Archive: Dec 2009

Last week, a twenty-seven-year-old murder mystery was solved, grabbing headlines around the world. Former Chilean President Eduardo Frei died under mysterious circumstances in 1982, at the age of 71, as…

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Bernard DeVoto on the Sad State of Paring Knives (as featured in Julie & Julia) From “The Paring Knife at the Crossroads,” by Bernard DeVoto in the April 1939 Harper’s…

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Jack Bauer and the Cheney Doctrine meet a mysterious bearded man caught delivering suspicious packages:…

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I have an article in the January issue of Harper’s called “Shopping for sweat: The human cost of a two-dollar T-shirt,” which looks at the apparel industry in Cambodia. That…

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Yesterday I discussed the the Jeppesen DataPlan case involving the extraordinary renditions program. As that case was being argued, Justice Department lawyers also appeared before the chief district court judge…

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Observers of financial services saw unbelievable prosperity and apparently immense value added. Yet two years later the whole industry was bankrupt. A simple reason underlies this: any industry that pays…

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The Holder Justice Department continued its quest to keep the Bush Administration’s program of extraordinary renditions out of the public eye with oral argument before the en banc Ninth Circuit…

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Tim Fernholz of the American Prospect wrote me an email complaining about an item I wrote yesterday, which questioned the motives of those attacking Matt Taibbi’s piece on Obama in…

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The Salt Lake City Tribune tells the tale of Helen Rappaport, a Utah woman who went shopping at Costco shortly before a Sarah Palin book signing event at the store:…

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I mentioned in a post yesterday that liberal bloggers tend to exempt President Obama for blame over the failures of his administration. Some times it’s said that Obama inherited a…

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John R. MacArthur is publisher of Harper’s Magazine and author of the book You Can’t Be President: The Outrageous Barriers to Democracy in America. This column originally appeared in the…

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Thank God for partisan gerrymandering. I owe my many terms as your member of Congress to the fact that our beloved district is rigged. After the 2000 Census, members of…

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I was in Europe meeting with a crowd of academics and NATO officers when Barack Obama delivered his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in Oslo. I had the impression that his…

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Unemployment stands at over 10 percent, meaningful health care reform is collapsing, and the banks have reaped huge profits thanks to the Obama administration’s policies. Naturally, liberal bloggers are upset–but…

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From the Daily Mail: Is there any way this country can officially disown Anthony Blair? Those of us who were never fooled by him now have to watch as he…

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From the New York Times: President Obama didn’t exactly look thrilled as he stared at the Polycom speakerphone in front of him. “Well, I appreciate you guys calling in,” he…

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President Barack Obama accepted his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo and used his acceptance speech to justify American military dominance, imperial conquest, and the ethical value of violence. The United…

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Rivka Galchen on Hurricanes From “Disaster Aversion: The quest to control hurricanes” in the October 2009 Harper’s Magazine. Like many a girl with a long-dead father, I refer to myself…

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The mounting disclosures surrounding Blackwater and its extralegal relationships with the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command demonstrate ably the privileged role of private security contractors in…

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From ProPublica: During the turbulent days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, New Orleans police shot 10 civilians, at least four of whom died, according to interviews and internal police documents.…

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If you missed this last week, here’s Robert Reich’s take: The public option is dead, killed by a handful of senators from small states who are mostly bought off by…

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Sometimes one reads or hears about a crisis of rational thought—that rational thought is impotent when confronted by the complexity and irrationality of human life. I am convinced that such…

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Per me si va ne la città dolente, per me si va ne l’etterno dolore, per me si va tra la perduta gente. Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore: fecemi…

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L’inferno dei viventi non è qualcosa che sarà; se ce n’è uno, è quello che è già qui, l’inferno che abitiamo tutti i giorni, che formiamo stando insieme. Due modi…

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From “The Dreaming Jaw, The Salivating Ear,” by Jonathan Lethem From “The Dreaming Jaw, The Salivating Ear,” in the October 2009 Harper’s Magazine. I do not think I shall visit…

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James Risen and Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times continue the disclosures about Blackwater Worldwide, now called Xe Services: Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of…

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McKenzie Funk with AIG’s Private Firefighting Brigade From “Too Big to Burn: AIG plays God in a man-made firestorm,” in the October 2009 Harper’s Magazine. PRIVATEERS The first light we…

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