I’m taking a break from a brainstorm about our next cover to see just how astute our readers are. We’ll award a free t-shirt to the first person to explain what Senior Editor Jenny Drapkin was getting at with the sketch above. And if the person gets it quickly enough, perhaps they’ll add Junior Designer to her title.

Paul got his first tattoo last night, so I have tattoos on the brain, so to speak. I wanted to do 10 people you wouldn’t expect to have tattoos, like, say, Martha Stewart or Barbara Bush. But I couldn’t find that many, so I went with this one. This is according to The Tao of Tattoos, by the way, and it’s based on the number of searches on their site.

The 10 Most Popular Tattoo Designs

1. Stars. I really like Simon Pegg’s star tattoos on the inside of his arm.
2. Angels. Maybe it should be more like “religious” - I was thinking crosses would be higher up on the list.
3. Tribal.
4. Flowers.
5. Celtic.
6. Swallows, as in the birds. I had no idea these were popular.
7. Lower Back tattoos, AKA the “Tramp Stamp”. I have nothing against them, by the way, but I do love the SNL skit that has Amy Poehler getting rid of her “Pretty Lady” lower back tat with a roll-on, deodorant-like tattoo remover.
8. Butterfly. Does Mariah Carey have a butterfly tattoo? I feel like she probably does.
9. Kanji. This makes me think of Britney Spears’ neck tattoo – I believe she intended for it to say “mysterious” and instead it says “strange”, unless this is an urban legend.
10. Black and Grey.

Things I thought would be on the list: fairies, hearts, dolphins, ladybugs, crosses, barbed wire. If you know of unexpected people with tattoos, leave it in the comments – I’m intrigued. Also, if you have an interesting tattoo, leave that in the comments as well. I’m tattoo-happy today! Hey: bonus points for whoever knows what Paul’s tattoo is of.

During the 1880s, American politics witnessed the birth of its newest and most powerful player—journalistic sensationalism. And with it, presidential elections entered a whole new era of toxicity.

Its first victims were Grover Cleveland and James Blaine, who squared off during the 1884 election. The Blaine campaign was probably best known for its slogan “Ma, Ma, Where’s My Pa?” which played off accusations that Cleveland had an illicit affair that produced a child. Blaine’s Republican supporters latched onto the phrase quickly, chanting it in the streets as they rallied around their candidate. But the media latched onto it, too—this time with a newly invested interest in wringing out every drop of drama. In 1883, Joseph Pulitzer purchased New York World and upped the ante on selling stories. His emphasis on human-interest pieces and juicy scandals had newspapers flying off the racks, and other papers scurried to deliver the same. As long as people were buying them, nobody seemed to bother with the facts.

But James Blaine had his own ethical problems to worry about. Also known as “Slippery Jim,” Blaine had a political closet packed with skeletons. As Speaker of the House, for instance, he’d pushed through legislation that benefited railroad contractors, who then rewarded him with company stock. He and his associates tried to cover up the tracks, but old letters surfaced that detailed the full transactions. On one of the correspondences, Blaine had written “burn this letter!” Apparently, that didn’t happen—and Pulitzer and his competitors had a field day with the evidence.
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Want to stock up on a new wardrobe? Our shirts are perfect for just about anyone that has two arms and a torso. Just visit the store, and enter the word “teeparty” as the discount code. But be quick! The sale ends Friday.

Watching Lost can sometimes feel like taking a university class, what with all the allusions to literature, philosophy, music, Buddhism, Christianity, politics, comic books and countless other subjects being thrown around. And nowhere are these references more ubiquitous than in the character names. At this point, it feels like every character’s name has some deep significance behind it. How much do you know about the people behind these names, like the real John Locke? Minimal Lost knowledge is required, but a degree in philosophy would definitely give you a leg up.

Take the quiz.

