California Literary Review

Calm down, dear, it’s only chaos: Complexity, networks, instant feedback: these are ideal conditions for chaos – not for the chaos endured by commuters, but for the theory of chaos. What this tells us is that small, apparently insignificant, changes can trigger big upheavals. A computer breakdown, a virus, a sub-prime mortgage, can set off a chain reaction that can bring the whole world to its knees. [New Statesman]

For Some Black Parents, the New Home Room is Home: Public schools are failing black boys, say a growing number of parents who are homeschooling. [Village Voice]

The digital age demands that political candidates be authentic and accessible: “Let’s do lunch,” Hillary Clinton e-mailed me on Tuesday, September 4, at 11:18 a.m. For a narcissistic moment, I thought maybe she actually wanted to get together and was using a circa-1989 coinage (one that had slipped well past ironic-referential mode by 1994, roughly to where “That’s how I roll” is today) as some kind of inside joke. We had, after all, met for about 30 seconds at a company-sponsored fund-raiser not long before, where my co-workers and I had been asked to wait in a long line in order to have a quick interchange with the candidate and then a grip-and-grin. [Atlantic]

Names That Match Forge a Bond on the Internet: In “Finding Angela Shelton,” a book published this month, a writer named Angela Shelton describes her meetings with 40 other Angela Sheltons. Keri Smith, an illustrator, has posted drawings of six of her Googlegängers on her blog. There are name-tally Web sites like SameNameAsMe, and Facebook coalitions including nearly 200 people named Ritz (their insignia is a cracker box logo) and a group aiming to break a world record by gathering together more than 1,224 Mohammed Hassans. [NYT]

The Fading American Economy: This is the portrait of the US economy according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is an economy in which government is the largest employer. Manufacturing employment comprises just under 10% of total employment and about 12% of private sector employment. Everything else is services, and not particularly high level services. Is this a portrait of a super economy? [Counterpunch]