Why It’s Impossible to Indict a Cop Why It’s Impossible to Indict a Cop
It’s not just Ferguson—here’s how the system protects police.
Nov 25, 2014 / Chase Madar
Plugged Into the Socket of Life Plugged Into the Socket of Life
Behind Richard Pryor’s jokes and barbs was a man yearning to be free.
Nov 25, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Scott Saul
The Osprey The Osprey
or sea-eagle, what the guidebook says is white, grayish brown, and “possessed of weak eye- masks” in its non-migratory island instance, is blue. Blue, riding thermal bands so low over the water it picks up the water’s color, reticulate tarsi tipping the light crests; and picks up one of the silver fish cutting the surface there, so the fish is blue, too, flapping-gone- slack in the grasp of its claws—as only the owl shares an outer reversible toe-talon, turned out for such clutching; as the water, in turn, picks up the sky- depth reflective blue sent down from ages beyond, into which the osprey lifts now without a least turning of wing-chord though “they are able to bend the joint in their wing to shield their eyes from the light”; what I mean is, by the time I tell you this it’s gone: fish-and-bird, this “bone-breaker,” brown or gray “diurnal raptor,” back into the higher trades. Someday, too, this blue—
Nov 25, 2014 / Books & the Arts / David Baker
Transmission Transmission
So he who strongly feels, behaves. —Marianne Moore You find in an alley the mouthpiece of a flute. Gossip alone makes music and suddenly from the pines the birds all fly away. You are devoted to giving clear meaning to one movement. The water in the fountain. Down the fountain. Over it. The prayer chapel but its brick bench. Magnolias in almost bloom. The failure to believe in mathematics is a failure of emotion— you have spent all of your free time. Choral directors describe the torso in terms of the muscles of sound. Your wife paints your two-year-old’s fingernails and the two-year-old says, toes too! Sitting next to an anthill feels like this. They work so hard. And for so little. For salvation. This is the mystery. This is forgiveness.
Nov 25, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Gary L. McDowell
Imitations of Life Imitations of Life
Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing as a creature of secrets in The Imitation Game.
Nov 25, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Puzzle No. 3346 Puzzle No. 3346
And don’t miss Kosman and Picciotto’s crossword blog, Word Salad.
Nov 25, 2014 / Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto
How One Woman Tried—and Failed—to Stop the Fed From Driving the US Into Recession How One Woman Tried—and Failed—to Stop the Fed From Driving the US Into Recession
Nancy Teeters, who passed away last week, was the lone dissenter as Volcker’s Federal Reserve tore apart the country’s social fabric.
Nov 24, 2014 / William Greider
Rand Paul Points to Some Real Executive Overreach: Undeclared Wars Rand Paul Points to Some Real Executive Overreach: Undeclared Wars
Rand Paul and Barbara Lee are right: “The Constitution requires Congress to vote on the use of military force.”
Nov 24, 2014 / John Nichols
This Is the Next Big Fight Between Progressives and the Wall Street Dems This Is the Next Big Fight Between Progressives and the Wall Street Dems
Progressive senators are objecting to Obama’s latest Wall Street nominee.
Nov 24, 2014 / Zoë Carpenter
What ‘Free Trade’ Has Done to Central America What ‘Free Trade’ Has Done to Central America
Warnings about the human and environmental costs went unheeded. Now the most vulnerable Central Americans are paying the price.
Nov 24, 2014 / Manuel Pérez-Rocha, Julia Paley, and Foreign Policy In Focus