Linton Weeks

Is Halloween — our national October obsession with candy, costumes and decorations — over and done?

Sure, Americans will create landfills full of candy wrappers tonight. A recent USA Today story, citing research from the NPD Group, reports that a majority of preteens and about half of all ...

Poetry is important. And the hope for this standing feature of The Protojournalist is that by searching for a poetic nugget in the constant rush of news we can slow down for a moment and contemplate what the news story really means.

Like finding a lovely pebble in a mountain ...

We are a country at war, yet we live as if we are at peace. We are in economic turmoil, but the stock market soars, and corporations and banks prosper. We decry violence in real life but celebrate violence in entertainment, such as Grand Theft Auto V and Breaking Bad. ...

"Now I'm teaching four

Other families. They want

To get rich like me."

-- Chinese cockroach rancher Zou Hui tells the Los Angeles Times. She gave up her job at a knitting factory in 2008 to launch her creepy-crawly enterprise. In China, the insects are used in ...

Writing in the Washington Post recently, Darryl Fears points out that sometime during September, the U.S. Forest Service is liable to decide whether to allow or forbid the highly debated form of drilling known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on national forest property in Virginia and West Virginia, ...

"It's certainly one

of the most valuable

bills to counterfeit."

Currency expert Ben Mazzotta of the Fletcher School at Tufts University, speaking to CBSMiami/CNN about the U.S. Treasury Department's efforts to create a newly designed $100 note that is more difficult to replicate.

(If you find examples of Haiku ...

While reading this story on the customization of everything, YOU would discover that it's even possible these days to make yourself the subject of an NPR news story on customization.

In other words, you are reading the story that you are co-writing – about yourself.

At five syllables, customization is ...

Do you have to be rich to be president of the United States of America?

Donald Trump told ABC News recently that he might run for president in 2016 and that he is qualified because, among other reasons, he has amassed a net worth of more than $10 billion. ...

With confrontation in Syria looming, uncertainties about new health care rules arising, evidence of privacy invasion emerging and other generally unsettling issues swirling around, people's feelings about President Obama are all over the map.

Some folks on Facebook — and a number of other Americans — who were at one ...

For variegated reasons – urban sprawl, large-scale farming, invasive plants and human thoughtlessness – wildflowers in America are vanishing.

Which is a shame.

In Texas, for instance, bloomspotting in the vast expanse of the Lone Starscape can be like birdwatching. Amid the dun and dust of desert and field, flora ...

As we pause this Labor Day weekend to celebrate the Great American Worker, we can't help but wonder: Whatever happened to the Great American Slacker?

It wasn't that long ago that slackers ruled the earth. OK, maybe ruled is a bit over the top because slackers, by definition, didn't really ...

Worthless, Impossible, and Stupid: How Contrarian Entrepreneurs Create and Capture Extraordinary Value is a just-published book about the perils and rewards of being a self-starter.

Written by Daniel Isenberg, who teaches at Babson Global, and published by Harvard Business Review, the work has received some serious notices and ...

While exploring the archives of American newspapers, I discovered a chilling interview — conducted more than 100 years ago — with a creator of chemical weapons.

The story, which appeared in the Atlanta Constitution on Feb. 4, 1912, was buried deep in the paper. The British chemist is not named; ...

"Continue to pray

For world peace ... more love, less hate."

— Billy Ray Cyrus

A father's tweet following a recent dance recital by his daughter, Miley.

(If you find examples of Haiku in the News, please send them to: protojournalist@npr.org. You could win a Protojournalist Prizepak.) ...

No, no, no.

A wave of negativism rolls across the land. Many Americans are against instead of for. They would rather stop than start, subtract than add, demolish than build.

Legendary basketball coach Bob Knight has published a book titled The Power of Negative Thinking: An Unconventional Approach to Achieving ...

"He was swarmed as he

made his way through the lobby ...

He was a rock star."

New Jersey state Sen. Joe Kyrillos speaking to National Review Online about potential 2016 presidential candidate New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

(If you find examples of Haiku in the News, ...

Could Major League Baseball abolish retaliation if it chose to?

A recent Protojournalist Instant Conversation, Baseball Danger, addressed the perils of a Major League Baseball pitcher hurling hard balls at a batter in retaliation for some action – a stolen base, a home run, etc. It has long been ...

For the person who has everything — or maybe wants everything — we go Windows-shopping at Why I'm Broke, a portal to outrageous gift ideas. There we find links to a $2 million personal submarine, a $3,500 Nintendo Controller coffee table and a $42 golf club ...

Weird, really, that some animals and plants are marked in black and white.

They exist in the multihued landscape like old photos in a Technicolor movie. And they stick out like Rorschachs on a rainbow.

But there is beauty in their plainness. Clarity in their starkness. And often mystery in ...

The hotly contested 2012 presidential election hasn't cooled off yet and Donald Trump has already made a pilgrimage to Iowa. Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., are asking people to choose between them. Former Alaska Gov. and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is