Disciplined Filth Disciplined Filth
George Clooney’s The Ides of March, Danfung Dennis’s Hell and Back Again, Luc Côté and Patricio Henriquez’s You Don’t Like the Truth: 4 Days In...
Oct 11, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
CEO CEO
Hewlett-Packard CEO, fired after disastrous eleven-month reign, gets $13 million in termination benefits. —news reports One job’s a job I never would forgo. That job, of course, is being CEO. According to the customs now prevailing, It pays a lot—and pays you more for failing. It must be nice to have a job wherein You cannot lose, for if you lose you win.
Oct 5, 2011 / Column / Calvin Trillin
The Wrong Moral Revolution: On Michael Barnett The Wrong Moral Revolution: On Michael Barnett
To see humanitarianism everywhere is not to see it at all.
Oct 5, 2011 / Books & the Arts / David Rieff
Shelf Life Shelf Life
Jean-Patrick Manchette’s Fatale, Binyavanga Wainaina’s One Day I Will Write About This Place, Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s The History of Costaguana
Oct 5, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Alexandra Schwartz
Getting to Denmark: On Francis Fukuyama Getting to Denmark: On Francis Fukuyama
The Origins of Political Order, a work of total world history, pits the old Fukuyama against the new.
Oct 5, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Thomas Meaney
Top Ten Songs About Class Top Ten Songs About Class
Since every great protest movement needs its culture, here's my stab at a list of the ten best songs ever written about class and poverty in tribute to #OccupyWallStreet.
Oct 3, 2011 / Blog / Peter Rothberg
The Search The Search
The far right looked for someone who’d befit The ticket—that is, someone not named Mitt But someone who could strongly lead the nation Without the faintest whiff of moderation. Chris Christie thought about it, then said nyet, And Bachmann was the quickest flopper yet. It looked like Perry was the right’s white hope, But now they’re saying Perry’s just a dope. So who will they convince now to get in? The time is short. Their bench is looking thin.
Sep 28, 2011 / Column / Calvin Trillin
Cruel America Cruel America
Roars of applause for executions at the GOP debate, official approval of torture, barbaric prison conditions, obstruction of aid to storm victims and children in need—is our ...
Sep 28, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Jonathan Schell
After Deng: On China’s Transformation After Deng: On China’s Transformation
Is Deng Xiaoping’s legacy of modernization without political reform one that no contemporary Chinese official can control?
Sep 27, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Joshua Kurlantzick
The Planetary Currents The Planetary Currents
We live on the third rock from the sun In our living rooms We handle the remote and touch off integrated circuits compelling content, non-integrated circuits such as the chitlin’ circuit, and disintegrated circuits such as the extended family now stretched across six continents Plus one under ice The rapid flows of global capital Put us to sleep and wake us We come on in on a wing and a come on We slide right across the ice We stop to catch up, so like a breathing tree Instead of reading about the unconscious we decide to enter it, that is, by falling asleep Dream of a document signed by CEO William K. Tasker by which we are offered a position as director of corporate communications for a company called Correct We are romantics still, who stand and/or sit in shade Looking straight down to the valley floor Vertiginous, lofty, cerebral, lazy and tight This poem may be recorded for quality assurance purposes There we encounter planets whose colors we shall not forget
Sep 27, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Kit Robinson