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...would often say, "There's no such thing as a free lunch." The phrase originated with an offer first proffered in American saloons in the mid-1800s. In order to draw patrons, drinking establishment would offer free lunch as long as patrons purchased a drink with their meal. Elaborate economic discourses have ensued over the years, arguing that a free lunch is a logical impossibility. Still, if search data is any indication, we're obsessed with finding just about anything that's free...
...Little Lin is not alone. Tens of thousands of Chinese from his home province of Fujian alone have traveled from China to Britain in recent years. A coastal region with a booming middle class, Fujian produces a disproportionate number of China's overseas migrants. Back in the mid-1800s, Fujian released its first major wave of migrants, men bound for the Americas to build railroads, can fish and pan for gold. Other coolies, as they were known, headed for European colonies in Asia. Those who left have helped those who stay behind; today, Fujian's annual per-capita income...
Sometimes you have to eat an animal to save it. That paradox may disturb vegetarians, but consider the bison: 500 years ago, perhaps 30 million of these enormous mammals inhabited North America. By the late 1800s, several forces--natural climate changes and Buffalo Bill--style mass killings among them--had slashed the bison population to something like 1,000. And yet today North America is home to roughly 450,000 bison, a species recovery that has a lot to do with our having developed an appetite for them...
...best thing we can do to let bison be bison is to end their lives in the wild, not in captivity. Today, John and Wright Mooar, the prodigious bison hunting brothers who helped lead the "Great Slaughter" in the late 1800s, are reviled for shooting so many bison on the open range. But, ironically, theirs was a more humane way of killing bison than ours. Last summer, I watched a bison heifer be led into the chute at the North American Bison Cooperative, a slaughterhouse in New Rockford, N.D. She became agitated, and she fought violently against the tight steel...
Paul Cézanne never set foot in Florence. but a significant body of his work - at least 50 of his bold and colorful paintings - made their way to the city in the dying years of the 1800s and the stirrings of the new century. The story of how two American collectors, Egisto Fabbri and Charles Loeser, introduced the Post-Impressionist's art to Italy, and how it influenced painters there, "could have been a film," says 19th century art scholar Francesca Bardazzi. That movie would tell "the fascinating story of two American collectors - rich, handsome, young, the first collectors...