End This Depression, But How?
By Paul Krugman
W. W. Norton & Company, 2012, 272 pp.
Paul Krugman is stepping up to play the kind of role that John Maynard Keynes performed in the 1930s—arguing in clear accessible language for the government to spend to get us out of the slump. End This Depression Now! is his just-published polemic against the austerians—the powerful tribe found on both sides of the Atlantic that insists on balanced budgets. The book frequently... More
The Organized Poor and Behind the Beautiful Forevers
Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
by Katherine Boo
Random House, 2012, 288 pp.
In her remarkable book about slumdwellers in Mumbai, India, Katherine Boo brings to light a country of “profound and juxtaposed inequality,” where more than a decade of steady economic growth has delivered shamefully little to the poorest and most vulnerable. But though at first a heartfelt indictment of the processes of economic liberalization ... More
The Genderless War on Women’s Health
The “Purchase Bubble,” as students and faculty affectionately call their New York state college, rests peacefully in the Westchester County shade. Purchase is a reserve of liberal and fine arts, with a flair for the bohemian and a history of left-wing activism. “When we step outside, we realize that we’re pretty progressive,” says Christina Vitolo, a senior studying journalism and gender studies. “We have things like gender-neutral housing and gender-neutral bathrooms. We have professors who are openly gay or have tr... More
Managing Democracy in Russia
For the third time in twelve years, a familiar face is set to take over as Russia’s president. The outcome of the March election was scarcely in doubt. Ever since Vladimir Putin made it clear back in September that he and Dmitry Medvedev had struck a tacit deal years ago, in which Medvedev would take over the post essentially as a placeholder (while Putin served as prime minister), his re-election has been a foregone conclusion. The only uncertainty was what percentage of the vote Putin would obtain, and what effect his... More
Who Are the Other Americans Now?
If you are concerned about rising poverty rates in the United States, you are not alone. Surveys of American voters consistently reveal substantial majorities (around 60 percent of respondents) that say rising poverty in this nation is a major concern. Slightly smaller majorities agree that government should intervene on behalf of poor families and children. Renewed Occupy Wall Street demonstrations this spring should keep poverty and inequality in the news cycle. In a More
We Have a Pope: An Absurd Vatican
Nanni Moretti is one of Italy’s most original and beloved filmmakers. He not only directs his films but collaborates on them as scriptwriter, producer, and actor. He is a man of the left but also an ironist who views modern society with a wary, often humorous eye. Moretti’s best known films in the United States are the satiric, light-hearted, yet moving Caro Diario and his more melancholy The Son’s Room.
Moretti’s new film, We Have a Pope, combines both the sweet comic elements of the fo... More
Improving the Climate for Climate Legislation
In 1990, after nearly a decade of negotiating, the first Bush Administration amended the Clean Air Act to cap sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions to control acid rain and ozone pollution. Critically, the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments allocated or “gave away” the allowances permitted under the law. Sulfur dioxide emissions, for instance, had to be cut from 15 million to 10.8 million tons per year, but the 10.8 million–ton allowance was allocated to those that had to reduce emissions. While no one knows all the reasons... More
Obama’s Climate Change Promise: A Feeble Charm Offensive
The recent rise in gas prices has unsurprisingly become a salient issue this election season. Republicans are predictably haranguing the Obama administration’s “outrageously anti-American” energy policy, as the national average price of gas nears $4 per gallon and oil trades above $100 per barrel. Political economists and energy experts have warned that higher gas prices could curtail the already anemi... More
Giles Fraser: Going for Brokenness
It took a little over two hours to clear the tents from around St. Paul’s Cathedral in London one night at the end of February. By lunchtime the following day, behind tall metal fences, flagstones were being scoured with high-pressure hoses as “order” was finally restored. After four months, the London Occupiers may have been evicted, but according to former St. Paul’s canon chancellor Giles Fraser, “You cannot evict an idea.” Fraser resigned last October when St. Paul’s had, he feared, “chosen a path that mi... More
Demystifying the London Riots
“I still to this day don’t class it as a riot. I think it was a protest.” -A young man from Tottenham
The riots in London during August 2011 have already been fed through the distorting filter of British TV. What emerged was a reassuring portrayal that ignored the point of view of those involved and confirmed the government’s reading of the events. Fortunately, several ongoing research projects will provide, upon completion, a full and undiluted overview of the riots and the condition of British society in... More
Occupy Santa Clara! Corporate Personhood Reconsidered
