Best of the Week – Happy Friday! It's been another great week, here are some highlights:
- Kudos to Maggie Cleary and Curt Ventresca for two of the most viewed stories of the week. Maggie's article, 5 Reasons College Students Should Not Study Abroad and Curt's article, Ron Paul, Barack Obama, and Mitt Romney: Where the Candidates Get Their Money both racked up close to 450 shares on Facebook and Twitter.
- Award for the most commented article of the week goes to Gary Patterson, who received over 230 comments for his article, Women Do Not Have a Right to Free Birth Control Pills. The most mic'd articles of the week were Stephanie Dreyer's 20 Reasons Women Need Access to Birth Control and Richard Lorenc's 10 Big Misconceptions About Libertarianism.
- We're excited to welcome our new class of bootcamp rockstars: Bjorn Schwarzenbach, Catherine Cantave, Hayley Solarz, Marci Santiago, Sarah Dropek, Joshua Michaels, Zachary Fenster, Mike Fayette, John Harlan, and more! Want to join our bootcamp to work with our editing team and learn learn how to write awesome op-eds that go viral online? See more details here and email me directly at jhorowitz@policymic.com.
Feedback – As we begin to build out our culture section, we'd love to hear from you on what kinds of popular culture and arts stories you're interested in reading. What sites do you currently use to get your culture news? Would you like to see PolicyMic do more movie/TV/album reviews? Should we incorporate more viral videos and shareable charts and graphs? Let us know how we can create the most awesome culture sections on the internet.
Election Weekend Preview – On Sunday, Greeks will vote in their second national election, which comes after the failure to form a government following the election on May 6. The results are critical for the country's future in the euro zone and the EU. Marko Ceperkovic gives a preview of the election here. Meanwhile, Egypt holds its final round of voting in the presidential elections on Saturday and Sunday, and tensions are rising after a controversial Supreme Constitutional Court ruling which will dissolve Parliament and allow former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq to run this weekend. Jonathan Bertman explains how this impacts the Muslim Brotherhood and the likely outcome of voting here.
"Every Town Counts" – Mitt Romney has embarked on a five-day bus tour of six states (New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Michigan) called the "Every Town Counts Tour." The trip marks Romney's first "campaign swing" since he became the presumptive Republican nominee. Romney's message on the trip is that Obama "has paid little attention to the everyday concerns of the American people," having offered them "no hope for the future." (via CBS News).
Top PolicyMic Stories – In the Battle for Ohio, Mitt Romney is the Clear Victor (Jesse Merkel) – Mitt Romney scored big in Cincinnati on Thursday with an attack speech that sharply contrasted with the President’s long-winded, dreary speech in Cleveland.
Dallas TV Premiere is a Failed Depiction of Texas (Daniela DiGuido) – The remake of 'Dallas' gives Texas a bad rap and begs the question of whether television centered around cities accurately represent their location.
Marijuana Legalization in NY Would Be a Civil Rights Win, and Would Cut Back on Stop and Frisk (Emmanuel Felton) – While Senate Republicans in Albany seem poised to kill the bill, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s modest marijuana legalization effort would represent a substantive civil rights advancement.
Art Basel 2012: A Gallery Director's Inside Scoop on One of Art's Most Influential Events (Linda Green) – This weekend marks one of the biggest art fairs of the year, Art Basel. As Art Basel enters its 43rd year, we must ask: Has this become just a marketplace for the mega-rich?
Friday Fun – Happyism: The creepy new economics of pleasure (TNR); Moneyball godfather Bill James' lessons for winning a presidential campaign (Huffington Post); Lance Armstrong's last stand (Slate); A guide to the worst restaurants for workers (Gawker); 25 most gentrified zip codes in America (Sorry, Brooklyn, Media Takeout).
What We’re Reading – Why privacy matters, even if you have nothing to hide (Chronicle); That's it for Egypt's so-called transition (Foreign Policy); Inside Koch world (Politico); Greece's exit from the euro: worst case scenarios (Yahoo); Romney's Wall Street trap (The Daily Beast); Will airplane pilots soon pack guns in the cockpit? (Politico).
* Correction – In Wednesday's newsletter, I included a link in "What We're Reading" to a story entitled "New parenting study overturns decades of research into families with same-sex parents." This was a misrepresentation of the study, thank you to readers for pointing this out. Here's the story with the headline, "LGBT Groups Condemn 'Flawed, Misleading, and Scientifically Unsound Paper on Gay Parenting."
Dessert – Heading to the movies this weekend? "Rock of Ages" is a new musical released today starring Tom Cruise and Russell Brand. Here's a preview.
