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By Eugene Robinson — Thus far, the 2012 presidential campaign has been unfocused, dispiriting and largely irrelevant. By the time Election Day comes, a weary nation will be at the point of pulling the covers over its head and screaming, “Somebody, please, make it stop.”
Posted on Mar 20, 2012
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By William Pfaff — Terminating the Afghanistan War and ending the global projection of American military power of which it is a part are indispensable steps to saving the nation.
Posted on Mar 20, 2012
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Neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman said he shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in self-defense, although a 911 operator told Zimmerman not to follow the teenager through a suburban Orlando, Fla., gated community.
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Is it or isn’t it? Turns out it is—that is, a still-life painting of a dynamic flower arrangement that experts at the Kroeller-Mueller Museum in the Netherlands once believed to be the work of Vincent van Gogh but then questioned has been reattributed to the Dutch postimpressionist, thanks in part to some X-ray sleuthing.
Posted on Mar 20, 2012
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On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov signaled a shift in his country’s position vis-à-vis the ongoing crisis in Syria, indicating that Russia may be willing to cooperate more with the U.N. Security Council’s proposed plan, but with some stipulations.
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By Mr. Fish — As Samsa Gregor awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a human being.
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It’s long been a subject of controversy, as well as a few dramatic movie scenes, but electroconvulsive therapy, aka shock therapy, also appears to work when other treatments don’t in some persistent cases of depression. Now the medical community has a little more insight into how it helps patients.
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There are potential connections to killings earlier this month, and the general sociocultural climate and the context of the current presidential campaign offer other possible explanations, but the French were left with a big tragedy and something of a mystery after three children and a rabbi were slain outside an Orthodox Jewish school in Toulouse on Monday.
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According to this story from The Telegraph, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad apparently wasn’t aware that BBC reporter Paul Wood had been filing stories from the war-torn city of Homs until American journalist Nir Rosen tipped off his administration in an attempt to gain access for his own professional purposes.
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All that bad press about working conditions at Apple-affiliated factories apparently hasn’t caused the computer giant any significant economic harm; in fact, the company, bolstered by booming sales of its shiny new iPad, is planning to spread the wealth among shareholders this summer.
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Maybe he should hold this kind of optimistic talk until after the election, but on Monday, GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said he thinks things are looking up for our recession-ravaged economy. Just not as much as they would have been had he been in charge over these last three years.
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By Chris Hedges — We kill children nearly every day in Afghanistan. We do not usually kill them outside the structure of a military unit.
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“This American Life” host Ira Glass gave monologist Mike Daisey every opportunity to explain the lies in his “The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” performance, which became the basis for one of the radio show’s most popular and talked about episodes. Daisey’s rationalization for lying turns out to be, like much of his show, bullshit.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The question is whether 2012 will mark a comeback by a left invigorated by a growing unhappiness with rising economic inequalities and a backlash against austerity policies aimed at saving Europe’s common currency. (Pictured, British Labour Party leader Ed Miliband.)
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The NYPD met Occupiers returning to Zuccotti Park to celebrate the movement’s six-month anniversary Saturday with intimidation and force, flooding the area with hundreds of officers during the afternoon and evening before closing the park and making arrests at night.
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Following reports that AARP—the influential senior citizens lobby—will convene a closed-door meeting with higher-ups who advocate slashing essential welfare programs, progressive groups are launching campaigns to pressure the organization to stand firm against any cuts in Social Security benefits and Medicare.
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A thoughtful, personal essay by photographer Hank Willis Thomas makes the case that the cultures of America’s inner-city black communities, once dignified by the gains of the civil rights movement, have been steadily degraded over the last three decades by corporate capitalism.
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Groundbreaking research in behavioral economics may pose the greatest academic threat ever to free-market theory, suggesting that emotions linked to brain chemistry—not rational self-interest—play a deciding role in how we spend, save and invest.
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On the occasion of Occupy’s half-year anniversary, The Guardian chronicles some of the major milestones of six months of protest in America with photos and commentary.
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By Gareth Porter, Truthout —
The murder last July of a 35-year-old Iranian electrical engineering student and the way Israel has justified it parallels the way the nation has made its case that Iran is pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program.
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