The Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch” is a reality series based on the toil and tyranny of crab fishing in the Bering Sea. About 4 million people watch the show every week, making it one of the top-rated programs on cable. It’s a strange phenomenon, considering that it’s just watching people work. But it’s more than […]
Commentary
Stoking Rage from Manipulated Fears
You remember the e-mails five years ago. They were all the same, junking up our in-boxes with bullet lists of how great things were going in Iraq – the exact number of new schools built, the number of Iraqis happily employed, the number of cell phones beeping everywhere (including, presumably, those used to detonate roadside […]
Atop a Decapitated Peak with Hoot
Mountain-top removal coal mining in West Virginia: the grinding tragedy of Kayford Mountain, where Massey Energy has been removing mountaintops to dig out coal.
Hoards of Wealth but No Will to Tax
Empires rise and fall on the strength of their kitty, not their guns. Spain in the 17th century, France in the 18th, Britain in the 19th – they each went bankrupt, exhausted from debt. With unsustainable trillion-dollar deficits projected through the next decade, is the United States going the way of its European forebears? If […]
Scholar’s Arrest Illustrates Harm of Police Overzealousness
The New Yorker’s Steve Coll was on assignment in Nigeria recently, dining alone “over spicy rice and cold beer” and entertaining himself with the letters to the editor in a local paper. One in particular, which Coll reproduced in his blog, recounts a man’s absurd run-in with cops. The man was carrying a bag. The […]
Universal Health Care Closer than a Moon Shot for U.S.
Here’s a good way to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing: Exceed that achievement with one of greater value. Going to Mars would be nice. Getting universal health care would be cheaper. It would do more good to millions of people than expeditions to outer worlds to pick up rocks and plant flags. […]
Obama Follows Precedent, Undermining Iran with Engagement
COMBATTING TYRANNY A twitter is a terrible thing to waste. Tweeting his brains out over Iran in the last few days, Marco Rubio, the former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives and current candidate for U.S. Senate, had a “feeling” that “the situation in Iran would be a little different if they had a […]
Obama the Collaborator Letting Naysayers Neuter Health-Care Fix
There is no health-care debate in the United States. There’s not even a debate over principles. You’d think a nation intent on overhauling a broken system that presidents going back to Harry Truman have been trying to fix would want to openly discuss what it wants – universal care? Single-payer? A private-public combination? Nationalized insurance? […]
Satisfaction at GM Dealership – Irony, Spiders and All
Last week, GM went bankrupt. Naturally, my wife, Cheryl, and I went to a GM dealership and bought a car. Her Buick was acting up. Strange sounds, twittery squeaks, leaks all over. We took it to the dealership for a look. It turned into a $2,700 sentence, before tax. I couldn’t tell you why. Mechanics […]
Devaluing Journalists Who Dig for Truth in War Zone
[Or. pub date: Sept. 20, 2009] You’d think reporters were a lower life form. And I’m not referring to the way bean-counters are exterminating them out of newsrooms. Stephen Farrell is a New York Times reporter posted in Afghanistan. On Sept. 5, Taliban forces kidnapped him and his Afghan interpreter, Sultan Munadi, who’s also a […]