海角大神

Good Reads: From West Bank housing, to the Bard鈥檚 women, to baseball鈥檚 first bets

This week's roundup of Good Reads includes the Rawabi planned community in the West Bank, on the trail of online scammers, the women of Shakespeare, why the city needs trees, rare footage of 1919 World Series.

He鈥檚 the nephew of Munib al-Masri, sometimes called the 鈥淧alestinian Rothschild鈥� and perhaps the world鈥檚 richest Palestinian.

But Bashar Masri has considerable resources of his own, and the Palestinian-born, US-educated entrepreneur is pouring them into the largest private-sector project (and what must surely be the most intriguing) taking place in the West Bank. Begun in 2010, Rawabi (鈥渉ills鈥� in Arabic) is 鈥渢he first planned city in Palestinian history,鈥� a development that could 鈥済enerate thousands of jobs and build a model that can apply across the West Bank,鈥� writes Aya Lowe for , an online journalism site.

Six hundred families have already moved into Rawabi, and the eventual population is expected to reach 40,000 residents, if Mr. Masri can find additional funding to complete the project. It includes striking architectural ideas, but its most dramatic aspect may be in the way residents are chosen and situated. 鈥淚n contrast to the rest of the West Bank, where different 海角大神 and Muslim sects often live in segregated communities, Masri says he wants to ensure a completely mixed demographic,鈥� the piece points out. 鈥淭o do so, he has introduced a policy dictating that no one can know who their future neighbor is prior to moving in to Rawabi.鈥�

Crime in the Internet鈥檚 back alleys

One of the most appalling cybercrimes is an extension of the old payday loan scams that have long ensnared the working poor. These scams, featuring loans taken in desperation that are followed by threats and demands for ridiculously high payments, have gone online and added twists, including bogus legal fees.

For the online journalism site , writer Danny Bradbury shadows a white hat hacker trying to track down the scammers. Mike Davis 鈥渋s a digital Merlin,鈥� Mr. Bradbury writes, who works his magic online. He watches as Mr. Davis sets out bait for the scammers, creating an online identity as a fictitious older workingwoman. Eventually a carefully concealed trail is tracked back to a possible scamming suspect. But the article shows why even the FBI has a hard time collaring these elusive criminals, who are able to hop quickly between the nooks and crevices of the Internet.

Shakespeare, an uneasy ally for women

Goneril. Rosalind. Desdemona. Lady Macbeth. And, of course, Juliet, the undisputed star of 鈥淩omeo and Juliet.鈥� The plays of William Shakespeare are filled with intriguing women characters (though played by men or boys onstage during his lifetime). During this spring celebration of the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare鈥檚 birth, revisiting the Bard鈥檚 women through 21st-century eyes makes for fascinating reading. 鈥淰irginia Woolf wrote that ... 鈥榤an has Shakespeare & women have not,鈥� 鈥� writes Stefanie Peters at , an online magazine. 鈥淭his is true. At the same time, this is not true.鈥�

Was Shakespeare an early advocate for women? (But what about 鈥淭he Taming of the Shrew鈥�?)

鈥淭he history of women interacting with Shakespeare鈥檚 plays is also the history of women鈥檚 rights, suffrage, and of the feminist movement,鈥� Ms. Peters adds. 鈥淚t is a history of women being silenced and of finding ways to speak out anyway. Shakespeare has been, and is, an uneasy ally in this history. He complicates but also enriches our idea of what a woman is.鈥�

We still love Rosalind and Juliet today, she says, because 鈥渢hey don鈥檛 read on the page or on the stage like young men in drag, trying to show what a second gender is. These are true-hearted women. Juliet is frank, and petulant, and brave, and chatty, and loving. She is authentic.鈥�

Tree huggers are happier

Want to be happier? Go to the trees. New research ties proximity to parks and other green spaces to better mental health, writes Ben Schiller at . People living in places with more trees are likely to be happier, with the association between the two 鈥渟ignificant and sizable,鈥� according to one recent study. The findings could be used to argue for more investment in green spaces. 鈥� 鈥極ur work indicates that 鈥済reening鈥� could be considered a potentially low-cost, high-return investment among urban and regional planners to positively influence population mental health,鈥� 鈥� Mr. Schiller quotes the study鈥檚 authors as saying.

Rare footage of baseball history

The Chicago Black Sox gambling scandal forced a massive effort to restore baseball as an honest game. Now several minutes of actual Path茅 News footage from one of those 1919 World Series games has been literally unearthed. Among the highlights, writes Tim Marchman at , are pans of the Chicago stadium and fans, as well as shots of a huge crowd back in New York following the game via telegraph on a giant mechanical scoreboard. Crooked Sox pitcher Eddie Cicotte doesn鈥檛 bother to try to field a ground ball or back up home plate, an 鈥渁stonishing thing to see,鈥� Mr. Marchman writes. The footage was found among a cache of newsreels discovered during construction of a hockey rink in the Canadian Yukon. At last we can see for ourselves a little of a World Series that 鈥渨as the precise moment when the [gambling] problem became too obvious to ignore, and which forced baseball to decide whether or not it would be a level game.鈥