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11:36 am
Mon June 17, 2013

An 'Adventure' For Kids And Maybe For Their Parents, Too

Credit Cartoon Network
Finn is in the middle, with the skinny arms. Jake is the dog. Together, they have Adventure Time.

Originally published on Mon June 17, 2013 12:27 pm

Count plenty of grown-ups among the millions of fans of Adventure Time, a kids' show on Cartoon Network. Some are surely Emmy voters. (It's won three.) Others are very possibly stoners. Still others are intellectuals. Lev Grossman falls in the last category. He wrote two best-selling novels, The Magicians and The Magician King, and he's Time's senior book critic.

Grossman's critique of Adventure Time? "It's soooo smart! It's sooo intelligent!"

Hang on. He's just getting started.

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What's New?
11:36 am
Mon June 17, 2013

This Blumesday Celebrates Judy, Not Joyce

Credit Suzanne Plunkett / AP
Judy Blume is the author of many books for kids and teens, including Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Blubber. Her fans have riffed on Bloomsday (a celebration of James Joyce's Ulysses) and created Blumesday in her honor.

Originally published on Mon June 17, 2013 12:31 pm

Today is Blumesday. Not the Bloomsday where readers celebrate James Joyce's novel Ulysses — that was Sunday. Today's Blumesday is also a holiday for literature lovers, but of a different sort.

Blumesday creators Joanna Miller and Heather Larimer are writers, and they're pretty well-read. But they were never huge fans of Ulysses. "We sort of self-deprecatingly said, 'Well, the only way we could participate in Bloomsday was if it were Judy Blumesday.' And then the joke turned into, 'Wait, why aren't we doing this?' " Miller explains.

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What's New?
11:35 am
Mon June 17, 2013

The NFL To Your Purse: Drop Dead

Credit Nichols / iStockphoto.com

Originally published on Mon June 17, 2013 10:45 am

Last Thursday, the NFL announced a policy change in which only clear plastic bags would be allowed into stadiums — one per person. Nothing they can't see through. The league says that the change is meant to ensure safety while speeding up security checks and preventing gate backups, which sounds good enough at the outset.

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What's New?
11:35 am
Mon June 17, 2013

A History Of The World — In One-Liners

Credit Pete Marovich / Getty Images
Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska, at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at National Harbor, Md.

Originally published on Tue June 18, 2013 11:10 am

Speaking to the Faith & Freedom Coalition's "Road to Majority" Conference on Saturday, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — in a speech broadcast on C-SPAN — let loose a barrage of bons mots aimed at President Obama and political Washington.

Now that Fox News has re-signed Palin as a commentator, we will likely be hearing a lot more one-liners from the Wit of Wasilla.

In this Twitter Age, in which brevity = wit, we are witnessing the expanding power of one-liners. And the drawbacks.

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What's New?
11:34 am
Mon June 17, 2013

Snowden: NSA Collects 'Everything' Including Content Of Emails

Credit Glenn Greenwald/Laura Poitras / EPA/Landov
Edward Snowden, seen during a video interview with The Guardian.

Originally published on Mon June 17, 2013 12:52 pm

Self-described NSA leaker Edward Snowden has made some stunning allegations during a live chat with The Guardian today.

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The Salt
10:45 am
Mon June 17, 2013

Spoken Dish Asks Southerners: What Is Your Food Identity?

Credit Todd Patterson / iStockphoto.com
Cornbread in a cast-iron skillet. A taste of home?

Originally published on Tue June 18, 2013 3:11 pm

Does cast-iron skillet cornbread, hot and crispy from the oven, transport you back to your grandma's kitchen? Do you cook with certain ingredients as a link to your roots in the South? If so, "A Spoken Dish" wants to hear your story.

The Southern Foodways Alliance is teaming up with Whole Foods Market and Georgia Organics in this video storytelling project as a way to celebrate and document food memories and rituals of the American South.

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Law
10:44 am
Mon June 17, 2013

SCOTUS And Affirmative Action: Who Is Abigail Fisher?

The Supreme Court is weighing a decision on Abigail Fisher's affirmative action case against the University of Texas. Host Michel Martin speaks with ProPublica writer Nikole Hannah-Jones about Fisher's motivation and what's behind the landmark case.

Politics
10:44 am
Mon June 17, 2013

Why Do We Keep Forgetting About Gun Control?

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

This is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. I'm Michel Martin. You've probably heard that the Supreme Court is set to rule sometime soon on an important case about affirmative action in higher education. We decided we wanted to find out more about the young woman whose name is on the case, Abigail Fisher. That's coming up later in the program.

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Monkey See
10:36 am
Mon June 17, 2013

In Slight Defense Of Miss Utah USA, A Little Bit, With Reservations

Credit Ethan Miller / Getty Images
Television personality and host Giuliana Rancic looks on as Miss Utah USA Marissa Powell answers a question from a judge during the interview portion of the 2013 Miss USA pageant on Sunday night.
Krulwich Wonders...
9:39 am
Mon June 17, 2013

Why Men Die Younger Than Women: The 'Guys Are Fragile' Thesis

Originally published on Tue June 18, 2013 8:53 am

The 19th century just lost its last living man.

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