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'The Unencumbered Man'

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Michael Tomasky - Jun. 23 (Special Report) - After Barack Obama's victory in the presidential election last November, the question arose whether the result should be seen as a realignment—a fundamental shift in party dominance that would continue for a good many years. That the era of conservative supremacy was over seemed clear. Beyond that, observers were divided. My view, expressed in these pages, was that such talk was premature and that any notion of Democratic dominance "would depend on what President Obama and the congressional Democrats did with their power."

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Pakistan on the Brink

Fri, 15 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Ahmed Rashid - May. 15 (Special Report) - The army has always defined Pakistan's national security goals. Currently it has two strategic interests: first, it seeks to ensure that a balance of terror and power is maintained with respect to India, and the jihadis are seen as part of this strategy. Second, the army supports the Afghan Taliban as a hedge against US withdrawal from Afghanistan and also against Indian influence in Kabul, which has grown considerably. Containing the domestic jihadi threat has been a tactical rather than a strategic matter for the army, so there have been bouts of fighting with the militants and also peace deals with them; and these have been interspersed with policies of jailing them and freeing them—all part of a complex and duplicitous game.

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The Need to Roll Back Presidential Power Grabs

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Arlen Specter - Apr. 21 (Opinion) - In the seven and a half years since September 11, the United States has witnessed one of the greatest expansions of executive authority in its history, at the expense of the constitutionally mandated separation of powers. President Obama, as only the third sitting senator to be elected president in American history, and the first since John F. Kennedy, may be more likely to respect the separation of powers than President Bush was. But rather than put my faith in any president to restrain the executive branch, I intend to take several concrete steps, which I hope the new president will support.

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The Thirty Days of Barack Obama

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The New York Review of Books - By Elizabeth Drew - Mar. 05 (News Analysis) - Obama takes particular care to avoid getting caught in traps (a lifetime trait)—some see this as avoiding taking a position—and as he began his presidency he was determined, as he had been in the campaign, not to refight the culture wars of the Sixties. He put off fixing the benighted "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays serving in the military that Clinton had been forced to adopt after he clumsily allowed it to come up just as his presidency began. In his first week in office, Obama lifted the restrictions on funding for abortion counseling by family planning groups working overseas—but not until the day after the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, as opposed to the day itself, so as not to seem to be rubbing his decision in the face of abortion foes. He said that it's time "to move past this stale and fruitless debate," and that his administration would initiate a "fresh conversation" on the subject. He invited labor leaders to a White House ceremony—they hadn't been there for a long time—in which he announced the revoking of several Bush anti-labor policies, buying time before taking on labor's number one demand, the highly controversial proposal to make it easier to form unions (the "card check").

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Pakistan in Peril

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The New York Review of Books - By William Dalrymple - Jan. 23 (Review) - The Taliban have reorganized, advanced out of their borderland safe havens, and are now massing at the gates of Kabul, threatening to surround and throttle the capital, much as the US-backed Mujahideen once did to the Soviet-installed regime in the late Eighties. Like the rerun of an old movie, all journeys out of the Afghan capital are once again confined to tanks, armored cars, and helicopters. Members of the Taliban already control over 70 percent of the country, up from just over 50 percent in November 2007, where they collect taxes, enforce Sharia law, and dispense their usual rough justice; but they do succeed, to some extent, in containing the wave of crime and corruption that has marked Hamid Karzai's rule. This has become one of the principal reasons for their growing popularity, and every month their sphere of influence increases.

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Eyeless in Gaza

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The New York Review of Books - By Roger Cohen - Jan. 17 (Opinion) - Israel has the right to hit back at Hamas when attacked—but not to blow Gaza to pieces, or deprive people of food, water, and medicine. In at least one appalling incident at Zeitoun, on the east of Gaza City, where children were found next to their mothers' days-old corpses, the International Red Cross has accused Israel of an "unacceptable" failure "to meet its obligation under international law to care for and evacuate the wounded." Israel denies targeting civilians, accuses Hamas of using civilians as human shields, and says it works in "close cooperation" with international aid organizations. But at some point—and I would say a couple of hundred dead children in Gaza are already well past that point—such denials become pointless: the facts speak for themselves. No invocation of collateral damage or legitimate defense can excuse such wanton killing. As Avi Shlaim, a professor of international relations and former soldier in the Israeli army, has observed, the Gaza offensive "seems to follow the logic of an eye for an eyelash."

