A New Season for Reform A New Season for Reform
Dodd-Frank didn’t succeed in putting an end to “too big to fail” banks, but a new bill to restore the Glass-Steagall Act might.
Jul 17, 2013 / William Greider
Dust Bowl Blues Dust Bowl Blues
A severe drought in the Southwest is devastating crops and farm communities—and sending a warning about climate change.
Jul 17, 2013 / Feature / Sasha Abramsky
Can Fashion Clean Up Its Act? Can Fashion Clean Up Its Act?
In the wake of Bangladesh's Rana Plaza disaster, consumers are showing new interest in brands that do right by their workers.
Jul 17, 2013 / Feature / Elizabeth Cline
The New Climate Radicals The New Climate Radicals
Ken Ward and Jay O'Hara are reminiscent of the human-centered, Quaker-inspired anti-nuke founders of Greenpeace.
Jul 17, 2013 / Feature / Wen Stephenson
FDR’s Jewish Problem FDR’s Jewish Problem
How did a president beloved by Jews come to be regarded as an anti-Semite who refused to save them from the Nazis?
Jul 17, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Laurence Zuckerman
Who Should Fund Alt-Labor? Who Should Fund Alt-Labor?
With unions in crisis, alternative labor groups have seen explosive growth. Without automatic dues deduction, how should they pay the bills?
Jul 17, 2013 / Josh Eidelson
Outrage Is Rising Against Stand Your Ground Outrage Is Rising Against Stand Your Ground
Attorney General Holder, civil rights groups, legislators and newspapers seek a reconsideration of “shoot first” laws—and Stevie Wonder won't play "Stand...
Jul 17, 2013 / John Nichols
Running Like Shadows Running Like Shadows
Alexei Ratmansky’s Shostakovich Trilogy renders the composer’s world and life in the Soviet Union through dance at American Ballet Theatre.
Jul 16, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Marina Harss
Higher Learning Higher Learning
for Aaron and Sarah “We monetize the university. Raid the pension-fund, lease out the classrooms, put coin-slots on the phones and copy-machines, and we throw money at the football team, the basketball team, the track team, all the other teams. Sport deepens the Crocodile brand. Sport kicks communities and builds ass. You can shove the rest. We casualize the support staff. Who’s scared of a few roaches and spiders. We empty the bins once a week, then once a month. Are we serious about paperless learning or not? We stop the water fountains. Don’t replace bulbs, call it green, and save thousands. To think big, you’ve got to dare to think small. We pause the elevators, let the profs find their own way downstairs by the light of their towering intellects—or, more likely, their smartphones. Bunch of limey faggots. Underpaid, undersexed and underwear. Or as I believe they like to say over there, ‘pants.’ We get some proper K Street chops into our fundraising effort. Personalized databases. Twitterfeeds. Birthday messages. Con-dolences and -gratulations. A little complimentary merchandise goes a long way. Pre-formatted wills. Candlelight giggle-o dinner-dates with Old Croquettes. We hike the fees and we re-prioritize. It’s what you do in a race to the bottom. We lay on handmaidens and academic tutors and personal chefs for our MVPs— everything, and the great lunks still pass out at traffic-lights. We do a heavy concentration on STEM subjects, plus microbiology, medicine, law, and one other. Entrepreneur. The rest can go wither. What are we here for—educating citizens?! We free up tenure. We de-accession the library. You don’t need books to cut-and-paste, I always say. We boost distance learning. Streaming lectures. Log on and goof off. Overspill classes. Computer grading. Multiple choice. Redefine the contact hour. Redefine the degree. Virtuality is the new reality. We put in a Gap and a Walmart, and call them bookshops. We sell Pepsi one university-wide monopoly franchise in perpetuity, and Taco Bell another. and in general we take a leaf out of the contemporary airport: a shopping center with half a runway attached. We award our sports coaches ius primae noctis (for wins only), plus 40,000 square foot pasteboard-and-marble mansions on prime lakeside real estate, with green lights at the end of their private piers. Throw in a motorboat and some stables, or else we’re uncompetitive. We put up a new building a week—prospective parents like to see that stuff—and we sell on the naming rights to the old ones. They plough up cemeteries, don’t they? Nothing’s forever. Go, Crocks.”
Jul 16, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Michael Hofmann
Mountain Views Mountain Views
Angus Burgin revisits Friedrich Hayek’s Mont Pelerin Society in The Great Persuasion.
Jul 16, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Kim Phillips-Fein