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Sundown: Meet the New Boss (of al-Qaida)

Plus Palin’s ‘Bird-Nose,’ and more

by
Marc Tracy
June 16, 2011
Former Alaska state Rep. Jay Ramras. Is this the face of a Bird-Nose?(Alaska House of Representatives)
Former Alaska state Rep. Jay Ramras. Is this the face of a Bird-Nose?(Alaska House of Representatives)

• Longtime Al-Qaida number two Ayman al-Zawahiri is now formally in charge. He made his bones helping kill Anwar Sadat after the Egyptian leader signed the treaty with Israel. Read Lawrence Wright’s take. [The New Yorker]

• Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is out of the hospital. She was shot point-blank in the head five months ago. Wow. [JTA]

Mentioned this earlier, but it seems that in an email Sarah Palin referred to a Jewish former Alaska state representative as “Bird-Nose.” You be the judge! [JTA]

• “A Jerusalem rabbinical court recently sentenced a wandering dog to death by stoning.” Reincarnation was involved. Holy hell. [Ynet/Failed Messiah]

• The Krakow Factory, of Schindler’s List fame, is now a contemporary art museum. But here’s the secret: The art doesn’t actually work! [ArtInfo]

• The perilous occupation otherwise known as translating James Joyce into Russian. [Arty Semite]

Listen to Joyce read from Finnegans Wake. And then you can come to Housing Works Bookstore and see Ulysses acted out before your very eyes.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.