Facebook’s new Timeline function gives its 800 million users the chance to show, share and step into each other’s lives — or, more realistically, their edited lives. Constantly re-published electronic memoirs, these re-formatted Facebook pages are like Regency Period courtesan Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs — a scroll down memory lane, typed up just the way the writer wants, leaving silences in spaces and intent behind words, tags and lyrics. 

An increasing number of new English words and phrases are being coined in China. The Global Language Monitor, a San Diego-based consultancy that analyzes trends in language use worldwide, says "Chinglish" has contributed 5 to 20 percent of the words added to global English since 1994, more than any other single source.

From New America Media: Things got worse for GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul when his rival Newt Gingrich recently called him out for purportedly using racially inflammatory language in official fundraising newsletters during the 1990s. The newsletters in question brought in a considerable haul of cash for Paul, a longtime politician and presidential candidate. His half-baked racial scribbles are by now well known: He’s bashed Blacks for being chronic welfare grifters, thugs and lousy parents. 

From New America Media and the Investigative Reporting Workshop: Some call this moment the Great Recession. As the hardship has lingered, others have begun calling it the Little Depression. But equating the hard times of the 1930s with the hard times of today is mostly overblown rhetoric. Or is it?

From New America Media: What is certain is that the war in Iraq claimed 4,487 American lives and left 32,226 Americans wounded, according to Pentagon statistics. According to Iraqbodycount.org, the number of Iraqis who died from violence ranges between 103,000 and 114,000. The United States spent nearly $3 trillion fighting it, and with another exorbitant war still waging in Afghanistan, the result is a bankrupt U.S. economy. After all, in 2000, the U.S. economy had a $230 billion surplus. In 2011, U.S. debt is at $15 trillion and growing. That’s $1.3 trillion a year going south.

From New America Media: The Russian archbishop who tried to malign the Indian sacred text, the Bhagavad Gita, should have known that hell hath no fury like 885 million Hindus scorned. That fury has been unleashed worldwide this week over remarks by Archbishop Nikon of the Russian Orthodox Church branding Krishna, the protagonist in the Bhagavad Gita, an “evil demon.” State prosecutors in the Siberian city of Tomsk successfully sought help from the courts to ban the scripture for its “extremist” views and accused it of insulting non-believers, according to Russian media.

From New America Media: The Iraq War may well never be over since its objective of regime change continues to dictate U.S. foreign policy and spawn endless conflicts. Nine years after the second intervention against Baghdad, it is abundantly clear that Saddam Hussein’s prophetic boast about “the mother of all wars” was correct, though not as the fallen dictator had intended.

From New America Media: North Korea’s reclusive leader, Kim Jong-il, has died, according to media reports from the isolated communist nation, leaving the peninsula and the East Asia region on bated breath as regional powers digest the news. The North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) announced Monday morning (Korea time) that Kim had died of an “acute myocardial infarction, which triggered a heart attack” while on a train carrying him on one of his frequent field tours. He was 69.

From New America Media: Human and pro-immigrant rights groups renewed their calls for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s resignation, following findings by the Department of Justice of racial profiling and abuse of Latinos by his agency. The findings, announced Dec. 15, added fuel to the fire for those who want the federal government to put an end to national programs that give local police immigration powers.

From New America Media: That Black voters will again give President Obama a sky-high percentage of their vote in 2012 was never in doubt. What is in doubt is how many will make up that percentage. If Black voters had not turned the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries into a virtual holy crusade for Obama, and if Obama had not, openly in the South Carolina primary and subtly in primaries thereafter, stoked the Black vote, he could easily have been just another failed Democratic presidential candidate.