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Keeping It In Perspective
Excellent Andrew Sullivan piece on why keeping it in perspective on Obama is the right response. Refreshing to read a take on politics with the long view in sight.
Andrew Sullivan in The Daily Dish
CNN’s Prisoner of War
“I am not the same fucking person. I don’t know how to come home,” CNN’s Michael Ware told The Men’s Journal. Ware has been a war correspondent for 7 years in Iraq. A must read.
Michael Ware
Last Words from Death Row Prisoners
The New York Times ran this excerpt from a book on the last utterances from prisoners before their death. Hard to take your eyes away from reading it through.
The New York Times Last Words
Kill The Hive Mind?
Jaron Lanier’s fascinating work on the effects of our ‘hive mind’ continues.
The New York Times
Catholic Hierarchy Blows It Yet Again
Despair for gay Catholics. This, from a Brazilian Bishop:
Brazil Bishop [via The Daily Dish]
Questioning Wikileaks Cloak and Dagger M.O.
When Wikileaks released its “Collateral Murder” video showing the murder of a dozen Iraqi civilians, free speech adovcates celebrated. Over 6 million YouTube hits later, I’m not so sure we don’t have reason to pause and take a deep breath. Mother Jones Magazine, a Liberal Left US publication that would have most cause to wave Wikileaks’ flag, raised some interesting questions about the organisation that celebrates “extreme transparency”–but is itself pretty damned opaque.
Mother Jones Magazine
Rape Anyone?
These two excellent articles are the backstory to the confoundingly ugly statistic that almost one third of women in the US military will come home raped or sexually assaulted by their own colleagues. Both Helen Benedict and Ret. Colonel Ann Wright are doing excellent work on a horrible story. See also my piece,
The Wrong Enemy: Women Soldiers’ Secret War
The Private War of Women Soldiers by Helen Benedict
Is There an Army Cover Up of Rape and Murder of Women Soldiers?
by Ret. Colonel Ann Wright