
Stone slab discovered in Mexico may bear 2000-year-old Olmec inscriptions.

[MSNBC]
Sam Harris: "Tell a devout Christian...that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence whatsoever.

[Poetry]
American poetry is ready for something new because our poets have been writing in the same way for a long time now. There is fatigue, something stagnant about the poetry being written today.

The MFA experience can confuse the writing of poetry, as a career, with the writing of a poem as a need or impulse. The creation of art is not a matter of fellowship. Writing a poem is a fiercely independent act. It is the furthest thing from mentors, residencies, and tenure. The one valid impulse to write a poem is not to impress but to share: wonder or anger or anguish or ecstasy. But always wonder.