online archive
12:00PM
JUN 28 2007
Economics, democracy, the ancient world, academia and science
Hugo Mialon and Paul Rubin (Emory): The Economics of the Bill of Rights. A review of The Chicago School: How the University of Chicago Assembled the Thinkers Who Revolutionized Economics and Business by Johan Van Overtveldt. A review of A Man of Letters by Thomas Sowell.
From CRB, A Noble and Generous Soul: A review of Alexis de Tocqueville: A Life by Hugh Brogan and Democracy’s Guide by Joseph Epstein; and a review of The Intellectuals and the Flag by Todd Gitlin. Jonathan Ree on how Richard Rorty ditched his early positivism for an open-minded and iconoclastic pragmatism that irritated as many as it inspired. A review of Democracy and Tradition by Jeffrey Stout.
A review of The War at Troy: a True History by Barry B. Powell. A review of The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Pericles. A review of Introduction a la "philosophie presocratique" by Andre Laks. A review of Socratic Virtue: Making the Best of the Neither-Good-Nor-Bad by Naomi Reshotko. A review of Reading Seneca: Stoic Philosophy at Rome by Brad Inwood. A review of Who Are You? Identification, Deception and Surveillance in Early Modern Europe by Valentin Groebner. A review of Ethics Vindicated: Kant's Transcendental Legitimation of Moral Discourse by Ermanno Bencivenga.
From Counterpunch, an article on the smearing of Robert Trivers, Dershowitz style (with the content of emails). Cynicism 101: Why the campaign against U.S. News & World Report's college rankings reeks of self-serving censorship. A Rank Exercise: Jay Mathews' method for ranking America's best high schools is so narrow it may actually be misleading (and a response). Peter Hyman, formerly one of Tony Blair's close aides who quit to become a teacher, reveals from the frontline why discipline and high quality teaching beat a blizzard of headline-grabbing initiatives.
From The Chronicle, creatures in the curriculum: The growing field of animal law is attracting activists and pragmatists alike to a law school that offers such courses. From National Geographic, a single ant or bee isn't smart, but their colonies are. The study of swarm intelligence is providing insights that can help humans manage complex systems, from truck routing to military robots. Gender-specific fitness? A study finds that reproductively successful males have unsuccessful daughters. Darwin hits dating: Web sites attract beautiful people who use "natural selection" to eliminate the imperfect. Danger from the Belly Button: The navel gives a fetus life, but can bring a newborn death.
12:00PM
JUN 28 2007
The Supreme Court, religion and sex
From The Raw Story, does America need a vice president? An interview with Joel K. Goldstein, author of The Modern American Vice Presidency: The Transformation of a Political Institution. A review of Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court by Jan Crawford Greenburg. A Supreme Court Conversation: Walter Dellinger to: Dahlia Lithwick on a mistake of historic proportions. The Christian Right is concerned that yesterday's Supreme Court decision on student speech will restrict high-schoolers' ability to spread anti-gay messages. But they've got nothing to worry about.
From CRB, Lord Have Mercy: Ross Douthat reviews God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens, and more by A. C. Grayling reviews on the Hitchens book debunking the deity which is a surprise hit (and more and more and more). True or False: The major religions are essentially alike. A review of Reasons to Believe: How to Understand, Explain, and Defend the Catholic Faith by Scott Hahn. Sexing God: Thoughts on the Almighty's gender and other unknowables.
From Catholic Men's Quarterly, the Catholic origins of manliness: A review of Manliness by Harvey Mansfield. Jane Via was frustrated with the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on female priests, so she and a small number of women took matters into their own hands. From Commonweal, Eve Tushnet and Luke Timothy Johnson debate homosexuality and the Church. Murray Hausknecht on gay marriage: The third option. On the 40th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality, The Guardian revisits the appallingly repressive atmosphere of the Fifties and Sixties that ruined lives, destroyed reputations and finally sparked a campaign for change. Queer connections before Craigslist: How gay men got in touch pre-Internet times.
From PopMatters, a review of Pornology: Noun—1: A Good Girl's Guide to Porn; 2: The misadventures of the world's first anthroPORNologist; 3: A Hilarious Exploration of Men, Relationships, and Sex by Ayn Carrillo-Gailey. Misplaced nostalgia for the 1950s: Damon Linker on conservatives' misplaced ideas about sex. From TLS, Marriage in America: A review of Alone Together: How marriage in America is changing by Alan Booth, Paul R. Amato, David Johnson and Stacy J. Rogers; Marriage and Caste in America: Separate and unequal families in a post-marital age by Kay. S. Hymowitz; and The Future of Marriage by David Blankenhorn. From Dissent, Further Beyond the M Word: A response to Arlene Skolnick's article on politics and marriage (and a reply).
