Links for 2012-04-02

Have you ever wondered in how many different episodes MacGyver has made an arc welder (answer: 3 times in episodes 6, 52, and 87)? Or perhaps you forgot about your favorite episode (season 1, episode 12) when Mac escapes via a casket that transforms into a jetski. And how many times has Mac made a diversion? In order to placate all of your MacGyver-related curiosities, we offer you MacRecipes.

If you have to ask the question, you’re part of the problem.

In December 2011 a tiny but wondrous Chicago program of the Illinois Humanities Council (IHC) launched an online auction to raise needed cash. The Public Square, which promotes dialogue about political, social, and cultural issues, was celebrating its tenth anniversary, and my wife, Bernardine Dohrn, and I offered our own prize to a winning bidder: a lavish dinner for six. We paid little attention as the online auction launched and then inched onward–a hundred dollars, two hundred, and then three–even when a right-wing blogger picked it up and began flogging the Illinois Humanities Council for “supporting terrorism” by giving taxpayer money to my wife and me, two founding members of the Weather Underground. There was a little “Buy Instantly” button on our dinner item that someone could select for $2,500, which seemed absurdly high. But in early December TV celebrity and conservative bad boy Tucker Carlson clicked his mouse, and we were his.

Entanglement. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a proton, neutron or Mormon: the act of observing cannot be separated from the outcome of the observation. By asking Mitt Romney how he feels about an issue, you unavoidably affect how he feels about it. More precisely, Mitt Romney will feel every possible way about an issue until the moment he is asked about it, at which point the many feelings decohere into the single answer most likely to please the asker.