Harper's Magazine: October 2009

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October 2009

CONTENTS
THUMBNAILS
WEB ONLY

	Photography [Cover art] By Dan Steinberg (Photog.) SEE ALSO: Dwellings; Fire and fire prevention; Wildfires PDF IMAGES
4-5	Letters/Department Letters On Every dollar is crucial, from June 2009: Note/correction On Mommies, you bastards, from August 2009: Letter By Jennifer Reimer On End of the road, from August 2009: Letter By Nelson Lichtenstein On Like I was Jesus, from August 2009: Letter By John Lederer On Kinds of killing, from August 2009: Letter By John Heinz PDF TEXT IMAGES
7-11	Notebook/Article The economics of occupation By Bernard Avishai SEE ALSO: Arab-Israeli conflict; Israel; Military occupation; Palestinian Arabs; West Bank PDF TEXT IMAGES
13	Harper's index/Department Harper's index PDF IMAGES
15-18	Readings/Article To each according to his greed By Slavoj Zizek SEE ALSO: Banks and banking; Capitalism; Capitalists and financiers; Class consciousness; Financial crises; Government policy; 2001-2009; Social conflict; Socialism PDF TEXT IMAGES
16	Readings/Article Any drama SEE ALSO: Camden; Homeless persons; Housing; Social values PDF TEXT IMAGES
17	Readings/Art/illustration Sprinkler city By Tom McGrath SEE ALSO: Suburban homes PDF IMAGES
18-19	Readings/Article Autism for two SEE ALSO: Families; Handbooks, manuals, etc.; Language; Terrorism; Terrorists; Trials (Terrorism) PDF TEXT IMAGES
19-20	Readings/Article Let's get physical By George Sodini SEE ALSO: Assault and battery; Diaries; Sodini, George; Membership; Murderers; Physical fitness centers; Pittsburgh PDF TEXT IMAGES
22-24	Readings/Collection Readings By Sally Mann (Photog.) PDF IMAGES Readings/Article Closer By C.D. Wright SEE ALSO: Men; Photographers' models; Physiology PDF TEXT IMAGES
23	Readings/Photography Hephaestus By Sally Mann (Photog.) SEE ALSO: Blacksmiths; Men; Physiology PDF IMAGES
24-28	Readings/Fiction Hygiene By Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, Keith Gessen (Trans.), and Anna Summers (Trans.) PDF TEXT IMAGES
25	Readings/Article The anxiety of influence SEE ALSO: Children's writings, American; Educational tests and measurements; Elementary school teachers; Plagiarism; School prose, American PDF TEXT IMAGES
26	Readings/Article I wasn't resisting SEE ALSO: Arrest for resisting an officer; Arrest (Police methods); Boise; Complaints against; Bammert, Cory; Harr, Deidra; Amidon, Gerald; McKean, Guy; Idaho; Police; Police brutality; Trials, litigation, etc.; Trials (Police misconduct) PDF TEXT IMAGES
27	Readings/Photography Untitled, distant steam vents, Yellowstone By Victoria Sambunaris (Photog.) SEE ALSO: Geysers; Yellowstone National Park PDF IMAGES
31-45	Article Too big to burn: AIG plays God in a man-made firestorm By McKenzie Funk SEE ALSO: Career as AIG fire chief; Career as CEO of American International Group, Inc.; Construction industry; Dwellings; False personation; Fire and fire prevention; Fire prevention; Los Angeles; Greenberg, Maurice R.; Barbon, Nicholas; Privatization; DiGiovanna, Sam; Views on free-market economics; Wildfires PDF TEXT IMAGES
47-54	Article Tokeville: On the frontiers of federalism and dope By Gideon Lewis-Kraus SEE ALSO: Control; Marijuana; Postmasters; Therapeutic use; Washington PDF TEXT IMAGES
55-63	Article Disaster aversion: The quest to control hurricanes By Rivka Galchen SEE ALSO: Biography; Rosenfeld, Daniel; Emanuel, Kerry A.; Meteorology; Galchen, Rivka; Hoffman, Ross N.; Views on hurricane modification; Weather control PDF TEXT IMAGES
64-66	Fiction The dreaming jaw, the salivating ear By Jonathan Lethem PDF TEXT IMAGES
67-68	New books/Review New Books By Benjamin Moser SEE ALSO: Stasiuk, Andrzej; Aryashura; Criticism and interpretation; Wiesel, Elie; Slavet, Eliza; Fado (Book); Garland of the Buddha's past lives (Book); Meiland, Justin; Racial fever: Freud and the Jewish question (Book); Rashi (Book); Freud, Sigmund PDF TEXT IMAGES
69-73	Review A man of extinction: J.G. Ballard's distinctive cast of mind By Nicholas Fraser SEE ALSO: Ballard, J.G.; Novelists, English; Pictorial works; The complete stories of J.G. Ballard (Book) PDF TEXT IMAGES
73-78	Review All too human: The rise and fall of Henry Fairlie By Geoffrey Wheatcroft SEE ALSO: Bite the hand that feeds you: essays and provocations (Book); Fairlie, Henry; McCarter, Jeremy; Pictorial works PDF TEXT IMAGES
79	Puzzle/Department Letter collection By Richard Maltby PDF IMAGES
80	Findings/Article Findings By Rafil Kroll-Zaidi PDF TEXT IMAGES

