Nation Topics - Cities | The Nation

This article reflects on a court decision in Brooklyn, New York stating that United States courts will not interfere with the torture of suspects in the "war on terror" despite previous court decisions to hold officials of other countries responsible for the torture of people in their own lands. The article suggests this is another example of American exceptionalism and cites the example of a man recently detained and interrogated at John F. Kennedy airport on his way home to Canada from Europe.

The article presents New York Representative Major Owens' views on education policy in the United States. The author suggests that eduction become the top federal budget priority. Statistics related to education spending are reviewed. The importance of a first-rate education system in the United States is discussed.

Reviews an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, featuring Fra Angelico, through January 29, 2006 in New York City.

The article reviews the exhibition "Egon Schiele: The Ronald S. Lauder and Serge Sabarsky Collections," at the Neue Galerie in New York City.

The article reviews four motion pictures, including "Munich," directed by Steven Spielberg, "Brokeback Mountain," starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger, "Match Point," directed by Woody Allen, and "King Kong," directed by Peter Jackson and starring Naomi Watts.

The article announces the winner of the 2005 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize given by the American Academy of Poets and "The Nation" to the most outstanding book of poems published in the United States by an American in 2005. The winner this year is Anne Winters, for her collection "The Displaced of Capital," inspired by New York. The article features excerpts from many of her poems.

The article lists various victories for progressive causes in 2005. Among them are electoral reform laws passed in Connecticut and Portland, Oregon. Laws banning discrimination against gays were passed or upheld in Maine and Topeka, Kansas. Iowa and Nebraska overturned laws that disenfranchised felons. California passed the Safe Cosmetics bill, requiring manufacturers to list harmful ingredients and the United Methodist Church and the Union for Reform Judaism called for troop withdrawal.

The article focuses on U.S. Army Special Charles Graner Jr., who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for crimes of assault, conspiracy, dereliction and committing indecent acts while at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq. The question of whether or not Graner was under orders from his superiors to conduct acts of torture is discussed. It is the author's view that prison guards have naturally high stress levels and hair-trigger tempers. It is suggested that there was evidence that Graner was capable of vicious acts even before he was stationed at Abu Ghraib.

The article looks at the role of medical professionals in coercive interrogations conducted by the United States military. According to the author, various military psychologists and psychiatrists were on duty at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq and sat in on interrogations of detainees in Guantánamo Bay. It is suggested that aggressive interrogations are based on models that seek to employ extreme levels of stress in order to erode established patterns of behavior.

The article reviews the book "New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan," by Jill Lepore.