The Occupy movement was widely lampooned by critics for failing to bring forward a coherent set of demands. But a random survey of participants in the protests that spread across the country late last year would likely turn up a large number who agree that ending the recognition of corporations as legal “persons” is a critically needed reform. Ballot measures in Boulder, Colorado and Madison, Wisconsin calling for an end to corporate personhood passed last year. A popular poster seen at Occupy events read, “I’ll belie... More
The Late-Blooming Vision of Henrietta Szold
A hundred years ago, on the Jewish holiday of Purim in 1912, a group of women founded the Hadassah Chapter of the Daughters of Zion at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan. Soon thereafter, this group began its medical endeavors in Palestine by sending two nurses to Jerusalem, which at the time was still under Ottoman rule. Today, the heart of the Hadassah Medical Organization remains in Jerusalem, and it includes two hospitals and related institutions that employ more than 5,000 men and women. Moreover, last week the organization b... More
What a New Play Says About Higher Education
Seminar
by Theresa Rebeck
directed by Sam Gold
Golden Theatre, NYC
The new play Seminar centers on an old type, the gruff professor, performed with relish by Alan Rickman, who mercilessly insults his students but turns out to have a heart of gold. However, the play, which might more aptly be named Workshop since it depicts Rickman as a well-known writer going over the work of four fledgling novelists, has a curious twist: the gruff professor is not a pa... More
Labor Organizing as a Civil Right
On January 20, 2009, when Barack Obama assumed the presidency, labor found the stars aligned to pass meaningful labor law reform. It had a friend in the president and vice president, with both Obama and Biden having been co-sponsors of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) when they were in the Senate. The Democrats had a majority in the House and a near filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, if one counted the independents that caucused with the party. They even had a Republican on board who had previously voted ... More
Bruce Springsteen's American Dream
Gambling is dice, not scratch cards; work is shoveling, not shelf-stacking; and the rallying call in “Death to My Hometown” is solely directed at the “boys.” The world in Bruce Springsteen’s new album, Wrecking Ball, released this week, is archaic and unreal, but the songs are intended for right now.
The Kid with a Bike: A Realist Fairy Tale
The Dardenne brothers—Jean-Pierre and Luc—have situated their admirable body of realist films (including La Promesse and Rosetta) in nondescript neighborhoods in Liège, Belgium, their hometown. Their working- and underclass characters face ethical and psychological dilemmas that cause a great deal of pain but are often redeemed by human connection. In particular, their films usually deal with inter-generational relationships—parents or their surrogates and children—that are fraught with difficulty.
The ... More
Our Town: A Literary History
Michael Lewis’s new book, Boomerang, is about the parts of the globe that were downgraded by the credit crisis, and my hometown of Vallejo, California, concludes his world tour like a telegraph from the end of days. From Lewis’s book, I learned that I grew up in what is now the third world. “Which city do you pity most?” Lewis asks two mayoral aides in San Jose, capital of Silicon Valley. “Vallejo!” they laugh.
I can always count on ill news from home, like springs popping from a tightly wound watch. Maybe y... More
Recovering the Progressive Frederick Douglass
Each Black History Month, there is plenty of discussion of Frederick Douglass, the slave-turned-abolitionist who is remembered as one of the greatest figures in African-American history, and whose legacy remains a source of conflict. To the chagrin of many progressives, a number of scholars and public officials claim that Douglass’s political philosophy “lives on” in the ideas of contemporary conservatives.
In the wake of the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court, for example, political theorist Ste... More
The Vanishing City: The Triumph of the 1 Percent
New York City has one of the highest levels of income inequality in the nation. The (now infamous) top 1 percent of earners in New York City, according to figures from 2009, bring in 34 percent of the city’s total income–much higher than the overall U.S. rate (17 percent), or the overall rate in Brazil for that matter. Any casual walk through Manhattan neighborhoods from Tribeca to Washington Heights provides a vivid contrast between the way the rich and poor live. The expensive boutiques, showpiece townhouses, a... More
What Good Is Knowledge if You Cannot Solve Problems? A Year in Grenoble
At the beginning of the academic year, Colgate professors receive a computer file displaying thumbnail color portraits of their students’ faces. Intended to help instructors memorize individual identities, these pictures actually emphasize the nearly interchangeable nature of these fresh faces. This appearance of homogeneity is reaffirmed in face-to-face contact with these young people, who are similarly fit and wear similar clothes, as they walk between granite stone classroom campus buildings. The school cultivates the top... More