WEEKLY REVIEW
WASHINGTON BABYLON
NO COMMENT
MR. FISH
LINKS
PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Weekly Review By Sam Stark	Oct 6
Weekly Review By Margaret Cordi	Oct 13
Weekly Review By Theodore Ross	Oct 20
Weekly Review By Paul Ford	Oct 27

By Ken Silverstein

War: Bipartisanship Republicans can get behind	8:12 AM Oct 1
Senator Max Baucus is on PhRMA	8:18 AM Oct 1
Obama Helps Oversee Vote Fraud in Afghanistan	8:34 AM Oct 5
Stiffed by Obama: Dalai Lama told to take a number	9:30 AM Oct 5
Six Questions for Joe Berlinger about “Crude”	12:48 PM Oct 6
You Can Fool Some of the People…	10:29 AM Oct 9
Large Insect Nearly Ends World Before 2012	11:28 AM Oct 12
Israeli Justice: Better never than late	11:30 AM Oct 12
Repression at Harvard: First they came for the scrambled eggs	11:30 AM Oct 12
The Best and the Brightest, Redux	8:20 AM Oct 14
The Wall Street Way	8:21 AM Oct 14
Obama’s Gourmet Kitchen Cabinet	12:47 PM Oct 14
Newspapers: Not dead yet	8:46 AM Oct 15
Not Much of a Sting	9:01 AM Oct 15
Hasn’t Polanski Suffered Enough?	10:47 AM Oct 15
Too late to defeat the Taliban?	1:02 PM Oct 15
Revealed: Bart Simpson behind helium balloon hoax	8:27 AM Oct 16
How Obama Cracks Down on Lobbyist Influence	4:08 PM Oct 16
Obama and the “Loony Left”	10:13 AM Oct 20
How Awful Is Richard Cohen: Let us count the ways	10:22 AM Oct 20
Oink: News from the federal pork investigation	11:36 AM Oct 20
They’re Back: Hill veterans back to lobby for drugmakers	9:58 AM Oct 21
Correction: Pork funneled to library, not museum	10:04 AM Oct 21
The Washington Bubble and the Political Wink	10:11 AM Oct 21
A Foreign Service Guide to the World’s Hot Spots and Hellholes	9:18 AM Oct 23
Weekend Read: Confessions of a G.O.P. hit man	12:43 PM Oct 23
Sri Lanka, Lobbyists and War Crimes	12:49 PM Oct 23
Visclosky’s New Record in Pork: From incorporation to earmark in 16 days	8:50 AM Oct 26
Special Alert: Stop what you’re doing and drink your bong water!	10:36 AM Oct 26
The Ticking Clock of Corruption	8:35 AM Oct 27
The Latest Washington Indictment	12:41 PM Oct 27
An Object Lesson in Governmental Failure: Derivatives reform	10:54 AM Oct 29
Paying the Price for Democracy in Afghanistan	10:56 AM Oct 29
High-level Reporting in Iraq	10:58 AM Oct 29
Six Questions for Desmond Travers on the Goldstone Report	4:56 PM Oct 29
Members of Congress: Corrupt and incompetent is no way to go through life	8:52 AM Oct 30
The Wild West: Livingstone for governor	9:53 AM Oct 30

