A bunch of links about which I’ve been meaning to blog but around to which I haven’t gotten:
- Our cat Alex is so well-behaved when it comes to, uh, the litter box. Slate contributor and cat-owner Emily Yoffe is not so lucky; my favorite phrase in the whole article has to be “CSI: Cat Pee” (“Dirty Litter Secret” in Slate, 15 June).
- You know I do love a nice piece of luggage. Seth Stevenson reviews six brands of carry-on suitcases (“It’s in the Bag” in Slate, 3 June).
- As part of its “get your history straight and your nightlife gay” campaign, the Philadelphia tourism board has released a TV commercial aimed at gay tourists (2 June). Aside: The other day, perusing the HRC magazine, Equality, I came across an especially cute ad for Mitchell Gold–all their ads are cute, I know–so I visited their website and it turns out they have an archive of all their ads. Nice.
- The Economist presents the latest version of its Big Mac index, which measures cross-country purchasing-power parity in terms of Big Mac prices (“Food for thought,” 27 May). Of the initial countries surveyed, the Philippine price is the cheapest ($1.23), meaning the peso is the most undervalued against the dollar. The most expensive is in Switzerland at $4.90. When the survey’s additional countries are taken into account, the least and most expensive Big Macs are in Morocco ($0.26) and Kuwait ($7.33), respectively.
- I suppose it’s no surprise that many teachers struggle to make ends meet. Dave Eggers offers a reflection, and presents a few moonlighting teachers in their own words (“Reading, Writing, and Landscaping” in Mother Jones, May/June).
