There I was, living my life totally oblivious of the concept of a "coaling station", when - lo and behold - coaling stations appear in consecutive issues of the New Yorker, first in a very enlightening piece by Joshua Micah Marshall (apologies if I got that wrong, he's not a NYer regular) on the American Empire, and then in a piece about the poor buggers held captive in Guantanamo Bay. It just goes to show, no matter how far in the past you think you're living, there's always someone even further back than yourself.
And this from the magazine that now brings you Sasha Frere-Jones on Madvillain.
