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Archive: Nov 2007

The Missing IG Report on Maher Arar

Of all the Bush Administration’s many perversions of the justice system, there is something particularly distressing about the case of Maher Arar. A Canadian software engineer, he was changing planes…

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Bridge to Nowhere

Friends regularly ask me: is our nation on the road to becoming an authoritarian state? In a vibrant democracy that wants to keep its bearings, that’s a useful question to…

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Milosz’s ‘Faithful Mother Tongue’

Faithful mother tongue, I have been serving you. Every night, I used to set before you little bowls of colors so you could have your birch, your cricket, your finch…

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Stendhal on Literature and Politics

La politique dans une œuvre littéraire c’est un coup de pistolet au milieu d’un concert–quelque chose de grossier et auquel pourtant il n’est pas possible de refuser son attention. Politics…

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Mary Jo White, for the Defense

Among the witnesses appearing for Michael Mukasey at his confirmation hearing was former New York U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White. She served both Presidents Clinton and Bush and is generally…

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The Cookie Crumbles

The role of the inspector general is to be an independent guard against corruption inside of the agency he serves. The inspector general should observe ethical standards higher than the…

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Niebuhr on the Ethical Use of Power

We were not only innocent a half century ago with the innocency of irresponsibility; but we had a religious version of our national destiny which interpreted the meaning of our…

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Getting Closer to the Truth about the Blackwater Incident

On September 16, a Blackwater USA security unit returning to base after having dropped off the person it was guarding opened fire at Nisour Square, near Baghdad’s Green Zone. When…

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From Akhmatova’s ‘Requiem’

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Sophocles’s Momento Mori

Let every man in mankind’s frailty Consider his last day; and let none Presume on his good fortune until he find Life, at his death, a memory without pain. —Sophocles…

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About Karl’s Emails. . .

The Associated Press’s invaluable Pete Yost reports that a federal court has now issued a formal order requiring the White House to preserve a controversial group of emails. a federal…

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Is the Roll-Out Sputtering?

Tracking the roll-out for the Iran war through the last week, we have seen some high profile developments. We learned that the pressure is on military intelligence officers and other…

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Freud on the Question of Humankind’s Fate

Die Schicksalsfrage der Menschenart scheint mir zu sein, ob und in welchem Maße es ihrer Kulturentwicklung gelingen wird, der Störung des Zusammenlebens durch den menschlichen Aggressions- und Selbstvernichtungstrieb Herr zu…

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Weekly Review

Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf said that the country will hold parliamentary elections in January but refused to give a date for ending his emergency decree or stepping down as…

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Veterans Day 2007

In America, virtually all holidays tend quickly to disintegrate into special sale opportunities for the shopping malls. And Veterans Day in particular seems to be on a drift away from…

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What Does Putin Want?

The two presidents—George W. Bush and Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin—make a remarkable study, side-by-side, and so do the nations they embody. There is much similarity between them. Andrei Sakharov, back in…

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Fire Brian Roehrkasse

Here’s some cogent advice for Michael Mukasey. If he wants to demonstrate that he’s determined to do something to rebuild the reputation of the Department of Justice, he should start…

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Whitman’s ‘Dirge for Two Veterans’

The last sunbeam Lightly falls from the finish’d Sabbath, On the pavement here, and there beyond it is looking, Down a new-made double grave. Lo, the moon ascending, Up from…

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Eisenhower on the Opportunity Cost of Defense Spending

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold…

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Hughes’s ‘The Colored Soldier’

My brother died in France—but I came back. We were just two colored boys, brown and black, Who joined up to fight for the U.S.A. When the Nation called us…

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Take a Pilgrimage

Alfonso X, el Sabio, Cantigas de Santa María (1256-84), Camerata Mediterranea and l’Orchestre Andalou de Fès, Erato CD #3984-25498-2 or Warner Classics as Apex CD 2564 61924-2 The harvest has…

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Alfonso el Sabio on the Cosmology

Si hubiera estado presente en la Creación, habría dado algunas indicaciones útiles. Had I been present at the Creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering…

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Norman Mailer, Remembered

Norman Mailer, lion of the American literary scene, dead today of kidney failure. Mailer was a frequent contributor to Harper’s. He marked a generation with writings that demonstrate wit and…

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Public Presentation

Iraq, Torture and the Crisis in American Leadership As the nomination of Michael Mukasey demonstrated, the issue of torture remains on Washington’s front burner. The Bush Administration continues to assert…

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Siegelman Updates

The Curious Case of the Missing Transcript As we have often noted, absolutely nothing about the Siegelman case is “normal.” Now we learn from the Associated Press notes that Governor…

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Hofmannsthal’s ‘Manche freilich. . .’

Manche freilich müssen drunten sterben wo die schweren Ruder der Schiffe streifen, andere wohnen bei dem Steuer droben, kennen Vogelflug und die Länder der Sterne. Manche liegen mit immer schweren…

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Sappho’s Exhortation to Learning

A handsome man guards his image a while; a good man will one day take on beauty. —Sappho (?????), The Exhortation to Learning (ca. 590 BCE)(W. Barnstone, transl.)…

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Menendez Case Heats Up

I recently noted here the investigation involving Democratic Senator Bob Menendez and his former staffer (and, based on published accounts and recollections from informed sources, paramour) Kay LiCausi. The feds…

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