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9:51 am
Fri October 19, 2012

'The Sessions': Sex, Comedy And Something More

Originally published on Fri October 19, 2012 9:53 pm

In 1983, Berkeley poet and journalist Mark O'Brien wrote an article about sexual surrogates — women and men trained to help people with disabilities learn to use their bodies to give themselves and others erotic pleasure.

For O'Brien, the subject wasn't academic. After a bout of childhood polio, he had spent much of his life in an iron lung. He could talk, and tap out words on a typewriter holding a stick in his mouth. He could feel things below the neck. But he couldn't move his muscles.

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Krulwich Wonders...
9:45 am
Fri October 19, 2012

Charles Darwin And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I guess everybody, even the smartest people who ever lived, have days when they feel dumb — really, really dumb. Oct. 1, 1861, was that kind of day for Charles Darwin.

In a letter to his friend Charles Lyell, Darwin says, "I am very poorly today," and then — and I want you to see this exactly as he wrote it, so you know this isn't a fake; it comes from the library of the American Philosophical Society, courtesy of their librarian Charles Greifenstein. Can you read it?

It says:

Whoah! You know the feeling, right?

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The Two-Way
9:19 am
Fri October 19, 2012

Sales Of Existing Homes Dipped In September, But Prices Rose

Credit Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
A "sold" sign in San Francisco in August.

There was a 1.7 percent drop in sales of existing homes in September from August, the National Association of Realtors says.

But the median selling price compared to one year earlier was up for the seventh month in a row, leading NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun to say "we're experiencing a genuine recovery."

According to NAR:

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The Picture Show
9:16 am
Fri October 19, 2012

Extreme Animal Portraits: Wildlife Photographer Of The Year Winners

Originally published on Fri October 19, 2012 12:18 pm

I admit it: As much as I love hard-hitting photojournalism, there is something about photos of animals that gets me every time. So when I found out that the 2012 Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest was announcing its winners, I had to take a look.

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The Two-Way
9:16 am
Fri October 19, 2012

Deadly Car Bomb In Downtown Beirut Causes Devastation

Credit Hussein Malla / AP
Lebanese firefighters extinguish burning cars in Beirut following a huge bomb explosion.

Originally published on Fri October 19, 2012 1:17 pm

A huge explosion in central Beirut has killed at least eight people and wounded at least 78, state media in Lebanon are reporting, according to NPR's Kelly McEvers. The target of the bomb isn't clear, but Reuters says the blast occurred on the same street that's home to a political group that opposes Syrian President Bashar Assad.

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