Depicted above Stanley Kubrick (left) and Arthur C. Clarke (right). You may be wondering why we are displaying the minds behind the cult novel and film 2001: A Space Odyssey? Basically, we were just reminded of a great article remembering Arthur Clarke, the celebrated science fiction writer behind the story. The Grasshopper and his Space Odyssey by Jeremy Bernstein hosts early exchanges between Kubrick and Clarke, as well as a journey to the top of a sacred mountain, and a telescopic viewing of the rings of saturn, from Sri Lanka, with Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. Bernstein has been a physicist, educator, and writer who has chosen topics as disparate as cosmology and the origin of the computer. He has an essay appearing in our next issue on dogs, women, and the analytic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Check out The Grasshopper and his Space Odyssey from the Summer 2008 issue of The American Scholar.
Pop-upView Separately

Depicted above Stanley Kubrick (left) and Arthur C. Clarke (right).

You may be wondering why we are displaying the minds behind the cult novel and film 2001: A Space Odyssey? Basically, we were just reminded of a great article remembering Arthur Clarke, the celebrated science fiction writer behind the story.

The Grasshopper and his Space Odyssey by Jeremy Bernstein hosts early exchanges between Kubrick and Clarke, as well as a journey to the top of a sacred mountain, and a telescopic viewing of the rings of saturn, from Sri Lanka, with Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones.

Bernstein has been a physicist, educator, and writer who has chosen topics as disparate as cosmology and the origin of the computer. He has an essay appearing in our next issue on dogs, women, and the analytic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Check out The Grasshopper and his Space Odyssey from the Summer 2008 issue of The American Scholar.

Living Dangerously

…the [Sunday Leader] ran a report about a cell phone video, leaked to Channel 4 News in England, which showed Sri Lankan soldiers executing unarmed LTTE guerrillas. The following week, [the head muckraker] received a clipping of the story in the mail, scrawled over with a message in red ink: “B*tch if you write you will be cut into pieces.” A handwriting expert later confirmed that the note was written by the same person who had mailed a similar threat to Lasantha three weeks before his murder. Although Frederica was clearly disturbed by the letter, like Lasantha, she refused to leave the country or hire any security. “What can you do?” she asked me in frustration. “These people are crazy.”

Michael Hardy exposes the dangers of reporting in Sri Lanka in “Sri lanka: Living Dangerously.”