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How Not to Make Peace in the Middle East

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

TruthOut - By Hussein Agha, Robert Malley - Jan. 05 (Review) - The three books offer sharp, at times unyielding critiques of the last two presidents. Yet none of the authors was a passive spectator during their terms in office. Miller, Kurtzer, and Indyk all had prominent parts in shaping or executing US policy. Kurtzer, who served as ambassador in Cairo and Tel Aviv between 1997 and 2005, held positions from which it was difficult to shape critical policy decisions and, in fairness, he constantly raised questions from afar.

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What to Do

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

The New York Review of Books - By Paul Krugman - Nov. 30 (Opinion) - the spread of the financial crisis to emerging markets makes a global rescue for developing countries part of the solution to the crisis. As with recapitalization, parts of this were already in place during the autumn: the International Monetary Fund was providing loans to countries with troubled economies like Ukraine, with less of the moralizing and demands for austerity that it engaged in during the Asian crisis of the 1990s. Meanwhile, the Fed provided swap lines to several emerging-market central banks, giving them the right to borrow dollars as needed. As with recapitalization, the efforts so far look as if they're in the right direction but too small, so more will be needed.

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Without God

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Steven Weinberg - Sep. 22 (Review) - In his celebrated 1837 Phi Beta Kappa Oration at Harvard, titled "The American Scholar," Ralph Waldo Emerson predicted that a day would come when America would end what he called "our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands." His prediction came true in the twentieth century, and in no area of learning more so than in science. This surely would have pleased Emerson. When he listed his heroes he would generally include Copernicus and Galileo and Newton along with Socrates and Jesus and Swedenborg. But I think that Emerson would have had mixed feelings about one consequence of the advance of science here and abroad--that it has led to a widespread weakening of religious belief.[1]

NewsTrust Rating: 3.7 average - 12 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Perilous Price of Oil

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By George Soros - Sep. 08 (Special Report) - The public is asking for an answer to two questions. The principal question is whether the sharp oil price increase is a speculative bubble or simply reflects fundamental factors such as rapidly rising demand from developing nations and an increasingly limited supply, caused by the dwindling availability of easily extractable oil reserves. The second question is related to the first. If the oil price increase is at least partly a result of speculation, what kind of regulation will best mitigate the harmful consequences of this increase and avoid excessive price fluctuations in the future?

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The Democrats and National Security

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Samantha Powers - Aug. 04 (Review) - Since the Vietnam War the Republican Party has developed a reputation for having a superior approach to national security. Americans have long trusted the views of Democrats on the environment, the economy, education, and health care, but national security is the one matter about which Republicans have maintained what political scientists call "issue ownership." Partly, this is for particular historical reasons. President Eisenhower initiated US involvement in Vietnam, and President Nixon escalated the war in 1969 and kept US troops on the ground in a manifestly unwinnable mission until 1975. But John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were tagged as the primary culprits. President Carter was widely seen as having bungled the Iran hostage rescue mission and having responded ineffectually to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Although he substantially increased US military spending, he was never forgiven for his claim that Americans had "an inordinate fear of communism."

NewsTrust Rating: 3.9 average - 11 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Obama and the Black Church

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Darryl Pinckney - Jul. 06 (News Analysis) - Black people in general have a high tolerance for militant or fringe expression just because it comes from another black person's sense of racial grievance, even when they do not necessarily agree with it. Historically there has always been the feeling that freedom of speech had to be defended on the black side of town because of what black people were pressured into not saying elsewhere.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.2 average - 8 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Reign of Thuggery

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Joshua Hammer - Jun. 10 (Special Report) - Mbeki's inaction is hardly surprising. Since Mugabe initiated his catastrophic "land grab" in January 2000, turning over four thousand white-owned farms to putative veterans of Zimbabwe's independence war and to cronies, the South African president has failed to address forthrightly both Zimbabwe's subsequent economic collapse and Mugabe's many human rights abuses. Clinging to an ineffectual policy of "quiet diplomacy," Mbeki stood by as Mugabe accelerated his violent land reform program. He then said and did little as the dictator unleashed thugs to intimidate voters and stuffed ballot boxes to guarantee electoral victories for Mugabe's ZANU-PF.

