Two articles from Salon

An alarming article about electronic voting and voter fraud

And an interview with the author of A Series of Unfortunate Events

Bharati Mukherjee

I went to see Bharati Mukherjee speak at the U tonight. I'd read a few books by her, a very long while back, and was curious to hear her speak. And speak she did, at length. Parts were vague; her thesis, something about images on television and the effect of images on third world minds that grew up without images versus people who grow up with images, felt more like the half-inkling of an idea than a strong unifying statement; but her description of her childhood with her extended family in Calcutta and the influence of British culture on her upbringing was fascinating. I am definitely planning on reading Days and Nights in Calcutta, which was written jointly by Mukherjee and her Anglo, Minnesota-raised husband to describe their experiences going back to India and living with Mukherjee's family for a year. I also considering reading Desirable Daughters, a book Mukherjee wrote to examine the three divergent paths she and her sisters took to being plopped down in academia in America by their father while their family searched for husbands for them in India.