One of Obama’s proposals for government reorganization involves moving NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, from the Department of Commerce to the Department of Interior, which would seem to be a more natural home. Why, you may ask, was it not placed in Interior in the first place? At the time when NOAA was […]
March/April 2012
Posted inMagazine, March/April 2012
Keeping score on Wall Street
“Even for those making seven figures or more, cuts are ‘a blow,’ ” writes James B. Stewart of the New York Times. Here Stewart is quoting Michael Driscoll, a former trader who is trying to explain why Wall Streeters find reduced bonuses disturbing: “The effect is psychological. To a large extent, Wall Street keeps score […]
Posted inBooks, Magazine, March/April 2012, Politics
Stay for Tea
The real Tea Partiers are worth getting to know. Because they’re going to be here a while. And they might prove useful.
Posted inBooks, Economy, Magazine, March/April 2012
The Rise of the Amero-pessimists
Two political thinkers, a liberal and a conservative, believe America is headed toward inexorable decline. There are good reasons to believe they’re both wrong.
Posted inBooks, Magazine, March/April 2012
Thinking Out Loud
An oral history of the twentieth century, dictated on his deathbed, shows that Tony Judt was, to the end, the consummate public intellectual.
Posted inMagazine, March/April 2012, Politics
Calvin vs. Hobbes
A novelist’s lonely struggle to recover the religion-inspired liberalism of America’s founding ethos.
Posted inEconomy, Magazine, March/April 2012
Not a Drop to Drink
How water scarcity will soon be Asia’s defining crisis.
Posted inGovernment, Magazine, March/April 2012
We Can Live with a Nuclear Iran
Fears of a bomb in Tehran’s hands are overhyped, and a war to prevent it would be a disaster.
Posted inMagazine, March/April 2012, Politics
Clinton’s Third Term
The cover story in this issue, by yours truly, argues that Barack Obama has accomplished so much in his first term (health care reform, the stimulus, turning around Detroit—the list is long, and starts here) that he stands to go down in history as a great or near-great president. But it also notes that most […]
