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CultureWatch: Swerve illuminates the fascinating nooks of antiquity, as well as the Renaissance, for the neophyte. This is the sort of book that, during these winter months, will bring the pleasure endorsed by Epicurus and Lucretius. Chef Supreme: Martin Ginsburg creates a paean to good food and its ability to create community; the recipes and tributes are rich, as was his life

Jill Norgren's Review of New York Met Opera's HD Live Performance of The Enchanted Island; Guile, sorcery, love, and rejection: This operatic pasticcio, drawing upon music composed by Handel, Vivaldi, and Rameau is a harvest basket of delights. Beautiful singing marks the production: DiDonato is outstanding, Domingo defies the years with his seemingly effortless excellence, and de Niese steals the first act with her impish portrayal and fine singing

Happy 150th Birthday, Edith Wharton! Break out a glass of champagne, don an antique jet-beaded jacket and celebrate Wharton's 150th birth anniversary. Read a book of Wharton's, watch the Age of Innocence or The Buccaneers and visit her home, the Mount

Roberta McReynolds asks, What If the Mayan Calendar Is Right? It’s become an annual tradition to create a calendar for a group of friends. This year we added an extra page of an illustration of the Mayan calendar with a 3-week ‘bucket list’ of things to do before the world is predicted to end in 2012. Contemplating the possibility of having a finite number of days left on earth might not be such a bad way to live

Kristin Nord Reviews The Strange Life of Objects: The Art of Annette Lemieux: She paints, sculpts, manipulates found photographs and objects — she’s likely to spin us via a vintage school-room globe into a polka dotted galaxy, or line up a troop of helmets on wheels like fledglings being patterned along an intractable trajectory. There is stagecraft, mime, and performance art sometimes at work

Nancy Dawson: Rosemary, Arthur and Ben, On the Road to Mecca (Followed by Doug) — Could he please help me read Ben Brantley's review of Rosemary Harris in Athol Fugard's The Road to Mecca at the American Airlines Theater. Tried as he could, Julio couldn't get The Times to accept my bank card. He said, "There, there, call your bank because they can surely fix this for you"

In the Gusher of Super Pacs, Even One Named the Internet: It’s worth taking a step back and considering all the confusing names, and all the confusing money that might be spent in the coming months. It's worth considering how we got to this new frontier, which even campaign operatives say is messy

Joan L. Cannon, A Puzzlement: It’s hard enough to detach the whole truth from what information is available about corporations, political candidates, about unfriendly nations and allies. A biographical article may not contain a single lie but omit facts that can reverse the impression a reader gets

Travel: Bill Would Require Independent Study of X-Ray Body Scanners — The peer-reviewed study, to be submitted to Congress, would evaluate the safety mechanisms on the machine and determine whether there are any biological signs of cellular damage caused by the scans

When Women Are Scarce: Men Become Impulsive, Save Less and Increase Borrowing: "In a male-biased environment, men also expected they would need to spend more in their mating efforts ... We see that there are more men than women in our environment and it automatically changes our desires, our behaviors, and our entire psychology"

Julia Sneden, Befogged: On those foggy days my fine hair was plastered to my head, and my braids, having escaped from their soggy ribbons, began to unbraid themselves. I well remember the day my new red ribbons, the product of war-time dyes, got so fog-wet that the color ran, staining the ends of my blonde braids pink

Fleur Cowles, The Flower Game: What Ten Flowers Would You Take to a Lonely Island? Actress Candice Bergen’s list included wisteria and night-blooming jasmine, and she elaborated on her selections: “Flowers to see and smell — by day and night — that bloom underfoot and hang overhead, plus a few insect escorts — butterflies and caterpillars, the odd ladybug — for company”

Health & Science | Beauty, Style & Fashion | Sports & Fitness | Health Links | Dermatologist Cynthia Bailey

Where Doesn't It Hurt? Women Report Feeling More Pain Than a Man: While results tended to confirm previous clinical findings — i.e., that female fibromyalgia or migraine patients report more pain than their male counterparts — the search unearthed unreported gender differences in pain intensity in, for example, acute sinusitis and “cervical spine disorders,” more commonly known as neck pain

Youthful Healing, Old Bodies: A Surprising Journey into Biotechnology: As we age, the healing process deteriorates until it is slow and incomplete in comparison with our younger selves. Understanding how to slow, or even halt, its advance could have promising implications

A Web Resource Designed By Doctors Helps Them Calculate Life Expectancy in Older Patients: A team led by researchers from the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the UC, San Francisco has completed the first systematic review of prognostic indices used to calculate a patient’s life expectancy, and created a website that puts these indices in one central location

The Bicentennial of Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel, Nation's Oldest Natural History Museum: With eight books and a map of Switzerland, the founders began a library, which ranks among the world’s finest natural history libraries. Each founder also contributed a few specimens; the collections now number 17 million specimens

Fed Reserve Governor Elizabeth Duke Suggests Some Housing Market Recovery Proposals : "Although there is no miracle cure here, these actions have the potential to help the economy recuperate more quickly than I currently expect it to, moving us closer to full employment sooner and improving the lives of many Americans."

CAP's 20 New Jobs Ideas, Meeting the Jobs Challange: For instance, launch a rehab-to-rent program to turn government-owned foreclosed homes into affordable rental housing, stabilize neighborhoods, and put construction workers back to work; protect funding for community health centers to provide health services at clinics

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