Right-wingers like to paint liberals as a bunch of humorless, whining ninnies, and the hysterical reaction to the New Yorker‘s cover on Barack Obama proves there is more than a…
Liesl Schillinger, in a review this weekend of Rivka Galchen’s first novel, Atmospheric Disturbances (FSG), mentioned a kindredness between Galchen’s narrator, a psychiatrist named Leo Liebenstein, and “the tormented narrator…
In a series of gripping articles, Jane Mayer has chronicled the Bush Administration’s grim and furtive dealings with torture and has exposed both the individuals within the administration who “made…
Make sure to read through all of the documents posted by the Sunday Times relating to the journalism sting it pulled on lobbyist Stephen Payne, which I linked to yesterday.…
Two years ago, I wrote a story about Professor S. Frederick Starr of Johns Hopkins University’s Central Asia Caucasus Institute and his indecently close ties to dictators in that region.…
Arvind Ganesan has been at Human Rights Watch as the Director of the Business and Human Rights Program and is involved in research, advocacy, and policy development. His program has…
Mais ce qui appartient essentiellement et uniquement à la raison, et ce qui en consequence est uniforme chez tous les peuples, ce sont les devoirs dont nous sommes tenus envers…
The Sunday Times carried out an undercover sting, in which lobbyist and former Bush administration official Stephen Payne thought he was meeting “Eric Dos,” a man seeking to arrange meetings…
Rien n’est beau que le vrai : le vrai seul est aimable ; Il doit régner partout, et même dans la fable : De toute fiction l’adroite fausseté Ne tend…
From Eli Lake: Of course, the Obama counterterrorism policy is still a work in progress. As his recent zigzags illustrate, he still hasn’t figured out his stance on some of…
From Jeff Stein at CQ: My friend said his patients described training with drugs and other mind-control techniques to perform the mission — then forget them, like the Manchurian Candidate.…
From Lisa de Moraes of The Washington Post: Blitzer stays up nights wondering whether Clinton will be introduced by her daughter, Chelsea, and when, if at all, her husband, former…
La corruption de chaque gouvernement commence presque toujours par celle des principes… Lorsque les principes du gouvernement sont une fois corrompus, les meilleures lois deviennent mauvaises, et se tournant contre…
Meaningful art—however long it might take—always reaches its audience. Writers or painters who work in obscurity and struggle to get an agent or gallery to give them a shot will,…
Max Blumenthal reports last week in The Nation on a hushed meeting convened on June 10 in the plush conference room of a Chicago law firm. The presumptive Democratic presidential…
From the New York Times: As news spread across the world of Iran’s provocative missile tests, so did an image of four missiles heading skyward in unison. Unfortunately, it appeared…
Soon after posting my recent articles about the large speaking fees commanded by top journalists and pundits, I was contacted by someone who had once hoped to book Newsweek’s Fareed…
In my most recent post, I wrote about Lamed Shapiro (1878–1948), a writer whose work was unknown to me before last week (and remains unknown to Wikipedia). Looking at a…
From ABC News: “Two U.S. lawmakers are pushing for a Nobel Peace Prize to go to a politician accused of taking bribes, abusing human rights, and profiting from widespread and…
Taxpayers for Common Sense has released a list of the “Top 10 Congressional Resolutions of the 110th Congress.” These include: —A resolution recognizing soil as an essential natural resource, and…
From Willamette Week: Former Oregon Republican Party chairman and one-time gubernatorial candidate Craig Berkman owes millions to some of Portland’s wealthiest investors—but that hasn’t stopped him from making generous political…
Northern Italy’s leading daily, La Stampa of Turin, reports on the “Unavoidable Rise of the Beautiful Gulnara,” on Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of Uzbekistan’s autocrat-for-life Islam Karimov. When daddy rules…
Less than a year ago, Steve LeVine, the chief foreign affairs writer for Business Week published The Oil and the Glory, a penetrating examination of the post-Soviet oil industry and…
The Washington Post reports that Laurie Coleman, wife of Republican Senator Norm Coleman, has invented a tool for hands-free hair drying called the “Blo & Go.”: Against the backdrop of…
Colombian military commandos infiltrated a settlement operated by the guerilla group FARC and freed 15 hostages, among them three U.S. contractors and the Colombian-French politician Ingrid Betancourt. President George W.…
A reader notes: It’s really convenient to have a Leadership PAC when the CEO of a company that’s recently reached a $4 million dollar settlement with the Justice Department for…
Good piece from the New York Review of Books: At a moment of serious challenge, battered by two wars, ballooning debt, and a faltering economy, the United States appears to…
How does one best write about horrible things? By “best” I mean how does one write truthfully about horrible things? By “horrible,” I mean any experience that, because of its…
I have already intimated to you the danger of Parties in the State… Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against…