High school debate and the demise of public speech.

Inside the world of high-priced online reputation management.

“As a matter of historical analysis, the relationship between secrecy and privacy can be stated in an axiom: the defense of privacy follows, and never precedes, the emergence of new technologies for the exposure of secrets. In other words, the case for privacy always comes too late.”

Four dispatches from the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday:

In most places in the world, June 16 is just another day on the calendar, but here in Dublin, the day that James Joyce earmarked for Ulysses is celebrated with a fervor not seen here since the days of the druids when, if you really wanted to party, you needed a couple skeins of wine and a grove full of virgins.

An interview with the artchitects responsible for Stuttgart’s train station, Hamburg’s concert house and Berlin’s airport, three projects “currently competing to be seen as the country’s most disastrous.”

On Japanese writer Gengoroh Tagame, who creates gay manga work “in the artistic tradition of Pasolini, de Sade, Yukio Mishima and Lolita.”

What happens when a 26-year-old Kentucky resident decides to investigate a rape case from his computer.

The battle over safety at chemical plants amidst the death of a worker.

The thin, resentful line between comic and audience.

How an informant helped authorities nab a notorious anti-abortion activist.