Earlier this week we got an overwhelming response to my post on esoteric phobias, with 108 people and counting weighing in with weird phobias of their own — which in many cases were even more bizarre than the examples in the post itself. So I thought it would be fun to pull my favorite phobias from the comments and highlight them here — and I have to assume that at least some of them are real. (My wife thinks you’re all making this stuff up; I on the other hand think most of ‘em hold up to the quirky specificity test; many of them just seem too specifically weird to be fabricated [unless you’re all geniuses]). So without further ado, our phavorite reader-submitted phobias.

While there were a lot of totally off-the-wall ones, many of them fell into a few categories, the largest of which was water phobias. Fear of things you can’t see under the water, fear of drowning, fear of sea monsters, and even a fear of fish from three different readers — Gypsyfly, who “has nightmares about there being fish in [her] sheets” and is sent into palpitaions of panic by the sight of guppies, Angie, who’s made “super nervous” by any fish larger than her palm, and Kate, who “used to want to be a marine biologist” despite the fact that dead fish give her “the willies hardcore.”

Several people also agreed that both kites and latex (balloons, gloves etc) were generally reprehensible.

My favorite is joejoe’s — a fear of large text, specifically 14-16 pt. He elaborates:

I have a fear of large text (maybe 14-16pt) in a reading book - such as a novel - especially if the text is a serif font (times new roman), if I am reading late at night, am a little tired, and if I hold the book more than 10 inches from my face. It can make me feel dizzy, hard to breath and give me feelings of dread and panic. This has only happened a few times in my life, but an experience I do not want to revisit. Now I am a graphic designer and deal with fonts all the time with no problem, so this only happens when reading in the situation described above… weird right

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The Not-For-Profit sector of our economy pulls in a lot of money. In 2006, Americans dug deep and gave a record $295 billion to charity, roughly 2.2 percent of our collective take-home income. Not one penny of that came from me. Here’s why.

1. They’re not as efficient as you think

As with any financial endeavor, and big charities definitely fit the bill, part of the goal is just to bring cash in. Take VietNow, for example. The charity itself is well meaning, striving to address hardships that face many of the men and women who’ve served in the military in the last half century. But in order to reach as wide of a base as possible, VietNow employs a telemarketing group to solicit members and benefactors. It’s a strategy that has worked greatly in expanding the public’s awareness of the group, and over $7 million were raised between 1987 and 1995. There’s a catch, however: The telemarketing company kept eight-five cents on every dollar donated, leaving a meager 15 cents on the dollar for the charity itself. Subtract further administrative costs from that, and the money that actually made it into the hands of the people who needed it most becomes meaningless.

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The following didn’t really happen, but pretend it did:   I was conversing with an older gentleman (yes, older than me) outside our local library recently. He’d just celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary, and was reminiscing about what he referred to as his “courtin’ days.” The man grinned as he recalled how much fun he’d had with his wife-to-be back in 1956… borrowing his dad’s Thunderbird, picking up his girl, and heading to a joint called Perry’s Place to get milkshakes. Then the couple would drive over to a local drive-in theatre for a double-feature, where they’d “get busy in the back seat” (his words, not mine).

“But I always managed to get her home by 11 on a Friday,” the gentleman reminded me. “You’ve gotta keep the parents happy.”

The story was a quaint one,
but I knew the old man had told a fib,
or was at least misremembering things a bit.

How did I know?

HERE’S the answer.

The Ups and Downs of Competition. The serious side of the World Yo-Yo Contest.
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13 Magnificent Renewable Energy Successes and Failures. EcoWorldly looks back at some of the projects they’ve reported on and how they are faring now.
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Scientists Make a Fat-Burning Fat. Just like cholesterol, there is good fat and bad fat. Soon we may be able to convert the bad to the good.
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A small puppy has no idea how small he is or he wouldn’t mess with an enormous German Shepherd! But the big dog is just having fun.
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The Magpie in the Mirror. If birds can be self-aware, maybe other animals are, too.
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Don’t be surprised if your doctor orders a vitamin D test during your next physical. We really don’t know how much it can benefit us, but research on the matter has gone into overdrive.
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Praise for the blind man who invented cruise control. It didn’t help him much with steering.