A new issue of Spectrum is out. Corey Brettschneider (Brown): When the State Speaks, What Should it Say? Freedom of Expression and Democratic Persuasion. An interview with Thomas Geoghegen, author of Were You Born on the Wrong Continent? How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life. A review of The Political Power of Bad Ideas: Networks, Institutions, and the Global Prohibition Wave by Mark Lawrence Schrad. Is video killing the concert vibe? Lighters held aloft at rock shows have given way to camera phones — meet the backlash. After elections, is Bosnia closer to unity or collapse? Stars shine light on issues, but should we consider it illuminating? Surveillance, America’s pastime: A Hall of Shame of state snooping, prying, and informing aimed at destroying the fabric of civil society. Down with fun: The depressing vogue for having fun at work. A too-gentle madness: Pradeep Sebastian‘s essays are a great introduction to the genre called Books on Books. Cops on the beat: Dancing Thai policemen become a Youtube hit. Steve Pearlstein on the costs of rising economic inequality. The post-Singularity future of astronomy: Astronomy could be the first discipline in which the rate of discovery by machines outpaces humans' ability to interpret it. Will America come to envy Japan's lost decade? Ezra Klein wonders. The banality of narcissism: Ron Rosenbaum on the class war over cultural diagnosis. If a student asks you "why is essentialism bad?", how do you answer that? Wisdom Facing Forward: What it means to have heightened future consciousness. Keeping up with Tyler Cowen on a regular basis resembles drinking from a fire hose — not everyone is so infovoracious.
