online archive
5:00PM
AUG 29 2008
Thinking like an economist
Maia Gachechiladze (CEU) and Chad Staddon (UWE): Towards a Political Ecology of Oil in Post-communist Georgia. From the Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies, a special issue on military justice in Russia. From The New Yorker, Rebecca Mead on the soaring ambition of Santiago Calatrava. From Esquire, an inside look at this year's Young Republican Leadership Conference (and more). From Military.com, Phillip Butler, a fellow Vietnam POW of McCain's warns of the candidate's "quick and explosive temper" and suggests McCain is exaggerating his imprisonment. Noam Scheiber on how Cindy Hensley invented John McCain. Who's your daddy? An article on McCain, Obama, and the men who made them. Even Democrats find it difficult to classify Obama among the party's many types, from traditional liberals to neoliberals, New Democrats, Blue Dogs, and Net-roots activists. From Exiled, here's proof Obama isn't an American. From Hard News, an article on Stiglitz and Sen on profit and pain. A review of The Dismal Science: How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community by Stephen A. Marglin. From Jewish Political Studies Review, an interview with Rabbi David Ellenson on how modernity changed Judaism; and an interview with Joel Kotek on major anti-Semitic motifs in Arab cartoons. From JBooks, here's a literary history of the dirty Jew.
1:00PM
AUG 29 2008
An egg in return
From Harper's, Jonathan Franzen and James Wood: An egg in return, in three parts (and more and more on How Fiction Works). If the novels named in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die seem like a quirky list, that’s no accident: the book is keen to start an argument. Memo to book publishers: Learn from Digg, Yelp, even Gawker. William Saletan on race, genes, and the future of medicine. How racist, conspiratorial crank Jerome Corsi became the Republican attack machine's anti-Obama point man. Rootlessness, the label that sticks to stories like Barack Obama’s, is a national trait that both attracts and repels. John McWhorter on why political oratory sounds so weird. A review of April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Death and How it Changed America by Michael Eric Dyson. A review of We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity by Tommie Shelby. A struggle lies ahead in hip-hop: to wrest away the gun that points at us on the cover of NWA's "Straight Outta Compton". A review of Big Black Penis: Misadventures in Race and Masculinity by Shawn Taylor. A review of A Surgical Temptation: The Demonization of the Foreskin and the Rise of Circumcision in Britain by Robert Darby. From Jewish Quarterly, a review of Foreskin’s Lament by Shalom Auslander; and a celebration of the anarchic freedom of Israeli graphic novels.
9:00AM
AUG 29 2008
There is no scrum
From Human Ecology Review, Karen O'Neill, Jeff Calia, Caron Chess, and Lee Clarke (Rutgers): Miscommunication during the Anthrax Attacks; and an article on terrorism risk perceptions and proximity to primary terrorist targets: How close is too close? From the International Journal of Conflict and Violence, a special issue on terrorism, including Michel Wieviorka (EHESS): From Classical Terrorism to “Global” Terrorism; and Brigitte Nacos, Yaeli Bloch-Elkon, Robert Shapiro (Columbia): Post-9/11 Terrorism Threats, News Coverage, and Public Perceptions in the United States. From American Journalism Review, after their credulous performance in the run-up to the war in Iraq, how are the news media handling the Bush administration’s allegations against Iran? Larry Diamond on the time for a “diplomatic surge”: Democracy may be turning a corner in Iraq, but it’s going to need a lot of help. That frontier mythology now threatens the world: A review of What is America? A Short History of the New World Order by Ronald Wright. Alvaro Vargas Llosa on Kobe Bryant and the triumph of internationalism at the games. From Esquire, Chuck Klosterman on The Great American Stasis: When you remove yourself from the exciting scrum of American culture, you realize it's not very exciting, and there is no scrum. A review of Blind Date: Sex and Philosophy by Anne Dufourmantelle.