12:00PM
JUN 28 2007
The Middle East, Gordon Brown and American politics
From In These Times, a review of Iran Oil: The New Middle East Challenge to America by Roger Howard and Iran: A People Interrupted by Hamid Dabashi. The Walter Duranty of Saudi Arabia: An article on Commentary's clueless love letter to the land of the Wahhabis. Tony Blair is the wrong man for the job: Bringing peace to the Middle East is a noble goal, but he wants to do too much, and David Rieff on The Last Interventionist. Tony Blair would do well to listen to Akbar Ahmed when he takes up his new role as Middle East envoy in earnest. Frank Luntz on how Gordon Brown is about to realise the second most important adage of politics: you cannot be all things to all people.
From Prospect, an intellectual in power: Intensive study has made Gordon Brown into one of the best-read politicians of recent times. But what is his intellectual formation and style? And how will they inform his premiership? Intellectuals have had a mixed record in British politics. Let's hope that Gordon Brown is in the tradition of Gladstone rather than of Balfour; Brown's thinking is neither cosmopolitan nor sophisticated, and he is a loner with few strong links to leading intellectual contemporaries; Brown is less of an intellectual "magpie" than he seems. He draws on both liberal and conservative Americans for good reason; Brown's new book Courage is a response to the death of his first child. He has transformed his suffering into a lesson; and recent Labour leaders have kept quiet about their religious beliefs. As premier, will Brown allow his faith to leech into his politics
From The Washington Monthly, The New Vision: Theodore C. Sorensen on the speech he wants the Democratic nominee to give. Election '08: A look at how each candidate will blow it. What do the Washington Post — and the rest of the mainstream media — have against Al Gore? Eric Alterman wants to know. Has Jonah Goldberg gone soft on Hillary? Her name's been removed from his forthcoming book's subtitle.
From TAP, Life After the GOP: Congress Santorum, Allen, Weldon, Burns, Pombo — Where are they now? Checking up on the '06 Republican losers. An interview with Matt Margolis and Mark Noonan, authors of Caucus of Corruption: The Truth about the New Democratic Majority. Down With Plutocrats and Fat Cat Donors: Bruce Ackerman and Ian Ayres on giving the rest of us money to spend on campaign contributions.
12:00PM
JUN 28 2007
Literature, art, architecture, music and movies
From Eurozine, Slovenian novelists are finding highly original ways to record the experience of transitional society, writes poet and critic Ales Steger. While male novelists take a hyper-realist, socially critical approach, their equally successful female counterparts are creating fictions only loosely connected to contemporary time and space. Is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie the heir to Nigerian literature as traced from Olaudah Equiano through Christopher Okigbo, Chinua Achebe, and Wole Soyinka? From TLS, South Africa's Ripper pimp? A review of The Fox and the Flies: The world of Joseph Silver - racketeer and psychopath by Charles van Onselen; and Borges finds his Boswell: A review of Borges by Adolfo Bioy Casares.
From Prospect, the problem with assessing much modern art is that it's hard to tell the difference between a banal work and one whose theme is banality. So, how might we make a case against Damien Hirst? A review of Beyond Belief. From Newsweek, which is the most influential work of art of the last 100 years? A review of Stealing the Scream: The Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece by Edward Dolnick. A review of Francis Bacon in the 1950s by Michael Peppiatt.
Writing on the Wall: The Graffiti Archaeology Project challenges the definition of archaeology. The maxim of beauty being in the eye of the beholder is no more true than in people's estimations of modern buildings. BBC Magazine takes some of Britain's most controversial buildings to task. Building Democracy: A review of Architecture of Democracy: American Architecture and the Legacy of the Revolution by Allan Greenberg. Builder in Chief: FDR shaped the Pentagon. Why haven't more presidents taken an interest in architecture?
A review Chasing the Rising Sun: The Journey of an American Song by Ted Anthony. Bruceville is New Jersey, as it can be reconstructed out of Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics. Radio Days: Even college radio stations are subject to corporate pressures and playlists.
From Time, a look at the life and work of movie critic Roger Ebert. Why did the hot-shot film producer call upon the humble novelist? Find out in this short story by Woody Allen. A review of Hollywood and the Mob: Movies, Mafia, Sex & Death by Tim Adler. Why should cinemagoers have to endure the narcissistic display of endless opening credits? They're distracting, artistically unacceptable mood-killers. From Slate, a series on summer movies, including The Original Tarantino: How Sergio Leone ushered in our borderless pop culture; The Surf Also Rises: How macho movies get misread as homoerotic; Leisure and Innocence: The eternal appeal of the stoner movie; and make it a large for a quarter more? A short history of movie theater concession stands.
