It’s the day after Valentine’s Day, so you can go back to ignoring your significant other. Or your parents. Or your jumpoff. But don’t turn away from this roundup:
1. As always, The Big Picture has an impressive collection of photographs – this time from Egypt. (Blackink)
2. Apparently the Tea Party ideal of local control doesn’t apply to DC. (Nicole)
3. If you hadn’t already guessed, the GOP seems to have a below-average field of prospective presidential candidates for 2012. (Blackink)
4. Many college students who declared that they were undocumented immigrants in the push to pass the Dream Act, which would have provided a pathway to citizenship, find themselves vulnerable to criminal sanction and deportation now that the legislation has failed. (Avon)
5. There are now 3 million New Yorkers on food stamps, up 65% in the last five years; two million of those people are in New York City. (Nicole)
6. Even as she recovers from an assassination attempt last month, Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords seems poised for a Senate run now that Jon Kyl has retired. (Blackink)
7. Where da white children at??? White kids are now in the the minority at nursery schools, preschools, and kindergartens in eight states. Consider dumping your stock in Abercrombie soon. (Avon)
8. In their effort to end abortion, some South Dakota Republicans are pushing legislation that would legalize the murder of abortion providers. Wait … what? (Blackink)
9. The Economist takes a look at India’s UID or universal identity number. It’s the nation’s budding biometric identification.(Belleisa)
10. California and Florida have more than their fair share of miserable cities. (Blackink)
11. Everything is bigger in Texas, including the scope of the state’s cuts to public education. “The governor and Republican leaders in the Legislature have put forth bills that would reduce the state’s public school budget by at least 13 percent — nearly $3.5 billion a year — and would provide no new money to schools for about 85,000 new students that arrive in Texas every year.” (Blackink)
12. From the LA Times, women are struggling to deal with the constant threat of rape following the loss of prominent leaders in the Haitian women’s movement following the earthquakes. “Women have been given whistles and taught to use them. Three short toots means, ‘I am being attacked.’ ‘One long toot: ‘I have found someone who has been raped and needs immediate help.'” (Belleisa)
13. Roger Ebert has some criticism for Internet critics. (Blackink)
14. A brief history of Jean Toomer’s passing, in The Chronicle. (Belleisa)
15. Dan LeBatard frets that Deadspin – among others – is serving an audience that is “less inhibited and less interested in previous rules of decency and decorum.” (Blackink)
16. Proof that “football” season is really over: Ronaldo, one of soccer’s greatest players, has announced his retirement from the sport. (Blackink)
Enjoy the week.
