Generation Sell: “the self today is an entrepreneurial self.” http://t.co/JZKmnxqi

How Iran Persecutes its Oldest Religion via @cnn http://t.co/oC6exBpa

A look at Coach K, the Winningest Devil in NCAA history http://t.co/kpe6c2sn #tohatelikethisistobehappyforever

Michelle Bachmann’s use of a Christian precept is shared by the constitution (1936 Soviet) http://econ.st/vFqLID

The Moral Power of an Image: UC Davis Reactions in @TheAtlantic http://t.co/9Lxvtv5T

Will Twilight Obsess New Generations in Twenty Years? via @vulture http://t.co/FvY2EvVq

Catch up on everyone’s favorite #ows human interest story, the hipster cop: http://bit.ly/r7giOn (via @gothamist)

Billions spent on community college dropouts. http://bit.ly/nfmiW3 (via @sfgate)

Coptic Christians protest outside White House against violence in Egypt http://wapo.st/nZO8n0

Why Don’t I Like Coldplay? An Investigation by @sfj http://nyr.kr/pdqNNa

What’s the Dirtiest College-Football Rivalry? http://on.wsj.com/rrdVBT (embarrassing!)

The Guardian (UK) covers AL immigration: http://gu.com/p/32tmp/tw (grim reality) & http://gu.com/p/32t5k/tw (slavery?)

Twenty-First Century Excommunication http://on.wsj.com/ogTGJd TEC would rather church become mosque than go Anglican?!

David Cameron proposes to change royal succession laws giving daughters the same rights as sons http://econ.st/n0837G

Child Slaves Made Your Halloween Candy. Stop Buying It. http://su.pr/AugMHh

Vital Efforts to Combat High Infant Mortality Rate Among Blacks http://nyti.ms/pbxx0w

Bonus:
Appreciated Richard Mouw’s take on Mormonism here: http://bit.ly/oEGjQ7. ReliSciNerd, so I am totally fascinated by the LDS.

A State Grooms Its Best Students to Be Good Teachers http://nyti.ms/ogE7jb {a program that should be duplicated, not cut.}

Riots erupt as Christians protest in Cairo, 6 dead http://bit.ly/nSJaso

A tough new Alabama law targets illegal immigrants and sends families fleeing http://wapo.st/rmYb5r

The Shame of College Sports http://bit.ly/mUmXcH (from @theatlantic)

Bonus links from the week:

Interesting thoughts on Occupy Wall Street from America (the Nat’l Catholic Weekly) http://bit.ly/p4z6hk

Suburban sprawl can work like Ponzi Scheme for city budgets. http://bit.ly/ppPII1

Most Sundays I share some links on twitter with the #sundayread hashtag. Here are this week’s.

The man who ate New Orleans can’t live by bread alone. http://wapo.st/mToRLx

Does empathy lead to moral action? David Brooks on the limits of empathy in the @nytimes http://ow.ly/6KLbp

Is ‘Moneyball’ right about major league baseball? (from @TheAtlantic) http://theatln.tc/ruzyYK

After immigration ruling, Foley students cry, withdraw, no-show. (via al.com) http://bit.ly/q9h8a8

Though I firmly believe this is about Egypt, it is also fascinating to watch the United States foreign policy at work. As the Obama administration’s previously non-committal stance (at least publicly) turned to outright condemnation in the last 24 hours, I wondered about America’s role in the twenty-first century world.

In hindsight, intervention in individual nations’ internal conflicts has not bode particularly well for the US in the last fifty years. However, when we don’t intervene, the US government is often blamed or experiences a level of superpower guilt for any atrocities (e.g. the Rwandan Genocide.)

Is the concept of the superpower over in a more global society? As rural areas worldwide gain cellular and internet coverage, does the free spread of information provide sufficient protection against oppression for both dissidents and ordinary citizens?

Obviously, even if it can or will, we have not arrived yet. It’s far too easy for governments to limit access temporarily (like we’ve seen this week in Egypt) or systematically (as in China.) Human Rights Watch & Amnesty International have plenty to write about every day. But it’s encouraging to believe that that the systematic oppression going on in the world is at least tracked and spoken out against.

I hope that as the situation in Egypt continues, and the ripples are felt in places like Sudan and Yemen, we continue to watch, listen, and amplify voices that need to be heard when their governments fail to listen.

It’s Poverty, Not Stupid. Essential to keep in mind when discussing education reform.

In 2009 & 2010, the U.S. military lost more troops to suicide than to combat.

Does Football have a future? The concussion crisis as covered by the New Yorker.

Two interesting responses to Chua’s Tiger Mother: The Anxious Parent in First Things and Roar of the Lion Father in the Washington Times.

In the 1970s, when white flight was plaguing all of the South, civic and business leaders in Raleigh and state government did something incredible. They stepped in and united the city and county school districts, in spite of overwhelming unpopularity. The new unified district forged innovative solutions to integrate, being on the cutting edge of things like using magnet schools to reduce forced busing.

Rapid, explosive growth starting in the late 80s and continuing to today meant that new schools were continually being built. When new schools are built, children are redistricted. Suburban sprawl makes zoning particularly difficult for a large county school system, obviously. When I was a student, race was a factor in school assignments. It was fairly obvious when children were redistricted for racial reasons (almost always from lower income areas to higher income ones) and truly, not that pervasive. About ten years ago, the school system switched from race to economics in school assignments, aiming for no school to have more than 40% of children on free or reduced lunch. The county continued to experience rapid growth in all socioeconomic groups.

It’s funny to hear parents and school board members fighting for “neighborhood schools” for their subdivisions of “little boxes on the hillside, little boxes all the same.” There aren’t enough schools in between the subdivisions to serve them! But the school board members were able to “stop social engineering” and overturn using economic status as a factor in school assignments.

In my experience, the busing has always been done well, I have not heard complaints of people whose children actually have to ride a bus for an hour a day. The vast majority of parents were happy the way it was. The superintendent resigned in protest of the school board decision and it has caused a firestorm of controversy.

Wake County had not arrived and poor students still lagged behind their wealthier peers in testing and graduation rates. But believing that a return to “separate but equal” is okay, or might work better, is infuriating. Beating the cycle of poverty is very hard work. I would have classified where the school system was with the words of Dr. King, “We still have a long, long way to go, but at least we’ve made a creative beginning.” I can’t help but mourn this as a loss of hard-earned progress.

I’m a trendsetter, apparently. Why the Next Pop Culture Wave Might Be Libraries.

After Haiti: The Chaos of U.S. Adoptions An in-depth look at some of the expedited adoptions post-earthquake that brings up some very important questions about international adoption I’ve been wrestling with for a long time. Why are people giving up their children in the third world? What is the best way we can intervene? For the record, “orphan” doesn’t necessarily mean what it does to us around the world. To the U.N. if you’ve lost (or never were connected to) one parent, you are an orphan. In some countries, it is applied to any child who is abandoned.

Freda Rosenfeld is The Breast Whisperer.

God said be fruitful and multiply and Yitta certainly did.

Where the Bar Ought to Be is an opinion piece about education, and how excellent, passionate teachers make the difference.

Did Christianity Cause the Crash? Hanna Rosin continues her tradition of boundary pushing with this article on the prosperity gospel and the recession for the Atlantic.

Home is a Tiny Plastic Bunk How the recession has affected some in Toyko.

Indie Sweethearts Pitching Products A discussion of some of the random people pitching random things in commercials. Like Ellen Page representing Cisco and those ubiquitous Luke Wilson ads for AT&T.

No U.S. Combat-Related Deaths in Iraq in December Good news is good news, even if troops are scaling back.