Books & the Arts

Lobbyists Bribed Congress With a Free Screening of ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ Lobbyists Bribed Congress With a Free Screening of ‘The Dark Knight Rises’

Are lobbyists using the new Batman movie as a form of bribery? Senator Leahy’s second cameo, and a special preview screening for staff, is a problem.

Jul 23, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Lee Fang

Alexander Cockburn and the Radical Power of the Word

Alexander Cockburn and the Radical Power of the Word Alexander Cockburn and the Radical Power of the Word

Alex, who has died at the age of 71, believed to the end in the necessity of information and insight as essential elements of an activism that would begin the world over again.

Jul 21, 2012 / Books & the Arts / John Nichols

George McGovern at 90: Still a Patriot With a Bleeding Heart George McGovern at 90: Still a Patriot With a Bleeding Heart

McGovern has always practiced a politics that runs deeper; a politics rooted in his love of America’s history, its literature and its possibility.

Jul 19, 2012 / Books & the Arts / John Nichols

Rockers Renew Radicalism of Woody’s ‘This Land is Your Land’ Rockers Renew Radicalism of Woody’s ‘This Land is Your Land’

Tom Morello marks Guthrie’s 100th by restoring the left-wing verses of his most famous song.

Jul 13, 2012 / Books & the Arts / John Nichols

10 Comedians Who Aren’t Defending Rape Jokes 10 Comedians Who Aren’t Defending Rape Jokes

Funnily enough, not all comedians are defending Daniel Tosh’s rape jokes.

Jul 13, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Katie Halper

Breaking Bad’s Failed American Dream Breaking Bad’s Failed American Dream

The “most dangerous show on television” highlights our shredded social contract.

Jul 11, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Max Rivlin-Nadler

Woody at 100 Woody at 100

Woody Guthrie's influence was as profoundly felt as any musician in US, and perhaps world, history.

Jul 11, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Peter Rothberg

The Great Disparity

The Great Disparity The Great Disparity

Timothy Noah and Charles Murray offer starkly different explanations of growing economic and social inequality in the United States.

Jul 10, 2012 / Books & the Arts / William Julius Wilson

Flow Dynamics Flow Dynamics

So lightly and invisibly I hardly knew it,   river of blood descending without joy back to the heart through the frail vein all that time   —the largest of the body—   shredded then dissolved (“obliterated”) and there was a   sudden seepage into the surrounding tissue   instead of the blood pouring out as you’d expect forever before a new vein formed   to bypass what was gone like a wide meander   even the smallest flood ends, and the river goes straight from that point.   But in my case the thin-walled base-ends held   forming an anabranch, a section that diverts from the main channel,   rejoins it downstream.   Local ones can come from, make small islands in the watercourse or flow hundreds of miles   like the Bahr el Zeref in the south Sudan   that splits from the Bahr al Jabal of the White Nile, doesn’t return until Malakal   instead of leaving behind, as it could have   with the blood being old, a full-fledged oxbow lake, a little blue   scar beside the heart.

Jul 10, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Elizabeth Arnold

Freedom Deferred: On Stephen Kantrowitz Freedom Deferred: On Stephen Kantrowitz

How social equality was used to discredit the egalitarian project of Reconstruction.

Jul 10, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Eric Foner

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