online archive
1:15PM
JUL 30 2007
Voting, economics, the brain and education
From PS: Political Science and Politics, Pei-te Lien ( Utah), Dianne M. Pinderhughes (Notre Dame), Carol Hardy-Fanta (UMass- Boston), and Christine M. Sierra (UNM): The Voting Rights Act and the Election of Nonwhite Officials. Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels (Princeton): It Feels Like We’re Thinking: The Rationalizing Voter and Electoral Democracy. The devil in democracy: A review of The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies by Bryan Caplan and The Rise of the Unelected: Democracy and the New Separation of Powers by Frank Vibert.
A review of Milton Friedman: A Biography by Lanny Ebenstein. A review of Discover Your Inner Economist by Tyler Cowen. Think green: Green politics and the study of economics are beginning to share a platform, thanks to a number of new websites and books. The original Republican Party Reptile is back: PJ O'Rourke's sharp, stylish commentary on Adam Smith, champion of the free market, is already an American bestseller. As it hits the shelves in Britain, this dour 18th-century philosopher is once again the talk of the town – and the author shows the colour of his money.
"Oh, I'm kind of a philosopher, too. I LOVE Ayn Rand": Is human excellence the mark of mental illness? A review of a new edition of Disputed Questions on the Virtues by Thomas Aquinas. Virtue on the brain: Neuroscience is demanding that we put good habits at the centre of child rearing. A Mind for Sociability: Brain structure offers clues to evolution of human emotional intelligence. You know the old saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." For many people, though, it is broken, and we need to fix it. What's broken is the brain, especially the emotional brain, and the consequence is a life dominated by mental suffering.
A review of IQ: the brilliant idea that failed by Stephen Murdoch. Redundancy testing: Charles Murray, erstwhile champion of the SAT, has changed his mind about the test — and says it's time to scrap it. From The Black Commentator, getting black boys to read: Hip hop enters the fray (and that might not be a good thing). A review of Tested: One American School Struggles to Make the Grade by Linda Perlstein. Joanne Jacobs on The Underdog Imperative: Win or lose, kids shouldn’t be shielded from competition.
1:15PM
JUL 30 2007
Torture, economics, the environment and health care
From Slate, the Torture Two-Step: Phillip Carter on Bush's new torture order and its loopholes. War Crimes and the White House: The dishonor in a tortured new "interpretation" of the Geneva Conventions. The erotic undertones of the administration's words on enhanced interrogations: Why is it the more the White House refines the rules, the pervier things get? Long before Abu Ghraib, Pfc. Lynndie England posed for photographs for her then-boyfriend Charles Graner and violated military rules: An excerpt from Monstering: Inside America's Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War.
An interview with sociologist Katherine Newman, author of The Missing Class, on the "near poor," that vast pool of workers who are neither officially destitute nor comfortably working-class. Richie Rich 101: More and more camps are teaching trust-fund kids to handle the wealth headed their way. Little millionaires who want for nothing, except maybe more time with Mum and Dad: An excerpt from Richistan: A Journey Through the 21st Century Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich by Robert Frank. A review of The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Freres & Co. by William D. Cohan.
Can Gates, Soros and Branson create a better world? Saving the planet used to be a hobby practiced by treehuggers and other romantics. Now it has become the business of executives and billionaires. Pragmatists like Bill Gates, George Soros and Richard Branson are outdoing themselves in a bid to save the planet by applying a good dose of entrepreneurial spirit. Worried About the Weather, and the Land: Four writers report on how the environment is faring in their parts of the globe. Here are their dispatches. A review of Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and The Battle Over Global Warming by Chris Mooney. More on The World Without Us by Alan Weisman (and more and more).
From TNR, a review of Overdose: How Excessive Government Regulation Stifles Pharmaceutical Innovation by Richard A. Epstein. Dying for Lifesaving Drugs: Will desperate patients destroy the pharmaceutical system that produces tomorrow's treatments? Does Europe have higher-tech health care than the US? Jonathan Cohn investigates. Sending Back the Doctor’s Bill: Fixing the health care system may require a difficult conversation. System failure: Healthcare has no shortage of convenient bad guys. But it's the system itself — not those who exploit it — that's ultimately to blame for our healthcare crisis. A review of Citizen Moore: the Making of an American Iconoclast by Roger Rapoport.