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Who Is John McCain?

Fri, 30 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Michael Tomasky - May. 30 (Editorial) - His rhetoric about Iran--which inevitably will be a factor in any solution--has been belligerent. He calls it a "rogue state" and has spoken often of "rogue-state rollback," deliberately invoking a word favored by the hardest-line cold warriors; he recently said he never meant by the phrase "that we should go around and declare war." On the Middle East, he said in late April that "people should understand that I will be Hamas's worst nightmare." On health care, McCain's plan is built around tax credits ($5,000 for families) that would cover less than half the cost of today's average family plan and lead to high deductibles and much greater risk. His economic policies would, if enacted, combine Bush's tax cuts with far more severe spending cuts in a way that could ultimately destabilize Social Security and Medicare, a goal fiscal conservatives have sought for decades; and he recently announced that he would nominate Supreme Court judges like John Roberts and Samuel Alito. So there's plenty for the opposition to work with. Whether these matters will carry more weight than lapel pins or pastors or the ghosts of Hanoi may well be the question of this year's campaign.

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The Question of Global Warming

Tue, 27 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Freeman Dyson - May. 27 (Review) - Carbon-eating trees could convert most of the carbon that they absorb from the atmosphere into some chemically stable form and bury it underground. Or they could convert the carbon into liquid fuels and other useful chemicals. Biotechnology is enormously powerful, capable of burying or transforming any molecule of carbon dioxide that comes into its grasp. Keeling's wiggles prove that a big fraction of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere comes within the grasp of biotechnology every decade. If one quarter of the world's forests were replanted with carbon-eating varieties of the same species, the forests would be preserved as ecological resources and as habitats for wildlife, and the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be reduced by half in about fifty years.

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Iraq: Will We Ever Get Out?

Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Thomas Powers - May. 12 (Review) - We are committed in Afghanistan. We are not ready to leave Iraq. In both countries our friends are in trouble. The pride of American arms is at stake. The world is watching. To me the logic of events seems inescapable. Unless something quite unexpected happens, four years from now the presidential candidates will be arguing about two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, one going into its ninth year, the other into its eleventh. The choice will be the one Americans hate most--get out or fight on.

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Euphemism and American Violence

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By David Bromwich - Apr. 15 (Opinion) - Euphemism has been the leading quality of American discussions of the war in Iraq. This was plain in the run-up to the war, with the talk of "regime change"--a phrase welcomed by reporters and politicians as if they had heard it all their lives. Regime change seemed to pass at a jump beyond the predictable either/or of "forced abdication" and "international war of aggression." Regime change also managed to imply, without saying, that governments do, as a matter of fact, often change by external demand without much trouble to anyone. The talk (before and just after the war) of "taking out" Saddam Hussein was equally new. It combined the reflex of the skilled gunman and the image of a surgical procedure so routine that it could be trusted not to jeopardize the life of the patient. It had its roots in gangland argot, where taking out means knocking off, but its reception was none the worse for that.

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A New Deal in Pakistan

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By William Dalrymple - Mar. 20 (Special Report) - Democracy has never thrived in Pakistan in part because landowning has traditionally been the social base from which most politicians emerge, especially in rural areas. Here Pakistan is quite different from India, where the urban middle class quickly gained control in 1947. That class has been largely excluded from Pakistan's political process, as, even more so, has the rural peasantry. There are no Pakistani equivalents of Indian peasant leaders such as Laloo Prasad Yadav, the village cowherd turned (former) chief minister of Bihar, or Mayawati, the dalit (untouchable) leader and current chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.

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The Charms of Wikipedia

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0800

The New York Review of Books - By Nicholson Baker - Mar. 03 (Special Report) - More people use Wikipedia than Amazon or eBay--in fact it's up there in the top-ten Alexa rankings with those moneyed funhouses MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube. Why? Because it has 2.2 million articles, and because it's very often the first hit in a Google search, and because it just feels good to find something there--even, or especially, when the article you find is maybe a little clumsily written. Any inelegance, or typo, or relic of vandalism reminds you that this gigantic encyclopedia isn't a commercial product. There are no banners for E*Trade or Classmates.com, no side sprinklings of AdSense.

