Politics
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A History of Gun Control
One of the Longreads selections from the past week is this article in the Atlantic on gun control and the ambiguity of the second amendment’s language. This story doesn’t just divide into a two-sided argument over the right to bear…
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London Isn’t the Only City That’s Burning
London is definitely a hot case right now. But once you start taking a look elsewhere, you’ll see that the UK is not the only country where riots are taking form. Student protests in Chile have been gaining momentum for…
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Ideas of a Decade
A special issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, “An Era in Ideas,” goes under the surface of words like “death” and “terrorism” that have entered the public imagination since the September 11th attacks. The collection of essays reflects on…
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Undocumented Prison Deaths
“..currently, there isn’t a single federal law requiring state-run jails and prisons to report detainee deaths, or what caused them. Not one.” After the Death in Custody Act expired back in 2006, there has been no accountability for the reporting…
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Charles Graner is out of jail.
Does that name ring a bell? It was one of those names that I saw and knew I’d heard, but couldn’t immediately place where I knew it from. If it weren’t for the headline, I’d probably have never figured it…
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Dictionary For The Future
Lean Logic: A Dictionary For the Future and How To Survive It describes itself as “a community of essays about inventive, cooperative self-reliance in the face of great uncertainty.” Building upon that characterization, this review presents Lean Logic as a…
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NANO Fiction vs. IRS
NANO Fiction, the bi-annual publication of flash-fiction/micro essay/ prose poems, was denied nonprofit 501(c)(3) status because the IRS deemed the journal pornography. Three months prior to their nonprofit application, they published an issue featuring the photography of Traci Matlock and…
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Filming The Police
Phones and other devices have given people the ability to record and expose police misconduct. Sometimes, these recordings provide evidence for bringing charges against brutality, such as in the case of Oscar Grant. However, as this article explores, existing wiretapping…
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“Getting bin Laden”
Nicholas Schmidle’s article in the New Yorker delves into the details of the night in Abottabad when Osama Bin Laden was killed. The band of 23 Navy SEALs concealed within two Black Hawks, modified to fly undetected into Pakistani territory.…
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Drones Revealed
The art exhibition “Gaming in Waziristan,” in progress at London’s Beaconsfield Gallery, includes previously unseen photographs of post-drone strike moments in North Waziristan, along with 3D animation and moving images. The project seeks to interrogate structures of power, the war…
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Tragedy. Call. Compassion. Response.
Every day, terrible things happen in the world. Every damn day too many people die or suffer for reasons that defy comprehension.
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Ruminating on Murdoch’s Influence
This is a comprehensive roundup on the ways in which Rupert Murdoch’s handling of his media empire has impacted your life—via journalism, via politics, via the relationship of the public and the press. The phone-hacking scandal has prompted revelations about…