China’s Agony of Defeat. It’s impossible to understand what the Games mean to the Chinese without understanding their history of humiliation. The Olympics are an irresistible stage for athletes—but also for those who wish to act out their grievances before the world. The Beijing Games are hardly an exception. While Chinese leaders furiously insist they’re not, and should not be, “political,” these Olympics promise to become one of the most charged in history. — Newsweek

Trading places. In the past three decades, Chicago has undergone changes that are routinely described as gentrification, but are in fact more complicated and more profound than the process that term suggests. A better description would be “demographic inversion,” and it’s taking place in metropolitan areas throughout the country. Chicago is gradually coming to resemble a traditional European city–Vienna or Paris in the nineteenth century, or, for that matter, Paris today. The poor and the newcomers are living on the outskirts. The people who live near the center–some of them black or Hispanic but most of them white–are those who can afford to do so. —The New Republic

The Montauk Monster. The remains of a mysterious “creature” which washed up on a Long Island beach have prompted a flurry of speculation about its origin. We like Huff Post’s take on it the best – they gave the creature it’s own blog. 

The Forgotten Ape. At some point in the next four months, Spain will likely become the first country to extend legal rights to great apes, thereby protecting gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, and bonobos from abuse, torture, and unnatural death. The measure will, in practical terms, prevent the inhumane confinement of and testing on great apes, which are singled out among nonhuman animals for their cognitive abilities—on par, it is believed, with a 1-year-old human child. — Slate