O goodness infinite, goodness immense! That all this good of evil shall produce, And evil turn to good; more wonderful Then that which by creation first brought forth Light out…
Cura cum fluvium transiret, videt cretosum lutum sustulitque cogitabunda atque cœpit fingere. Dum deliberat quid iam fecisset, Jovis intervenit. Rogat eum Cura ut det illi spiritum, et facile impetrat. Cui…
This evening Harper’s legal affairs contributor Scott Horton discusses the first court-martial case commenced against a civilian contractor, filed by the Marine Corps in Iraq on March 27, and the…
“It would be difficult to identify a President who, facing major international and domestic crises, has failed in both as clearly as President Bush,” concluded one respondent. “His domestic policies,”…
I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. . . I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not…
Today, The Nation’s Karen Houppert reports on a gruesome rape case out of Iraq. The victim is a young American woman given the pseudonym “Lisa Smith.” It was an early…
La chair est triste, hélas! et j’ai lu tous les livres. Fuir! là-bas fuir! Je sens que des oiseaux sont ivres D’être parmi l’écume inconnue et les cieux! Rien, ni…
Les petits esprits ont besoin de despotisme pour le jeu de leurs nerfs, comme les grandes âmes ont soif d’égalité pour l’action du cœur. Or les êtres étroits s’étendent aussi…
The New York Times today features a long report in which U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker constructs a timeline with an important lesson for the world: the failure of…
As I noted in “Vote Machine,” one simmering scandal inside of the Justice Department relates to the consistent carefully schemed effort to force career DOJ employees out to make way…
Harvard law professor Noah Feldman has written extensively on law and religion issues, and with U.S. government sponsorship he played a significant role in the preparation of the Iraqi constitution.…
Der erste Tote ist es, der alle mit dem Gefühl der Bedrohtheit ansteckt. Die Bedeutung dieses ersten Toten für die Entfachung von Kriegen kann gar nicht überschätzt werden. Machthaber, die…
Video from the 150th Anniversary celebration of Harper’s Magazine. Introductory remarks by Robert Polito, John R. MacArthur, and Lewis H. Lapham. Remarks by Annie Dillard, Readings by David Foster Wallace,…
Yesterday the public finally got to see the full text of an infamous Department of Justice memorandum from March 2003 designed to authorize torture. I will have some more comments…
Fair Daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon; As yet the early-rising sun Has not attain’d his noon. Stay, stay, Until the hasting day Has run But…
Quæ quoniam rerum naturam sola gubernas Nec sine te quicquam dias in luminis oras Exoritur neque fit lætum neque amabile quicquam, Te sociam studeo scribendis versibus esse Quos ego de…
As my friend John Barrett reminds me, on this day in 1940, Robert H. Jackson, perhaps the nation’s greatest attorney general, gave one of his most important speeches. Jackson had…
Is the Justice Department the single most corrupt agency on the Washington horizon? True, when it comes to the pettiest forms of corruption, such as the corruptly influenced award of…
Unos principios de crédito sirven de despertar la curiosidad, no de empeñar el objecto. Mejor sale quando la realidad excede al concepto y es más de lo que se creyó.…
Caught in the Web, 1860. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered an offensive against the Mahdi Army, a large Shia militia allied with cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, in the oil-rich southern…