1:15PM
JUL 30 2007
Iraq, the Bush administration and American politics
Richard Haass on why Iraq is more than an American problem. Bush's folly: His fixation on Al Qaeda's role in Iraq reveals the shallowness of his thinking — and of the U.S. strategy on fighting terrorism. From HNN, an article on Henry Kissinger’s lessons for George W. Bush. A review of Henry Kissinger and the American Century by Jeremi Suri. Getting out of a war requires as much planning as getting into one. Here are five questions that any administration will have to answer as part of an exit from Iraq. Joe Biden’s so-called soft-partition plan, which calls for dividing Iraq into three semi-autonomous regions, seems to be gaining support as the best way out of a bad situation. Defeat Without Disaster: Fred Kaplan on the least bad plan for leaving Iraq.
A growing toll on battlefield brains: From Afghanistan to Iraq, bomb blasts are causing the U.S., British and Canadian troops who survive them a staggering number of brain injuries. Military doctors warn we've only just started to suffer the effects. An increasingly vocal minority in the US is railing against the prosecution of soldiers and marines in Iraq abuse cases, arguing that young Americans are being unfairly targeted. An article on exploring a shift in views about the Iraq invasion. As President Bush considers his options in Iraq, he may want to think about how his choices will affect his successor — and his current rivals.
From National Journal, no U.S. president is ever completely lame, but President Bush is hobbled by an unpopular war, scandal, a strong opposition and circumstance. Cognitive Dissonance: Two new studies of cable news throw light on the sources of Bush's failure-proof support. Buy a card, mock a president: You know the country has come a long way since 9/11 when Bush's face graces humorous greeting cards. Walter Mondale on how his successors helped make the office more accountable. What has Dick Cheney done to the vice presidency? From The Nation, John Nichols on why the burgeoning movement to impeach Bush and Cheney is a rational response at a time when 80 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.
Votescam: Hendrik Hertzberg on how at first glance next year’s Presidential election looks like a blowout. Not so fast: They've got the money, the momentum, and what looks like history on their side. But a Democratic victory in 2008 is no sure thing. Seventeen Candidates in Search of a Story: Only a few of the '08 frontrunners has grasped the importance of the campaign narrative and build a successful story around their candidacies. The Attack Ad's Second Life: Despite "macaca" and "Hillary 1984," the 30-second TV campaign spot ain't going anywhere—yet. Quick off the blog: Josh Marshall's TPM Cafe has become a platform for single-handedly exposing US presidential controversies and keeping political issues alive, leaving traditional news media trailing in its wake.
1:15PM
JUL 30 2007
Literature and life, art, film and technology
From The New Yorker, a review of Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America by Eric Jay Dolin. A review of The Adventurer’s Handbook: Life Lessons from History’s Great Explorers by Mick Conefrey. A review of Stealing the Wave: The Epic Struggle between Ken Bradshaw and Mark Foo by Andy Martin. A review of Crow Country: A Meditation on Birds, Landscape and Nature by Mark Cocker. An interview with Ann Patchett, author of Truth & Beauty: A Friendship. A review of Art & Morality.
He transformed 20th-century sculpture and influenced Picasso, who worked with him for several years. Julio Gonzalez, whose work is being exhibited at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, was an inspirational Cubist. A review of New York 2000: Architecture and Urbanism from the Bicentennial to the Millennium by Robert A.M. Stern, David Fishman and Jacob Tilove and New London Architecture. The re-enactment of a speech originally given by Paul Potter, the former president of Students for a Democratic Society, during the 1965 march on Washington fits into a growing subgenre of historical re-enactment as performance art.
A review of Hollywood on Trial: McCarthyism's War Against the Movies by Michael Freedland with Barbara Paskin. Are all movies inherently Jewish? A review of Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business by David Mamet. Indie world isn't for faint of heart: A horror film's on-again, off-again journey to a release date is on again, but its young makers are wiser to the process. The social acceptability of fake goods: There is something false in the outrage about deception by television. Mostly we turn a blind eye to dodgy production ethics because after all, it's just entertainment.
From OJR, an article on how newspapers can thrive on the World Wide Web. Tim Dowling meets the man cyberspace loves to hate; and another interview with the author of The Cult of the Amateur (and more). Even in this wonderful world of new technology, we still have to remember the old ways of doing things, writes Clive James. An article on the rise of cyberbullying. It's time to stop relying on Google to boost our lapses in memory - - if we don't make the effort we may lose the capacity altogether. Wikipedia and the intelligence services: Is the Net's popular encyclopedia marred by disinformation? Damn Spam: An article on the losing war on junk e-mail.
