Apparently the Chinese have a strange appreciation for Jews. I thought this was interesting, especially the part about the Chinese admiring Jews for moral reasons. Read my blog to find out more.

Gawker started paying their writers based on how many times posts are viewed, raising some interesting questions from an ethical journalism standpoint. My longest and most researched post to date.

Mmmmm, plague-water

I found a fun column, "Ort of the Week", on the history of food-related words, including the spork on Gastronomica's website. I blogged about it.

Check out this blog if you've ever wanted to pull your hair out while trying to reach a customer service rep on the phone.

Cool magazines to check out

This magazine gift giving guide was a collaborative effort by all of the interns.

As "the best of the alternative press," Utne has a huge library of magazines, books, and journals that we look through to find articles to republish in the magazine, many of which cater to very specific groups of people. I wrote on Eliza, a "modest" fashion magazine, and Crow Toes Quarterly, a sweet children's literature journal that reminded of Roald Dahl stories.

Never do this!!

In my second blog, I messed up big time. I found this awesome New Scientist article that seemed to be saying there could be a hidden galaxy in the center of our own, concealed by interstellar dust. Holy crap! That's big news! So I wrote about it, hastily, to meet a deadline. Soon after it was posted, a reader pointed out that I reported the story totally wrong. The dust was in the center of our galaxy, not the actual galaxy itself. Pretty big difference. I felt totally humiliated, as I should have.

Christian Goth Kids

My very first blog, on the Christian Goth culture online.

this is so meta

Main Entry: meta
Part of Speech: n
Definition: something that refers to itself, esp. in a self-parodying manner
Example: A movie-within-a-movie is an example of meta

"Meta" was new to me until I started at Utne a month ago. This blog is meta because I'm going to use it to compile all the blogs I've had published on the Utne Reader web site (www.utne.com). So I'm posting blogs within a blog.

Whatever.