SOCIETY

How the living dead devoured pop culture. Learn More

Scrabble may be truly called America's game. Learn More

Gay culture has become a nightmare of consumerism, whether it's an endless quest for Absolut vodka, Diesel jeans, rainbow Hummers, pec implants, or Pottery Barn. Whatever happened to sexual flamboyance and gender liberation, an end to marriage, the military, and the nuclear family? Learn More

During his career as the manager of the Baltimore Orioles, Earl Weaver was called “baseball’s resident genius.” Learn More

Written by a social worker, popular educator, and member of the transgender community, this well-rounded resource combines an accessible portrait of transgenderism with a rich history of transgender life and its unique experiences of discrimination. Learn More

Powder room, comfort station, privy, loo, dunny - the infinite variety of names we invent for this universal necessity, the toilet, is matched by an extraordinary variety of designs worldwide, from miniature log cabins in the Canadian wilderness to state-of-the-art cubicles in Japan, and from huts on stilts in the Caribbean to solar-powered sanitaryware in New Zealand. Learn More

More than ten people are murdered every day in Ciudad Juárez, a city about the size of Philadelphia. As Mexico has descended into a feudal narco-state-one where cartels, death squads, the army, and local police all fight over billions of dollars in profits from drug and human trafficking-the border city of Juárez has been hit hardest of all. And yet, more than a million people still live there. They even love their impoverished city, proudly repeating its mantra: "Amor por Juárez." Learn More

Somalia, on the tip of the Horn of Africa, has been inhabited as far back as 9,000 BC. Its history is as rich as the country is old. Caught up in a decades-long civil war, Somalia, along with Iraq and Afghanistan, has become one of the most dangerous countries in the world. Getting there from North America is a forty-five-hour, five-flight voyage through Frankfurt, Dubai, Djibouti, Bossaso (on the Gulf of Aden), and, finally, Galkayo. Somalia is a place where a government has been built out of anarchy. Learn More

To untangle the knot of interlocking meanings of these painted words, logophile and mythologist Phil Cousineau begins each fascinating word entry with his own brief definition. Learn More