Politics
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Travel As A Political Act
Rick Steves’s recent book, Travel As A Political Act tells us how we can travel more thoughtfully. “Growing up in the U.S., I was told over and over how smart, generous, and free we were. Travel has taught me that…
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Viva Sanford!
Hypocrisy aside, I like the guy now that I’ve read his deeply captivating love letter emails. Finally, one of those Republicans seems to feel genuine emotion, like their distant cousins, the humans.
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The Rumpus Readers Interview Dee Snider
We passed the opportunity on to our readers—and we ended up with an interview that was much more interesting than we had expected.
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Iran Links
Protesters and police clash in front of the Iranian Parliament at Baharestan Square (pictures). “They started beating everyone […] and throwing them off the bridge […] they beat a woman so savagely that she was drenched in blood…” an eyewitness…
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AP to Distribute Nonprofit Journalism- Brief Rumpus Interviews with the Participants
Sy Hersh would be proud: the Associated Press announced last Saturday that it will distribute watchdog and investigative journalism from four leading nonprofit organizations to its 1,500 member newspapers. The deal will widen distribution of the groups’ work while addressing…
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Getting Everyone All Better
If you only read one article on health care this year, consider making it the same one as everyone else: Atul Gawande’s “The Cost Conundrum.” Gawande is great on paradoxes, mysteries and ethical conundrums in the practice of medicine, and…
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Typing Fast and Sitting Still
Blogging and stillness seem to be contradictory activities: I, along with many others, think of blogging as the relentless and hasty documentation of modern life on the go, news-in-brief for busybusy people. And yet what bloggers are often attempting is…
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Iran’s Regime: Marching Toward a Cliff
A special comment by Tamim Ansary, author of Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes The Khomeinist regime in Iran is in terminal trouble; but that doesn’t mean Iran is about to repudiate Islam and become a…
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Reading Lists on Serious Topics From the Back Pages of the Newspaper
Our view of the world is so often sculpted by front page and home page, so here is a look at some long-ongoing crises of self-determination that only occasionally surface in the news: First, Nigeria and Big Oil. I’m not…
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Women Resexualized? Is Meat Sexist?
Since so many of us live in this paradoxical nation that is both obviously obsessed with women’s bodies, yet has a morbid fear of wardrobe malfunctions, there is no shortage of fascinating discussions online about the interconnections of women and…
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The Return Of Paris ’68? Well, in theory at least. . .
“For the second time this spring, New York has witnessed a public reading of a Situationist manifesto. The first occurred in April, when students at the New School took over a university building and read “On the Poverty of Student…
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Is Marriage Obsolete?
In the current issue of The Atlantic, the newly-divorced Sandra Tsing Loh wonders out loud “isn’t the idea of lifelong marriage obsolete?” but then holds off a little from answering that question directly in order to do a characteristically amusing…