Such are the contradictions that seem to riddle not just Gladwell's thinking but the thinking on Gladwell's thinking, and perhaps even the thinking on thinking on that, and it is precisely these slippery but substantive contradictions that have allowed Gladwell to tout his revolutionary "big ideas" without couching them in anything so mundane as a logical, well-supported or otherwise sound argument. Gladwell for Dummies.
posted by defenestration on Nov 5, 2009 - 96 comments

Max Blumenthal writes about Matthew Murray in the Nation article 'The Nightmare of Christianity'. [more inside]
posted by soelo on Sep 21, 2009 - 30 comments

Obama's Faithful Flock. Sarah Posner reminds us that Obama promised to reverse the most egregious aspects of Bush's faith-based policies and asks why he's extending them.
posted by Mayor Curley on Jul 19, 2009 - 66 comments

"Percy Harrison Fawcett ... convinced himself, based on a mix of archival research, deduction and clairvoyance, that a large undiscovered city lay hidden somewhere in the Amazon" Greg Grandin of The Nation talks about the allure of the Amazon in history and the repeated attempts made to domesticate, colonize, control, or explore it. previous discussion of failed Amazon ventures here ( via )
posted by The Whelk on Mar 31, 2009 - 21 comments

"The Worst Addiction of Them All", by Kurt Vonnegut, 1983. A classic and prescient essay on addiction to war.
posted by stbalbach on Feb 1, 2008 - 19 comments

Last year, one of the last of the independent magazine distributors, Independent Press Association, went out of business (and took many smaller magazines along in its wake), and those who have survived, like Punk Planet, now depend on its subscription base for revenue. Now, a proposed postal hike, which favors magazines with larger circulations, could be the final nail in the coffin for some of the little guys.
posted by pfafflin on Apr 20, 2007 - 26 comments

A Letter to the American Left By Bernard-Henri Lévy. "Nothing made a more lasting impression during my journey through America than the semi-comatose state in which I found the American left. I know, of course, that the term "left" does not have the same meaning and ramifications here that it does in France. And I cannot count how many times I was told there has never been an authentic "left" in the United States, in the European sense.

But at the end of the day, my progressive friends, you may coin ideas in whichever way you like. The fact is: You do have a right. This right, in large part thanks to its neoconservative battalion, has brought about an ideological transformation that is both substantial and striking. "
posted by mountainmambo on Feb 11, 2006 - 84 comments

Running on Fumes -- a fascinating essay by the Nation's Sasha Abramsky on what rising gas prices will do to poor exurban communities.
posted by digaman on Oct 4, 2005 - 165 comments

Why Bush Left Texas Growing evidence suggests that George W. Bush abruptly left his Texas Air National Guard unit in 1972 for substantive reasons pertaining to his inability to continue piloting a fighter jet. A months-long investigation, which includes examination of hundreds of government-released documents, interviews with former Guard members and officials, military experts and Bush associates, points toward the conclusion that Bush's personal behavior was causing alarm among his superior officers and would ultimately lead to his fleeing the state to avoid a physical exam he might have had difficulty passing... If it is demonstrated that profound behavioral problems marred Bush's wartime performance and even cut short his service, it could seriously challenge Bush's essential appeal as a military steward and guardian of societal values. It could also explain the incomplete, contradictory and shifting explanations provided by the Bush camp for the President's striking invisibility from the military during the final two years of his six-year military obligation... There's that elephant in the living room again.
posted by y2karl on Sep 15, 2004 - 101 comments

Let's Make Enemies ...The CPA has also confirmed that after June 30, the $18.4 billion the US government is spending on reconstruction will be administered by the US Embassy in Iraq. The money will be spent over five years and will fundamentally redesign Iraq's most basic infrastructure, including its electricity, water, oil and communications sectors, as well as its courts and police. Iraq's future governments will have no say in the construction of these core sectors of Iraqi society. Retired Rear Adm. David Nash, who heads the Project Management Office, which administers the funds, describes the $18.4 billion as "a gift from the American people to the people of Iraq." He appears to have forgotten the part about gifts being something you actually give up. And in the same eventful week, US engineers began construction on fourteen "enduring bases" in Iraq, capable of housing the 110,000 soldiers who will be posted here for at least two more years. Even though the bases are being built with no mandate from an Iraqi government, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy chief of operations in Iraq, called them "a blueprint for how we could operate in the Middle East." ...
posted by Postroad on Apr 2, 2004 - 69 comments

Good Bye, Horatio Alger The other day I found myself reading a leftist rag that made outrageous claims about America. It said that we are becoming a society in which the poor tend to stay poor, no matter how hard they work; in which sons are much more likely to inherit the socioeconomic status of their father than they were a generation ago. The name of the leftist rag? Business Week, which published an article titled "Waking Up From the American Dream." The article summarizes recent research showing that social mobility in the United States (which was never as high as legend had it) has declined considerably over the past few decades. If you put that research together with other research that shows a drastic increase in income and wealth inequality, you reach an uncomfortable conclusion: America looks more and more like a class-ridden society. And guess what? Our political leaders are doing everything they can to fortify class inequality, while denouncing anyone who complains--or even points out what is happening--as a practitioner of "class warfare." So how do you move on up in the jobless recovery, anyhow?
posted by y2karl on Jan 1, 2004 - 118 comments