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Olmert & Israel: The Change

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

The New York Review of Books - By Amos Elon - Feb. 04 (Review) - Olmert may be the most pragmatic Israeli leader since 1967. One hopes he does not come too late. According to Haaretz, he told an American delegation recently that in "Israel there are perhaps 400,000 people who maintain the state, leaders in the economy, in science and in culture. I want to make sure they have hope, that they'll stay here." His own two sons, it is well known, live in New York. He is the first Israeli premier who has expressed some empathy for the Palestinian tragedy. In his speech in Annapolis in late November, he said, "We are not indifferent to [the Palestinians'] suffering." It is true that the next morning eight Palestinians were killed by the Israeli army but it is impossible to overlook what seems, at least, the beginning of a change. The leftist Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy was uncharacteristically optimistic, wondering whether perhaps an Israeli de Klerk was emerging here.

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Blogs

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0800

The New York Review of Books - By Sarah Boxer - Jan. 30 (Special Report) - Reading blogs, it's pretty clear, is not like reading a newspaper article or a book. Blog readers jump around. They follow links. They move from blogs to news clips to videos on YouTube, and they do it more easily than you can turn a newspaper page. They are always getting carried away--somewhere. Bloggers thrive on fragmented attention and dole it out too--one-liners, samples of songs, summary news, and summary judgments.

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As Iraqis See It

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0800

The New York Review of Books - By Michael Massing - Jan. 05 (Special Report) - When it comes to covering the war in Iraq, McClatchy Newspapers has always done things a bit differently. The third-largest newspaper company in the US, it owns thirty-one daily papers, including The Miami Herald, The Sacramento Bee, The Kansas City Star, and The Charlotte Observer. (It became the owner of some of these papers after buying Knight Ridder newspapers in 2006.) McClatchy has a large bureau in Washington, but without a paper either in the capital or in New York, it operates outside the glare of the nation's political and media elite, and this has freed it to follow its own path.

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How, and How Not, to Stop AIDS in Africa

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 10:10:27 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By William Easterly - Jul. 25 (Review) - The stigma attached to the HIV-positive, and the implied general stigma for Africa, were tragically misguided. According to survey evidence Epstein provides, Africans are no more promiscuous than most other people, as measured by numbers of sexual partners in a lifetime, casual sexual encounters, and visits to prostitutes. As she says, sexual behavior in Africa is governed by strict rules; they are just different rules from those prevailing elsewhere. She argues that in many African countries the large numbers of people willing to follow those rules have a great deal to fear from AIDS; and they must know they cannot dismiss the problem of infection as one of a whoring minority. The international aid agencies and Western governments are only now belatedly coming around to Epstein's perspective (which is based on the findings of a number of independent researchers), over two decades after the start of the epidemic, and they still don't know quite how to handle it.

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Our Biotech Future

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 02:35:01 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Freeman Dyson - Jul. 01 (News Report) - It has become part of the accepted wisdom to say that the twentieth century was the century of physics and the twenty-first century will be the century of biology. Two facts about the coming century are agreed on by almost everyone. Biology is now bigger than physics, as measured by the size of budgets, by the size of the workforce, or by the output of major discoveries; and biology is likely to remain the biggest part of science through the twenty-first century. Biology is also more important than physics, as measured by its economic consequences, by its ethical implications, or by its effects on human welfare.

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What's Wrong With Doctors

Tue, 22 May 2007 19:59:25 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Richard Horton - May. 22 (Review) - Groopman's central claim is that there is a common flaw that undermines much of contemporary medical education and training, as well as the partnership between patient and doctor and even the professional values of medicine. That flaw lies in the way doctors think. His disquiet originated from the frustration he felt working among his students and residents at Harvard Medical School. Whereas once they would take part in challenging and detailed debates about the patients they met and examined on rounds, they now "too often failed to question cogently or listen carefully or observe keenly.... Something was profoundly wrong with the way they were learning to solve clinical puzzles and care for people."

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