Afternoon Links — 10.21.10

A revealing list of what most people are using search engines to search for.

A model of  Minas Tirith made completely of matches .

Oscar-winning actor F. Murray Abraham will play John Henry Newman in a “biopic” to be filmed in England called The Unseen World .

An American scholar describes the real harms of prostitution , in which “men remove women’s humanity. Buying a woman in prostitution gives men the power to turn women into a living, breathing masturbation fantasy. He removes her self and those qualities that define her as an individual, and for him she becomes sexualized body parts. She acts the part of the thing he wants her to be.”

Maggie Gallagher explains why social issues still matter in this election , despite what Dick Morris says. “It’s not that Americans are abandoning the culture war; it is that they are recognizing the culture war is moving into the realm of the economic and legal system as well,” she argues.

Maureen Mullarkey uses Orwell to analyze the art world’s use of words . “The link between art and craft—and the concomitant aspiration toward the creation of beauty—has been slowly discarded,” she argues. “In its place are vague stances that lend themselves to politicization, turning artists into self-appointed community organizers, agitators of the airy, expressive sort.”

Thanks to Kevin Staley-Joyce and Mary Ellen Kelly for links.