Jon Wiener weighs in on UCLA's Dirty Thirty, Alexander Cockburn takes aim at the New York Times's obsession with child prostitution and Stuart Klawans reviews Why We Fight, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World and Tristram Shandy.
Sam Graham-Felsen : Since the 1970s Republican conservatives have been the dominant political force on American campuses. But groups like Campus Progress, better groomed and better organized than their predecessors, are pushing back.
Jeff Faux : American business elites in Davos for the World Economic Forum are far more interested in global markets and corporate investors than they are in ordinary Americans' needs.
: Democrats should follow Al Gore's lead and challenge the Bush Administration's ongoing surveillance of American citizens. If this illegal action goes unchecked, our liberties will be dramatically impaired.
Richard Falk : The confrontation with Iran is a wakeup call to states that possess nuclear weapons: In a world of nuclear apartheid, multilateral disarmament is the only course of action that can succeed.
Matthew Flamm
:
James Frey's faux memoir exposes corporate publishing as an
industry so starved for bestsellers that it is unable to protect
itself from fraud.
Jon Wiener : Negative media coverage has succeeded in undermining support among prominent conservatives for a UCLA alumni group that paid students to target and expose left-leaning faculty.
David Schiff
:
A new biography examines the life and work of composer and
theorist Olivier Messiaen, who moved French music out of the cafes and
back to the cathedrals.
Roberto González Echevarría : Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío, all but unknown in English-speaking countries, had a global impact on literature, ushering Spanish poetry into the modern era.
Stuart Klawans : Reviews of Why We Fight, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World and Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story.
Calvin Trillin
:
With plenty of friends on K Street, Roy Blunt is not as forthright
as his name suggests.
Alexander Cockburn
:
Nicholas Kristof produces a steady stream of titillating reports on
child prostitution in the Third World. Better to focus on draconian
economic reforms driven by the World Bank that create the conditions
for prostitution.
Katha Pollitt : As prochoicers seek to reframe their arguments, injecting more moralism into the antiabortion debate will not keep abortion legal and accessible.
Gary Younge : Socially conservative black churches may be ripe for exploitation by the Christian right on gay marriage. But that's only part of the story.
Jeff Chester : Telephone and cable companies are crafting strategies to transform the free and open Internet to a privately run service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online. Can we stop them?
Jon Wiener : Amos Oz reflects on the political and diplomatic implications of Hamas's recent victory and its impact on opportunities for peace.
Robert Scheer : As the Enron trial unfolds, it's depressing that Phil and Wendy Gramm, the company's political enablers, are going unpunished and uncriticized.
Esther Kaplan : Relishing Samuel Alito's impact on the Supreme Court, pro-life bloggers are already laying strategies to win hearts and minds in a transformed legal landscape.
Nicholas von Hoffman : The Center for Science in the Public Interest is suing Kellogg and Viacom for using cartoon characters to brainwash kids into consuming mass amounts of junk food.
Mark Winston Griffith : New federal guidelines for banks and credit card companies that boost minimum monthly payments have wreaked havoc on American families struggling to pay their bills and avoid bankruptcy.
Tom Hayden : The inauguration of Evo Morales as Bolivia's first indigenous president opens a new era for Bolivia and a turning point for political, diplomactic and trade issues in the Americas.
Billy Sothern : Storm-whipped New Orleanians returned to the city to join a joyful second-line parade, a revival of music that made real the triumph of the city's spirit.
Cover by Gene Case & Stephen Kling/Avenging Angels
