Archive: 2008

The Labor Department reported that 533,000 people lost their jobs in November, a further 621,000 people were forced into part-time employment, and 422,000 more simply dropped out of the labor…

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A friend of mine is a bartender, and I hadn’t seen him for a while, until last week. It’s fun to watch him bring over two decades of experience to…

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Today Glenn Greenwald at Salon does a good, but still not exhaustive, job of cataloging all of the reporters who have, in nearly identical language, rushed to the defense of…

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O Mittag, der mit heißem Heu mein Hirn zu Wiese, flachem Land und Hirten schwächt, daß ich hinrinne und, den Arm im Bach, den Mohn an meine Schläfe ziehe —…

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In 1798, the Federalists decided to silence an outspoken Democratic Congressman, Matthew Lyon, by prosecuting and imprisoning him. But the effort backfired. Lyon was reelected from prison, and in 1800…

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Mary Ellen O’Connell, a law professor at Notre Dame University, is a prominent voice in the legal community on international law and the law of war, and the author of…

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Allland syndt yetz voll heylger geschrifft Vnd was der selen heyl an trifft / Bibel / der heylgen vaetter ler Vnd ander der glich b?cher mer / In maß /…

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Unlike painting, sculpture, dance, drama and music criticism, literary criticism is produced in the same medium as the one to which it responds. This is a complicating advantage: “complicating” because…

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Harper’s cover story in the forthcoming January 2009 edition will carry a compelling account of the fiscal irresponsibility of the Bush Administration, entitled “The $10 Trillion Hangover.” It’s co-written by…

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Back in mid-September I noted here that a number of members of congress had accepted hefty campaign contributions from the American subsidiary of Swiss giant UBS. That seemed odd since…

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David Sirota apparently won’t be supporting Chris Matthews if the latter decides to run for the senate in Pennsylvania: Having grown up outside of Philadelphia, I just want to say…

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The latest news on Congressman Charles Rangel’s murky finances, from Politico: Between 2004 and 2007, Rep. Charles Rangel steered nearly $80,000 in campaign cash to an Internet company run by…

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According the the AP, a group of prominent retired generals and admirals met with President-elect Obama’s transition team yesterday to demand that he act immediately to put an end to…

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On Wednesday, the New York Times had another psychotic episode. The paper’s editorial page has been an eloquent voice on the national stage regarding torture. But often enough the news…

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Suki Kim’s article “A Really Big Show: The New York Philharmonic’s fantasia in North Korea” appears in the December Harper’s Magazine. Kim is the author of the novel The Interpreter…

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Just a reminder that the incomparable Scott Horton will be joined by a team of legal experts tomorrow at New York University, for a panel called “After Torture: A Harper’s…

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That was fast. “I’ll make oil companies like Exxon pay a tax on their windfall profits, and we’ll use the money to help families pay for their skyrocketing energy costs…

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Most films are instantly forgotten. I don’t mean this in the gently figurative sense—that most films are not remembered. I mean that most films, in their onrush of vague and…

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India has a long history of communal violence, but events rarely manage to attract the attention of the world’s press. The attacks in Mumbai, however, have been prominent because Americans,…

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The recent New York Times‘s story on the tangled business interests of General Barry McCaffrey has resulted in heavy criticism of NBC News, where McCaffrey serves as a military analyst…

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According to a special operations intelligence officer, the answer is a number north of three thousand–not counting the tens of thousands maimed or seriously wounded, the destruction of the nation’s…

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An American cattleman. Gunmen terrorizedMumbai for more than two days, killing at least 180 people during attacks at a train station, a restaurant, two five-star hotels, a movie theater, a…

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Andrew Sullivan writing in the Times (London) puts the spotlight on what may be the first crisis of the Obama Administration, and in any event is the first to draw…

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The International Center for Transitional Justice has spent more than a year looking into how the United States can restore its good name on the international stage. Here’s the diagnosis:…

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I posted an item earlier today speculating on the names of the five members of congress that Duke Cunningham briber Mitch Wade has discussed with federal investigators. Seth Hettena, who…

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From Barry Lynn, a regular Harper’s contributor, at the Detroit Free Press: Viewed over the long haul, the all but complete bankrupting of the Big Three is a stunning event.…

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A post-election story last month from Bloomberg identified health insurer UnitedHealth Group as a likely winner under the Obama administration. The company would “get more customers, including some they now…

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