Must Read

• Paul Waldman, Honor Our War Dead On Memorial Day — They Won’t Be the Last
• Tim Wu, Why Are There So Many Shuttered Storefronts in the West Village?
• Eduardo Porter (NYT), American Innovation Lies on Weak Foundation
• Paul Krugman (NYT), The Insecure American
• Jon Stewart, Bernie Sanders Kicks Off His Presidential Campaign

Should Read

• Dean Baker, Look, a Deficit!: How NPR Distracts You From Issues That Will Actually Affect Your Life
• Washington Post, Faces of the Fallen
• Brittany Bronson (NYT), Long Odds in the Game of Life
• Mike the Mad Biologist, When Will We Realize the U.S. Has a Gentry Class?
• David Bromwich, What Went Wrong: Assessing Obama’s Legacy [Ed.:  Subscription required.  NB:  A Harper’s subscription is worth every penny.]
• Ed Kilgore, The Tired Old “Both Sides Getting More Extreme” Meme

Energy and Environment

• Zahra Hirji, California Democrats Approve Sweeping Fossil Fuel Divestment Resolution
• Patrick Brown and Wenhong Li, Global warming and unforced variability: Clarifications on recent Duke study
• Brad Plumer, China’s CO2 emissions have been plummeting lately. What’s going on?

Science

• Eduardo Porter (NYT), Government R&D, Private Profits and the American Taxpayer
• John Tukey, We Need Both Exploratory and Confirmatory

Education

• Monique Morrisey, Head Start’s 50th Anniversary
• Claire Cain Miller (NYT), Making Computer Science More Inviting: A Look at What Works

Economics

• Patricia Cohen (NYT), Public-Sector Jobs Vanish, Hitting Blacks Hard
• Conor Dougherty (NYT), Overvalued in Silicon Valley, but don’t say ‘Tech Bubble
• Tim Taylor, The Sharing Economy
• James Kwak, Greg Mankiw Forgot What He Teaches

Philosophy

• The Fifth Element, A monologue on the merits of destruction  [Ed.:  I enjoyed the movie.  For some reason I find this scene particularly memorable.]

Neoliberalism

• Wendy Davis interviewed by Timothy Shenk, What Exactly is Neoliberalism?
• Brad DeLong, “Neoliberalisms”, Left and Right
• Arin Dube, Where are my Liberal-Neo-Liberal Technocrats?

Politics

• NY Times Editorial Board, Stupid Pentagon Budget Tricks
• driftglass, Sunday Morning Comin’ Down
• Greta Christina, 7 ideas completely lost on people who are “fiscally conservative but socially liberal”
• Ben Schreckinger, Pope’s pronouncements making trouble for GOP Catholics
• Jen Sorensen, Hillary Clinton: Pro vs. Con
• The Onion, Candidate Profile: Martin O’Malley

Local Issues

• Matt Murphy, Mass. Senate OKs Fiscal Control Board For MBTA
• Peter Howe, Beloved Toy Shop Faces Forced Shutdown [Ed.:  A local realization of the phenomenon Wu describes above.  I also understand that The Elephant’s Trunk is closing.]

A Couple Things to End on a Positive Note

• mlb.com, Tigers turn double play
• Andrew Gelman, What’s the worst joke you’ve ever heard?