Spymaster Disaster
: The CIA is in need of reinvention and a director who can oversee the transformation. Gen. Michael Hayden is not the right man for the job.
Patricia J. Williams addresses the flap over "The Star Spangled Banner," Peter Plagens considers painter Thomas Eakins, Daphne Eviatar reports from Bolivia on Evo Morales.
Editorials & Comment
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For a Sane Energy Policy
: There is no piecemeal solution to the gas price crisis. It's a systemic sickness that goes to the root of the American way of life: big cars, big oil, big business and sprawl.
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The New Kerry
Ari Berman : After years of vacillation, John Kerry has gone bold, finding his voice on Iraq and national security and thinking hard about running for President. But his future cannot be separated from his past.
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Bolivia Steps on the Gas
Daphne Eviatar : Bolivian President Evo Morales is taking a risk in nationalizing his country's natural gas fields--but it reflects growing discontent across Latin America over unfair deals with banks and private oil companies.
Reviews
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book
Laughter in the Dark
John Banville : New translations of novels by exiled authors Roberto Bolaño and Ismail Kadare explore the bloody crossroads where literature, politics and self-absorption converge.
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book
Dead Man
William Deresiewicz : Philip Roth's Everyman is a contemporary morality play that explores the author's obsessions with health and virility, ecstasy and betrayal, and the certainty and solitude of death.
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Love in the Ruins
Alice Kaplan : Irène Némirovsky's Suite Française, published fifty-two years after she perished at Auschwitz, offers an unsparing critique of France under the German occupation and raises questions about the compromises she made.
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The Composer's Craft
Paul Mitchinson : In Stravinsky, the Second Exile, Stephen Walsh chronicles the composer's late years, disentangling the realities of his life and work from the published assertions of a self-serving assistant.
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For Reasons of State
Lynn Hunt : Two new books on the French Revolution examine Robespierre's role in advocating terror as an instrument of government, raising compelling questions about state-sponsored terror in our own time.
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The Body Artist
Peter Plagens : Two biographies of Thomas Eakins reveal the art world's attitudes about the painter's bodily obsessions: Was he a curious innocent, a brilliant anatomist or a dirty old man?
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High Culture, Low Politics
Andreas Huyssen : In The Seduction of Culture in German History, Wolf Lepenies reflects on shifting manifestations of German philosophy and culture and considers the lessons they offer for Europe and the United States.
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The Sheltering Shy
David Thomson : Satirist Alan Bennett's Untold Stories is a packed suitcase of a book by one of Britain's finest writers.
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Dining With Devils
Fatin Abbas : Wole Soyinka's You Must Set Forth at Dawn is a captivating memoir of the political and cultural dilemmas the author and activist encountered, and a compelling chronicle of Nigeria's turbulent past.
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book
The Book of Daniels
Christine Smallwood : Michel Houellebecq's The Possibility of an Island has at last landed on American shores, along with Pierre Mérot's Mammals.
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book
Zones of Disengagement
Richard Vinen : In Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain, Stefan Collini encapsulates the paradoxes that dominate discussion of the English cultural landscape.
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Woman Warrior
Reza Aslan : Iran Awakening is the memoir of Shirin Ebadi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle to hold Iran's clerical regime accountable for its gross human rights violations.
Columns
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DEADLINE POET
The Great Decider
Calvin Trillin : A doo-wop ditty, performed by the decider-in-chief.
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DIARY OF A MAD LAW PROFESSOR
Yumi, Yumi, Yumi
Patricia J. Williams : Why is it that We the People are so obsessed with whether singing our national anthem in Spanish is an affront to our union?
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THE LIBERAL MEDIA
Three Liberal Lives
Eric Alterman : In praise of three giants of American liberalism: John Kenneth Galbraith, Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg and the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr.
Web
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Inequality Counts
Leon Friedman : The relentless reduction of taxes on the wealthy has created a profound inequality between the very rich and the bottom half of American society, affecting every aspect of daily life.
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Hawks for Withdrawal
Tom Hayden : As centrist Democrats slowly but surely unite around a plan for military withdrawal from Iraq that is heavy with hawkish reasoning, what are the implications for the peace movement?
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TruthDig
What Bush Got Right
Robert Scheer : Bush has taken a sensible stance on immigration, but his plummeting credibility will prevent people from embracing his proposals.
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Moral Compass
Science and the First Amendment
Patricia J. Princehouse : If you can lie about science and get away with it, you can lie about anything. That's why we must say no to ideological zealots who are waging war against science and against democracy itself.
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Using Soccer to Kick Iran
Dave Zirin & John Cox : To World Cup aficionados, soccer is a beautiful game, but to ideologues in the United States and Europe, it's a convenient political weapon against Iran's nuclear ambitions. Talk about spoilsports.
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Howl
This Bud's Not for the World Cup
Nicholas von Hoffman : Soccer fans in Germany struck a blow against US corporate blandness by turning up their noses at the notion that Budweiser is the official beer of the games.
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Anthems of Outrage
Kevin McCarthy : The crankily contrarian Neil Young has a knack for making music that reflects the times. Living With War, his blistering attack on the Bush presidency, marks the turning of a cultural tide.
Cover design by Gene Case & Stephen Kling/Avenging Angels
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