By Mr. Fish —It was like meeting a clown outside of his makeup, who appears lovely and handsome and noble, if only because he isn’t trapped in a spotlight at the center of a ludicrous pie fight.
What’s America’s legacy in Iraq going to be? Can we read it accurately from this moment, now that the war is “officially” over? Also on this week’s rundown of topics for “Left, Right & Center” panelists Robert Scheer, Matt Miller, Chrystia Freeland and Mark Tapscott are Fannie and Freddie vs. the SEC and a farewell to Christopher Hitchens.
Though he gives credit to Christopher Hitchens’ exceptional talent, Chris Hedges remembers the newly departed writer differently from the way others might in this clip from CBC Radio. In an unflinching appraisal, Hedges recalls what Hitchens got wrong about religion, his biggest intellectual failing and what it was like to engage him in a debate.
This week’s official end to the Iraq War brought a good deal of back-patting among the leaders responsible for its origin and duration, but “Democracy Now!” host Amy Goodman delivers a grim reality check in this clip from Friday’s broadcast featuring analysis and commentary from Brown University professor Catherine Lutz.
Add George Whitman, the former proprietor of the 60-year-old Parisian bookstore and artist sanctuary Shakespeare and Co., to the list of major cultural figures lost this week. He was 98 years old.
It was like meeting a clown outside of his makeup, away from the hysteria of his profession, who appears lovely and handsome and noble, if only because he isn’t trapped in a spotlight at the center of a ludicrous pie fight.
A marvelous new biography of Vincent Van Gogh asks what if it was untreatable epilepsy that drove him mad, he didn’t cut off his lobe for a woman and he was killed by delinquents rather than committing suicide?
It is one of the true delights of a bizarrely entertaining Republican presidential contest to watch the apoplectic fear and loathing of so many GOP establishmentarians toward Newt Gingrich.
Jon Wiener spoke with Hitchens in 2007 about his views on religion and the book that would turn out to be one of the milestones of Hitch’s career as a public intellectual.
Until a few months ago, the 99% was hardly a group capable of articulating “the identity of their interests.” It contained, and still contains, most “ordinary” rich people, along with middle-class professionals, factory workers, truck drivers, and miners, as well as the much poorer people who clean the houses, manicure the fingernails, and maintain the lawns of the affluent.
Though they couldn’t stop the freedom-crushing National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 from becoming law, Truthdig salutes the efforts of the members of the U.S. Congress who took a stand against the NDAA in the final round of voting this week.
What zeal this man had to eviscerate the conceits of the powerful, whether their authority derived from wealth, the state or a claim to the ear of the divine.
Can we please bury the notion that Newt Gingrich is some kind of deep thinker? His intellect may be as broad as the sea, but it’s about as deep as a birdbath.
North Korea’s current dictator has died. State television gives the cause of death as—and this is not a joke—exhaustion from working too hard. Kim succeeded his father in 1994 and has indicated that his third son is to take over the responsibility of oppressing the North Korean people.
An analysis by Public Campaign reveals that between 2008 and 2010, 30 of America’s most profitable companies, including Verizon, Wells Fargo, FedEx, GE and Mattel, spent more money buying influence in Washington than they did paying taxes. (Full list after the jump.)
An Israeli woman is relegated to the back of the bus by a group of Orthodox Jews; New York celebs party with the Occupiers; and studying fish may be the key to understanding why uninformed voters are a necessary evil in our democracy. These discoveries and more after the jump.
OWS protesters tried to set up a new encampment in a vacant lot in lower Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood Saturday, but failed when police entered the area and made arrests. Retired New York Bishop George Packard was first over the fence. He was among those busted.
Vaclav Havel, playwright, nonviolent dissident and pro-democracy leader of the Czechoslovakian “Velvet Revolution” that toppled communism and propelled the unraveling of the Soviet empire, died Sunday morning. He was 75.
Christopher Hitchens wrote for The Nation magazine between 1978 and 2006, aiming “sarcasm and invective” at “fools on both left and right.“ On the occasion of his death, the magazine collects some of his most memorable salvos.
Who will tell you what's really going on with the world economic crisis?
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