Posted on July 18, 2008

Muqtada, the Future of Iraq

By Robert S. Eshelman

“Firebrand.” It was the ubiquitous moniker used to describe Iraq’s fiercely anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr when, in March 2004, his leering portrait became commonplace among American media reports of Iraq. American Viceroy L. Paul Bremer III had just shut down al-Sadr’s Baghdad newspaper, al-Hawza, and hinted at arresting him, ushering in the first of several confrontations with al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army. More recently, this label has given way to that of… more

books movies musicCulture

By Jeremy GantzFood Fights

Globally, 1 billion overweight people coexist with 800 million starving people. That's one of many perverse facts in Stuffed & Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System (Melville House, April 2008, U.S.… more

By Theodore HammReading The Onion Seriously

Combining irreverent humor and acerbic critique, a handful of new media outlets -- including The Onion -- are transforming American politics and culture, writes Theodoe Hamm, in his new book The New Blue Media.

After 9/11, The Onion stopped its presses for one week. The hiatus allowed the paper to show its respect for the gravity of what had happened in lower Manhattan. But it also enabled its… more

By David MobergOur Imperfect Unions

Pick almost any metric -- fraction of workers in unions, lag of pay behind productivity increases, growing hours of work, rising economic insecurity -- and it's obvious that American workers and their unions are… more

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End The Prison Industrial Complex. End It Now.

(Via Doster), In light of this: Unnecessary deaths and amputation, grossly inadequate medical care, systematic prisoner beatings. These are just some of the findings from a... more

Write-in John Quincy Addams

Oh Bruce Bartlett, your logic makes so much sense! Many 23-year old Chicagoans like myself think highly of public education. I think that means we should... more

Chris Hayes is a machine

Read his 6,000 word opus on MoveOn. He gets at some of the tensions I highlighted in my piece from last year on the intersection between... more

Viewpoint

‘Centrists’ Running the Asylum

By David Sirota

In the asylum that is American politics, beware a candidate like Barack Obama when he is lauded for moving to “the center” — because usually… more

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