12:10PM

JUN 6 2007

Theory and sociology, law and ethics, history, science and more

From the inaugural issue of Affinities: A Journal of Radical Theory, Culture, and Action, Nathan Rambukkana (Concordia): Is slash an alternative medium? "Queer" heterotopias and the role of autonomous media spaces in radical world building; an essay on "Outlaw" Bicycling; and an interview with Roberto Ciccarelli on "social centers" in Italy.

Form Canadian Journal of Sociology, a review of Structures of Memory: Understanding Urban Change in Berlin and Beyond by Jennifer A. Jordan; The New Berlin: Memory, Politics, Place by Karen E. Till; and Traumascapes: The Power and Fate of Places Transformed by Tragedy by Maria Tumarkin; a review of Medicalized Masculinities; and a review of Negotiating Transcultural Lives: Belongings and Social Capital among Youth in Comparative Perspective; a review of Serious Leisure: A Perspective for Our Time by Robert A. Stebbins.

Micah Schwartzman (Virginia): The Principle of Judicial Sincerity. A review of Enforcing Equality: Congress, the Constitution, and the Protection of Individual Rights. From Commonweal, an article on Daniel Callahan & bioethics: Where the best arguments take him. Message in a Bacterium: Researchers use DNA as a post-human time capsule.

An interview with Michael Clark, author of Paradoxes from A to Z. A review of Culture and Philosophy in the Age of Plotinus by Mark Edwards. Here are 5 sample chapters from History of the Ancient World by Susan Wise Bauer. The first chapter from The Telescope: Its History, Technology, and Future by Geoff Andersen. Prehistoric Polynesians beat Europeans to the Americas, according to a new analysis of chicken bones. One of the greatest collections of historical letters ever amassed has been found in a laundry room, with one filing cabinet holding 500 years of history.

From Discover, here are 20 things you didn't know about Nothing: There's more there than you think. The introduction to How Mathematicians Think: Using Ambiguity, Contradiction, and Paradox to Create Mathematics by William Byers.

From The Chronicle, The Heart of a Campus: A college's main building, often imposing and ornate, is a fondly regarded symbol to alumni. A new book highlights the architecture of Old Main. Could RateMyProfessors.com be right? A study finds correlation between ratings professors receive on much-derided site and through official student evaluations.

From FT, Martin Wolf reviews Happiness: Lessons from a New Science by Richard Layard. The pursuit of happiness: The science of wellbeing must turn to philosophy in order to understand the true nature of friendship.  It's Called Sexsomnia: People with this rare disorder engage in sexual activity while asleep, but don't remember it later. No-one wants to talk seriously about toilets. Poke around in the hidden corners of The Poop Report, and you’ll come to see there's a lot more to it than tales about the trots.

12:10PM

JUN 6 2007

The environment, the Iraq war, presidential books and more

From Scientific American, if cutting carbon isn't enough, can climate intervention turn down the heat? Geoengineering could help stave off global warming, but it could also create some big problems (and more from The New Scientist). Earth has a natural transport system standing ready to get rid of carbon dioxide. Here is how it might be turned on. Green Wall of China: Officials in Inner Mongolia say they have established a living barrier of trees, grass and shrubs wide enough to hold back the Gobi.

From LA Weekly, Peddling Smart Growth: Call your project "smart" — even when it isn't — and get millions in public funds; smart growth’s biggest boosters still love suburban living; and what's smart about smart growth? Emily Yoffe goes drilling for natural gas on a rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Was Thomas Edison, the godfather of electricity-intensive living, green ahead of his time?

From Salon, how is an AK-47 like a QWERTY keyboard? An economist looks at the market for the world's most popular assault rifle. Splash, Splash, You're Dead: An article on the military's Next-Gen Water Gun. A review of The Changing Face of War: Lessons of Combat, From the Marne to Iraq by Martin van Creveld. Dennis Ross on how to contain the conflict in Iraq. Is there a nationalist solution in Iraq? The ethnic and sectarian conflict engulfing the country has gotten the most attention. But under the radar, a rough coalition of nationalist political elements in Iraq has been emerging.

