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We not only survived the 2012 Zombie Apocalypse in Livermore Falls; we got the zombies to wash our van.  GQ  is a font of wisdom on all kinds of subjects, so it should not be surprising that writer Cam Wolf has written about a serious matter of disaster preparedness: what about coffee ? He interviews a number of survivalists who make some interesting arguments about the value of coffee in an emergency, not only for its direct benefits in terms of energy and comfort, but also for its potential value as a tradable commodity. As cigarettes are to the prison yard, so coffee would be to extended off-grid survival. Sudden Coffee cupping lab. ostensibly. As someone who was marketing combat and humanitarian rations in the period leading up to the Y2K scare, I know that long-term shelf stability is a key to such preparations. Otherwise, "preppers" (as Wolf calls them) would need to replenish their supply kits as often as they go to the grocery store. For this reason, they focus on f...

My favorite librarian used this short excerpt from novelist Chimamanda Adichie's very popular TED Talk as part of a presentation she was giving on religious literacy. In it, she describes the narrow lens of pity through which many -- including middle-class Africans -- view the continent and its people. We both recommend  Adichie's full talk : the medium is truly the message in this case, in that she has much more to teach us than the avoidance of stereotypes about Africa. Millions of viewers seem to agree. We also recommend her novel Americanah , especially the audio version. But her story about stereotypes of Africa is timely, as the  Washington Post  has recently published an essay on the topic by Salih Booker and Ari Rickman of the Center for International Policy. In  The future is African — and the United States is not prepared , they describe demographic and economic trends that will surprise many readers. Africa is often described as though it were a singl...