As media concentration grows, (and grows) today is the big day the FCC announces their changes in regulations. You can hear it live, via realaudio, at http://www.fcc.gov/realaudio/, starting at 9:30AM EST, 6:30AM west coast time.
posted by mathowie on Jun 2, 2003 - 27 comments

"President Bush is a liar. There, I said it, but most of the mainstream media won't."
From an article in The Nation...prompted by all the talk of lies in this thread.
posted by mapalm on Nov 8, 2002 - 57 comments

An Open Letter to Congress from the editors of The Nation. All the makings of a final plea.
posted by mooseindian on Sep 26, 2002 - 91 comments

This may not make as effective a sales pitch as "weapons of mass destruction," but with two oil men in office, it can't be ignored as a possible ulterior motive to war in Iraq. Am I a cynic or should we be asking if this "preemptive" war is really about what they are saying it's about?
posted by karlcleveland on Sep 23, 2002 - 7 comments

India's slide into facsism... An essay in The Nation by India's Arundhati Roy — novelist, essayist, activist — lays down the facts around a very troubling assertion: people-heavy, nuclear-armed, legitimacy-seeking, proto-super-power India is quickly becoming a fascist state.
posted by silusGROK on Sep 18, 2002 - 14 comments

The End of Empire? "You can't sustain an empire from a debtor's weakening position--sooner or later the creditors pull the plug. That humiliating lesson was learned by Great Britain early in the last century, and the United States faces a similar reckoning ahead."
posted by homunculus on Sep 9, 2002 - 39 comments

Bubble Wrap: The Nation vs. The Weekly Standard "Back in the '60s, the left was the home of humor, iconoclasm, pleasure. But over the last two decades, the joy has gone out of the left -- it now feels hedged in by shibboleths and defeatism -- while the right has been having a gas, be it Lee Atwater grooving to the blues, Rush Limbaugh chortling about Feminazis or grimly gleeful Ann Coulter serving up bile as if it were chocolate mousse"
posted by owillis on Aug 30, 2002 - 9 comments

Thomas Frank lays it down for you again, anyone still yearning for a more unfettered free market. via anfin
posted by engelr on Aug 17, 2002 - 2 comments

Is a 'Pax Americana' possible? And if it is possible, is it a good thing or a bad thing? It depends on who you ask. And if not the US, then who? Europe has neither the force of arms nor the political cohesiveness. China seems to be the only other contender, but it begs the question: should America even try to mediate world disputes, or intervene when (and only when) our national interests are at stake?
posted by mrmanley on Aug 14, 2002 - 28 comments

Start Me Up Or Shut Me Down: Is Music Compromised And Cheapened By Its Use In Commercials? The Doors' John Densmore, writing in The Nation about why he refuses to accept Apple's and other companies' generous offers to use his band's songs, certainly thinks so. Is this an admirable example of integrity; precious vanity or just downright jejune?[More inside]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Jun 23, 2002 - 48 comments

The God Squad Christopher Hitchens gives (another) one to organized religion, and reminds us of the important role that the Islamic world played in preserving Western Civilization.
posted by Ty Webb on Apr 3, 2002 - 7 comments

This article in "The Nation" bemoans the fact that the U.S is dissing its new best friend Russia, and that the recent entente cordiale is under threat. This article at the the Institute for War and Peace Reporting suggests that the U.S could, perhaps, be a little more selective in choosing its friends. I have often wondered if the west would have stood for Russia or the U.S.S.R using force on a scale to that which we have recently witnessed in Afghanistan or Chechnya. It looks like they have become our sons of bitches.
posted by Fat Buddha on Mar 29, 2002 - 3 comments

Which America Will We Be Now? You can help us decide: Vote in your local elections today.
posted by skyboy on Nov 6, 2001 - 21 comments

If terrorism is real, then a clear-eyed view would suggest nuclear power is done for.
posted by sudama on Sep 17, 2001 - 10 comments

The Cost of an Afghan 'Victory' an article from 1999 asks Did the founders of US policy in Afghanistan during the Carter Administration (1977-1981) realize that in spawning Islamic militancy with the primary aim of defeating the Soviet Union they were risking sowing the seeds of a phenomenon that was likely to acquire a life of its own, spread throughout the Muslim world and threaten US interests?
posted by LeLiLo on Sep 16, 2001 - 3 comments

So we think we're free? Bill Moyers tells us that we're in the grip of the mega-corporate media who know how to lavishly butter their own bread. And if we like jam? Too bad.
posted by caraig on Apr 22, 2001 - 3 comments

"You don't have to burn books now," says Thomas. "You just press the delete key." Two unabashedly partisan reports of the Bush administration's clandestine campaign to "tighten up" anything from online government sources dealing with the development of Alaskan mineral resources. We've done the debate on Alaska, but what about the ability to amend online records? The old administration's sites are meant to be preserved by law, but plenty appears to have been deleted in the name of "polishing": "We changed value-laden words like 'destroy' to 'impact.'" Newspeak in action? Should government-run sites be required to carry a Changelog?
posted by holgate on Apr 14, 2001 - 7 comments

Gore's Connection to Occidental Petroleum goes much deeper than an investment in a mutual fund. From the article: "...the Clinton Administration has been quietly helping the company--a generous donor to the Democrats in recent years--to win support in Colombia for its drilling plans."
posted by snakey on Oct 28, 2000 - 34 comments