Coercion doesn’t work. Empathy is a more powerful tool than you might think. A veteran Air Force interrogator who grilled prisoners in Iraq talks about how to gather information during wartime. Have the Guantanamo judges soured on the president's war tribunals? Dahlia Lithwick wants to know. Capitalism vs. Terrorism: More and more American companies are buying terrorism insurance. Uh-oh.

From Writ, John Dean on the Bush administration's dilemma regarding a possible Libby pardon. Sentencing for Dummies: Elizabeth de la Vega on the fate of I. Lewis Libby. Hustler magazine is looking for some scandalous sex in Washington again, and willing to pay for it.

From The New Yorker, George Packer on presidents and history. A review of Andrew Jackson and the Constitution: The Rise and Fall of Generational Regimes. Ron Rosenbaum reviews JFK assassination books Reclaiming History by Vincent Bugliosi and David Talbot's Brothers. Nicholas von Hoffman |inprint/issue=200703&id=269|reviews| Kenneth D. Ackerman's Young J. Edgar: Hoover, the Red Scare, and the Assault on Civil Liberties and Burton Hersh's Bobby and J. Edgar: The Historic Face-Off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover That Transformed America. Alan Wolfe reviews Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989 by Michael Beschloss. A review of Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900 by Jack Beatty.

From FrontPage, an evening with Christopher Hitchens. Peter Hitchens reviews his brother's book, God Is Not Great (and more and more). Masonry, Atheism and Catholicism: An interview with Father Manuel Guerra Gómez, author of The Masonic Plot. More on In Defence of Reason by Michel Onfray. More on The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. When tolerance becomes dangerous: In a civil society, decency must rank ahead of just about everything else, sacred and not. Thomas Sowell on how we're surrounded by adolescent intellectuals.

From Governing, John D. Donahue on The End of the End of Government. Mark Schmitt on how the answer to big-government conservatism is neither a promise to shrink government nor expand it, but a promise that public institutions will serve the public. Hillary was Right: Jonathan Cohn on the health care that dare not speak its name (and a response by Elizabeth McCaughey). Get in that bubble, boy! When can the government quarantine its citizens?

12:10PM

JUN 6 2007

Global issues, Europe and American politics

From PUP, the first chapter from Promoting Peace with Information: Transparency as a Tool of Security Regimes by Dan Lindley. Norman Geras on Thresholds of Inhumanity. A review of Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered: New Perspectives on Migration, Sex, Work, and Human Rights. Ron Deibert on the looming destruction of the global communications environment. How the mighty are falling: The end of impunity for once-powerful thugs across the world.

For World Environment Day, The Age approached prominent Australians to predict what the nation will be like in 2027. Their message, almost universally, was that Australia is at a crossroads - down one path is optimism and opportunity while down the other is a future of climate chaos. Greenpeace likes to think big — its latest publicity stunt is the recreation of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat. The idea is to focus the attention of world leaders on the need to address climate change and to prevent major catastrophes — including floods — in the future.

From TNR, Paul Berman on the revolutionary beginnings of postmodern politician Bernard Kouchner and the genesis of Doctors Without Borders. From n+1, wither the French Left? Jules Treneer investigates. An article on how to reinvent and reinvigorate the right and Sarkozy’s old familiar song. From Mute, an essay on Grassroots Political Militants: Banlieusards and Politics. Re-Arming Europe: Pascal Bruckner on why Europe needs an intellectual revolution to meet the challenges ahead. Farewell, New Europe: How Bush administration blunders destroyed the budding pro-American alliance.

It is straight from the pages of the Cold War era — a dour Russian leader in ramped-up rhetoric threatening to target Europe. So what is President Putin playing at? From Der Spiegel, an interview with Vladimir Putin: "I am a true democrat". A review of Chechnya: The Case for Independence by Tony Wood. A review of Beslan: The Tragedy of School No 1 by Timothy Phillips (and more).

From National Journal, The Utility Man: Sen. Charles Schumer has parlayed his party's 2006 victory into a unique role for himself. He's a savvy spokesman, strategist and Harry Reid confidant. What Democrats need to learn about power: The former communications director for Newt Gingrich compares the Democratic takeover of 2007 to the Republican takeover of 1995.  Look Back in Anger: John B. Judis on the unmooring of Chuck Hagel. When the Presidential hopefuls talk to God: As the Democratic contenders lined up to lay bare the details of their faith at a "religious left" forum, they revealed how faith-based forces frame our politics. Political business: Corporate America weighs in on the presidential race.

