The Longevity Gap and Other Fascinating News on the Web

5 minute read

1. Your Money or Your Life?

The growing inequality between the rich and poor has become one of the key stories of this era. But while the focus is on money, it’s really about something much more basic than that: Life. Americans who are affluent already live about twelve years longer than their poor and working class counterparts. And with new technologies on the way, that gap could widen dramatically. The story of the haves and the have-nots could quickly become a story of the haves and the dead. Aeon’s Linda Marsa on The Longevity Gap.

2. Learning How to Love U

At Duke, there is a counseling series called “How to Be In Love,” in which students are given guidance on topics such as how to recognize that love is happening, how to communicate, and how to know when to break up. Are today’s college students too busy for love or are they too busy getting busy to bother with romance? Whatever it is, many college instructors think their students need a class in dating. (Take some classes in technology and entrepreneurship, the romance will come.)

+ If it’s a time issue, many college students can just wait until graduation when they’ll have more time than they want. NPR on the lost generation of workers.

+ Mic: What parents need to understand about being young today, in 8 charts. (Among other things, parents need to understand that if they want to communicate with their kids, they’ll need charts.)

3. Revenge, Continued?

Tensions in the Middle East increased after a Palestinian teen was kidnapped and killed in what looked like a response to the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers. The parent of one of the Israeli victims released a statement on the latest killing: “If the Arab youth was murdered because of nationalistic motives then this is a horrible and horrendous act.”

4. Sweet Home Vicodinia

In Alabama in 2012, there were 143 painkiller prescriptions for every 100 people. That stat leads the nation. But the state is hardly alone when it comes to the state of painkiller nation.

+ And very related from Vox: Everyone does drugs, but only minorities are punished for it.

5. Waxing Brazilian

All in all, we’re just another brick in the Tim Howard. If you watched the U.S. World Cup game yesterday (and you understand human nature in the era of the Internet), it probably will not surprise you that there is now a White House petition to rename Reagan Airport after Tim Howard. Even in a loss, he was great, he was meme-worthy, and he was entirely hashtagable. Come on, the guy even once scored a goal.

+ WaPo: How Tourette’s-afflicted Tim Howard went from international ridicule to World Cup history.

+ Several World Cup teams banned sex during the tournament. All of them have been eliminated. (This could explain why so many losing players were high-fiving each other on the way off the field…)

+ Dan Froooommer and David Yanooofsky examine which countries shout “Goal” the loudest on Facebook.

6. It’s a Guy Thing

“Once a stronghold of American influence, the city of Detroit is now shorthand for decline and bankruptcy. It makes some sense then that the International Conference on Men’s Issues, a gathering staged to raise alarm against what its organizers describe as rising discrimination against men, chose the city for its inaugural meeting.” Time’s Jessica Roy: What I learned as a woman at a men’s rights conference.

+ Ariel Schreg in Matter: The Ping-Pong Theory of Tech Sexism — A true (illustrated) story.

7. Target Practice Cancelled

“Bringing firearms to Target creates an environment that is at odds with the family-friendly shopping and work experience we strive to create.” Oh man, a few people carry assault weapons through the the baby clothes section and now none of us get to bring our firearms into Target.

8. Bieberians at the Gate

OK, have a few sips of coffee and dig into today’s best paragraph: “Bieber is an essential player, and beneficiary, of the low-culture fixation of the moment: whether child stars, those ­entitled, overpaid — yet also tragic and pitiful — figures can make it across the wobbly bridge to adulthood without falling in the choppy waters below. This is a kinky national ritual, our current form of pop-culture sadism. You can call it whatever you want — the collective ethos of a nation of Puritans trying to assuage sexual ­anxiety; a secular society combating a fear of death by torturing a cast of teenage voodoo dolls; or, at the least, a coded language communicating parental discomfort with our own children’s growing up — but you can’t deny that it’s a totally bizarre obsession, one that could happen only in the youth-obsessed, fame-hungry, prudish and pornish land of America.” NY Mag’s Vanessa Grigoriadis on Justin Bieber: A Case Study in Growing Up Cosseted and Feral.

9. What Comes Around…

According to Quartz, 99% of the plastic we throw in the ocean mysteriously disappears. And some of it might end up back on our kitchen table.

10. The Bottom of the News

“As art goes, Robin Thicke’s Paula is … the musical equivalent of a Facebook friend who refuses to stop overdoing it on tequila slammers and ranting about the demise of their relationship. It’s messy, it’s generally grammatically incoherent, it’s humiliating for everyone involved.” And even with all that going for it, apparently it’s not that good.

+ The tightness of today’s mens pants is enough to give anyone the bell bottom blues.

+ Lindsay Lohan has sued the makers of Grand Theft Auto for making a character like her.

+ Pizza joint owners are being extorted for Bitcoin.

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