Since the June 2007 introduction of the iPhone, scientific evidence has been mounting that we are suffering from an attenuated attention span while our ability to comprehend and use abstract reasoning is weakening. Writing in National Affairs, Adam Garfinkle argues that the loss of “deep literacy” has widespread neurophysiological costs.

Toppling a Communist Empire for $2.7 Million
Though widely thought of as focused on waterboarding terrorists or poisoning foreign potentates, it was by smuggling paper that the CIA achieved its most monumental triumph. R.M. Gerecht in a book review for The Washington Free Beacon charts how the late Cold War-era operation to flood Poland with Western books, magazines, printing supplies and audio recordings fatally weakened the country’s Communist dictatorship, setting the stage for the downfall of the entire Soviet empire. Total cost: US$2.7 million.