By Scott Horton

The Trouble with Smart Advisors	9:43 AM Oct 1
The Generals vs. The Cheneys	2:06 PM Oct 1
The Worst of the Worst?	1:55 PM Oct 2
The Case of Fouad al-Rabiah: Airline manager or terrorist?	4:01 PM Oct 2
Forster–What the Great Minds Tell Us in Sad Times	8:01 AM Oct 3
Arnold’s To a Friend	5:42 AM Oct 4
From the Department of Self-Parody	11:21 AM Oct 5
The People v. The Torture Team: Six Questions for Law & Order’s René Balcer	2:46 PM Oct 5
Philosophers Rumble Over Van Gogh’s Shoes	3:03 PM Oct 5
Enlighten Us, Please	9:38 AM Oct 6
U.S. Most Admired Nation, Poll Finds	10:59 AM Oct 7
The Media and the National Security State	11:20 AM Oct 7
Twittering in the First Degree	2:35 PM Oct 7
When Fact Is Stranger Than Fiction	2:53 PM Oct 8
Justice Department Officials Refuse to Testify Under Oath	3:35 PM Oct 8
Executive Immunity Suffers Another Setback	3:54 PM Oct 8
Rick Perry’s Witch Trials	9:47 AM Oct 9
Is the Phone Company Part of the Government?	3:21 PM Oct 9
Voltaire Defines Patriotism	6:28 AM Oct 10
Autreau’s Platée	10:52 AM Oct 11
Remembering Carl von Ossietzky	9:40 AM Oct 12
Power Shortage for the National Security State	3:23 PM Oct 12
Inside Rumsfeld’s Pentagon	10:52 AM Oct 13
The Great Depression Through Fresh Eyes	2:07 PM Oct 13
Keep America Safe	9:45 AM Oct 14
DOJ Presses Ahead to Keep Cheney’s Secrets	2:44 PM Oct 14
The Incredible, Shrinking Chamber of Commerce	8:42 AM Oct 15
Bybee Avoids Judicial Complaint	9:43 AM Oct 15
Delusional in Dixie	4:51 PM Oct 16
Thirty Republican Senators Oppose Corporate Accountability for Gang Rape	3:12 PM Oct 16
I am black and beautiful	6:39 AM Oct 17
Hillel’s Silver Rule	6:22 AM Oct 18
CIA Efforts to Keep Torture Secrets Suffer a Key Loss in British High Court	10:05 AM Oct 19
Inside Jung’s Red Book: Six Questions for Sonu Shamdasani	3:46 PM Oct 19
Is WaPo Opinion Section the Worst in America?	9:20 AM Oct 20
Putting Political Prosecutions on the Defensive	11:54 AM Oct 22
Rethinking the Drone Wars	9:25 AM Oct 23
Copernicus—Faith and Scientific Inquiry	5:04 AM Oct 24
Blake—To Autumn	12:10 AM Oct 25
Is that “Keep America Safe”—or “Keep Cheney Out of Jail”?	10:02 AM Oct 26
A Trip to Chon Tash	1:30 PM Oct 26
Details of CIA Snatch Effort Unfold in a Canadian Courtroom	11:00 AM Oct 27
Chicago Prosecutors Go to War With the Press	2:37 PM Oct 27
Public Event: Judgment on Guantánamo	3:19 PM Oct 27
Lieberman Shills for the Healthcare Industry	9:07 AM Oct 28
Stripping Bare the Body—Six Questions for Mark Danner	3:10 PM Oct 28
CIA Misled Congress, Schakowsky Charges	9:05 AM Oct 29
The White House v. Fox News	9:01 AM Oct 30
Hillary’s Tough Love for Pakistan	2:36 PM Oct 30
Plato—Leontius’s Corpses	7:11 AM Oct 31

By Mr. Fish

A Cartoon	12:21 PM Oct 2
A Cartoon	4:19 PM Oct 9
A Cartoon	10:13 AM Oct 11
A Cartoon	10:18 AM Oct 16
A Cartoon	11:23 AM Oct 23
A Cartoon	3:35 PM Oct 30

Links	3:21 PM Oct 1
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Could This “Smart” President Be Really, Really Stupid?

By John R. MacArthur

8:17 AM

Oct 14

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December 2009

THE GENERAL ELECTRIC SUPERFRAUD
Why the Hudson River Will Never Run Clean
By David Gargill

THE MASTER OF SPIN BOLDAK
Undercover with Afghanistan’s Drug-Trafficking Border Police
By Matthieu Aikins

MERMAID FEVER
A story by Steven Millhauser

UNDERSTANDING OBAMACARE
By Luke Mitchell

Also: Dave Hickey and Wendell Berry

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