How David Gregory saved the press corps: The NBC News correspondent may be pompous, but thanks to him the White House press corps has regained its gumption. From The Hill, a look at how interns are the most bothersome to service-sector employees on and around Capitol Hill. Headed Southwick? Emily Bazelon on the case against Bush's latest controversial judicial nominee.

The great right-wing fraud to repudiate George W. Bush: The same movement that propped up and glorified Bush as a Reagan conservative now pretends that he was never a conservative at all. In an first interview as the chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party, Dennis Milligan says America needs to be attacked by terrorists so that people will appreciate the work that President Bush has done to protect the country. What's the Matter With New Hampshire? The liberaltarian dream dies in the Granite State. In Vermont, nascent secession movement gains traction. Local area network: Can technology save the town meeting?

12:10PM

JUN 6 2007

Miscellaneous

From Axess, a special issue on Reality Invades Fiction, including an editorial; and self-representational literature erases the boundaries between reality and fiction. Is reality being depicted or created? Instead of basing their identity on memory, today’s writers choose to construct new images of themselves; a strange sub-genre of 18th and 19th-century literature gave voices to objects. Critics have usually viewed this as the manifestation of a commodified world, but it may represent something deeper, springing from the philosophies of Locke and Burke, about the nature of property, and the inextricable mingling of the human self and the physical world; and the virtual world did not become the socially liberated universe that many people believed. At meeting places on the internet patterns of behaviour from the physical world are reproduced. And the virtual economy is becoming more closely linked to the real economy.

An interview with Elaine Dundy: "Gore Vidal introduced us. He said, 'Here are the two funniest women writers around.' We just looked at each other. It was a real conversation stopper". The hardest part of Sally Reus' job is, in her words, "trying to figure out what to do with all the sexy books".

Ten years ago, men's monthlies were making fortunes for publishers on both sides of the Atlantic. And FHM editor Ed Needham was at the heart of it. But, he says, the internet and trashy weeklies have destroyed all that: the party's over, and it's time to move on. Story of the blues: Rugged and hard-wearing, Levi's were the original American jeans. But they couldn't keep up with the designer ranges or the supermarket bargains, and have spent a decade in the doldrums. 

From Nextbook, Shalom Auslander on what he's going to write this summer: Time has arrived to rock the world of fiction. From The Observer Magazine, a special issue on How To... for the summer. 

A review of Deeper Than Reason: Emotion and Its Role in Literature, Music, and Art by Jenefer Robinson (and chapter 4: "The Importance of Being Emotional"). Fifty years after the publication of Jack Kerouac's Beat novel On the Road, a new dispute has erupted around the famously peripatetic writer. 

Jay Rosen on how a blog is a little First Amendment machine. A review of The Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun.

The first chapter from The Seven Hills of Rome: A Geological Tour of the Eternal City. A team of scholars traveled to a medieval library in Venice to create an ultra-precise 3-D copy of an ancient manuscript of Homer's Iliad — complete with every wrinkle, rip and imperfection — using a laser scanner mounted on a robot arm.

A review of Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure, and the Man Who Dared to See by Robert Kurson. A review of Sleeping Buddha: The Story of One Family's Past, and Afghanistan's Search for a Future by Hamida Ghafour. 

A review of Empire of Blue Water: Captain Morgan’s Great Pirate Army, the Epic Battle for the Americas, and the Catastrophe That Ended the Outlaws’ Bloody Reign by Stephan Talty; The Sack of Panama: Captain Morgan and the Battle for the Caribbean by Peter Earle; and The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down by Colin Woodard. A review of Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire and the Birth of Europe by William Rosen. A review of The Eye: A Natural History by Simon Ings and Vanities of the Eye: Vision in Early Modern European Culture by Stuart Clark. A review of A Guinea Pig's History of Biology: The Plants and Animals Who Taught Us the Facts of Life by Jim Endersby. A review of The Neddiad: How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization by Daniel Manus Pinkwater.