The Nation back issues from January 2003:
Letters.
Jan 06, 2003 ... HOISTING A FEW WITH STUDS Chicago * I was fascinated by the letters between Christopher Hitchens and Katha Pollitt ["Exchange," Dec. 16]. There was a throwaway reference in Hitchens's piece that caught my attention. It was a reference to Gore Vidal, at whom he threw ...
A hundred peace movements bloom. (Articles).(protesting Iraq war)
Jan 06, 2003; ... This article is part of the "Waging Peace" series, covering the movement that is emerging across America to oppose war on Iraq.--The Editors Even with an enemy as easy to hate as Saddam Hussein, the Bush Administration's war plans in Iraq have awakened "huge reservoirs of ...
The moral quandary: anti-imperialism vs. humanitarianism: some on the left believe an invasion of Iraq is justified on moral grounds. But such an invasion would do little to relieve the suffering of the Iraqi people.
Jan 06, 2003; ... In late November, the journalism department at New York University hosted a forum on Iraq. The first five speakers, who included such liberal luminaries as historian Frances FitzGerald, cultural critic Todd Gitlin, former UN official Brian Urquhart and political scientist Michael Walzer, ...
The post-Saddam problem: an Iraqi opposition meeting does not inspire confidence in U.S. postwar plans.
Jan 06, 2003; ... After several postponements, a US-sponsored meeting of Iraqi opposition groups and individuals took place in London on December 14-15. The main resolutions adopted by some 330 delegates to the Iraqi Open Opposition Conference reiterated their often-repeated commitment to the ...
New York, New York.("A New Deal for New York" by Mike Wallace)(Book Review)
Jan 06, 2003; ... A NEW DEAL FOR NEW YORK. BY MIKE WALLACE. Bell & Weiland. 115 pp. $18.95. The economy of New York City still reels from the attack on September 11, to which has been added the economic effect of global recession and Wall Street's sharp decline. Official estimates of what the ...
Apocalypse Now?(Book Review)
Jan 06, 2003; ... DEAD CITIES: and Other Tales. By Mike Davis. New Press. 432 pp. $27.95. Judgment Day is everyday with Mike Davis. The La Brea tar pits are his spiritual birthplace, apocalypse is his middle name and the plagues that visited the ancient Egyptians are his psychic companions. As ...
Occupation Blues.(Book Review)
Jan 06, 2003; ... ISRAEL/PALESTINE: How to End the War of 1948. By Tanya Reinhart. Seven Stories. 278 pp. Paper $11.95. While Israel's decisive victories on the battlefield and overwhelming advantage in military force are crucial to its dominance in the Middle East, perhaps just as important is ...
Polanski's Holocaust.(Movie Review)
Jan 06, 2003; ... THE PIANIST*NARC*CHICAGO*THE HOURS* LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS*ABOUT SCHMIDT I can think of no picture of recent years, other than Roman Polanski's The Pianist, that has won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and yet stirred neither controversy nor excitement. Is it because the ...
It's that time again ...
Jan 06, 2003; ... What a rotten year! Not for me personally--quite the reverse in fact, as also for you, I hope--but for the things we care about: women's rights, the environment, social justice, world peace, civil liberties and civil rights. And what's that sound I hear? Troops massing on the Iraqi border? ...
Raines of fire.(Howell Raines )
Jan 06, 2003; ... New York Times executive editor Howell Raines shares, with his fellow liberal Southerner Al Gore, a talent for driving his opponents batty. Conservatives and a few not-so-conservatives have been conducting a journalistic jihad against Raines ever since he decided that dissension within the ...
Trifecta for our side. (Editorials).(Editorial)
Jan 06, 2003 ... In moments of triumphant hubris, titans do themselves in. The ancient Greeks understood such reversals of fortune, no doubt, but it is still startling to experience a trifecta of comeuppances with the wondrous quickness of modern American life. Trent Lott appears headed toward being ...
Healthcare for all--now. (Comment).
Jan 06, 2003; ... If there were a firing squad for political rhetoric, the phrase "single payer" would have to be placed against the wall and blown away. This term--generally used by politicians and policy advocates to describe a universal, government-funded national health insurance system--has all the ...
The people's church. (Comment).
Jan 06, 2003; ... Since Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the Wittenberg cathedral door, it is unlikely that protest outside a church has so signaled an irrevocable shift of consciousness: Sunday after Sunday for almost a year now, the front doors of Boston's Cathedral of the Holy Cross have ...
The `public interest'. (Comment).(public television station to be sold for commercial use)
Jan 06, 2003; ... For years Pittsburghers have witnessed the low regard in which public television station WQED holds its second channel, WQEX. Since November 1997, WQED has been airing on WQEX the same programs, at the same time, as on its flagship Channel 13, simulcasting a typical PBS mix of kids' shows, ...
Republican anger at Trent Lott.(Poem)
Jan 06, 2003; ... <Pre>Republicans feel anger, unconcealed,Because Trent Lott revealed what he revealed.They've always reassured the racist clodsBy using ...
New school manners.
Jan 06, 2003 ... * Nobody asked us, but we have some advice for the students at New School University who recently marched angrily into the offices of president Bob Kerrey and demanded he resign because he has written and spoken about his support for ousting Saddam Hussein. Our advice is: Don't try to shut ...
Hey, boys and girls.(CIA website)(Brief Article)
Jan 06, 2003 ... * Eric Ditzian writes: At a loss as to how to entertain the kids over the holidays after you've all seen the Harry Potter sequel twice? Why not check out the website run by the Central Intelligence Agency (www.cia.gov/cia/ciakids)? Offering zinging one-liners like, "Fly high on ...
Ellsberg's take on Iraq.(Ellsberg, Daniel)(Brief Article)
Jan 06, 2003 ... * Even as Americans breathe a sigh of relief, feeling that the US agreement to allow UN inspectors to search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq will force an indefinite postponement of invasion plans, Daniel Ellsberg cautions us that Washington hawks may have a different ...
News of the weak in review.(Brief Article)
Jan 06, 2003 ... * This Administration is so ahistorical it's scary. And we aren't referring to George W. Bush's campaign goofs. There is Gen. Tommy Franks, head of the US Central Command, explaining in a speech in West Palm Beach that we must invade Iraq to stop Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear ...
With friends of Israel like these ... oy vey! (Religion in the News).(Pat Robertson)(Brief Article)
Jan 06, 2003; ... The Chicago chapter of the Zionist Organization of America recently presented its State of Israel Friendship Award to Pat Robertson, who has declared America is a "Christian nation" and believes in the conversion of the Jews after the ...
Where the religion meets the road. (Religion in the News).(Evangelical Environmental Network )(Brief Article)
Jan 06, 2003; ... The Evangelical Environmental Network launched an ad campaign urging car-owning Christians concerned about global warming to ask, "What Would Jesus Drive?" Not a gas-guzzling SUV, answers the EEN. The Rev. Jerry ...
Faith-based initiative--in God we trust? (Religion in the News).(Brief Article)
Jan 06, 2003; ... President Eases Limits on U.S. Aid to Religious Groups--New York Times. "Government can write checks, but it can't put hope in people's hearts"--George W. Bush. Item. The State of Illinois has charged Bishop James Wilkowski, an evangelical Catholic, with diverting to his personal use ...
The power of music. (Articles).(Interview)
Jan 13, 2003; ... Midway through the peace rally in Seattle's Volunteer Park this past October, the stage was given over to a young man with a guitar. It was a big moment for this callow troubadour--certainly the largest crowd he'd ever faced, hungry for inspiration, ready for a new rallying cry. He ...
Desert island discs. (Articles).(favorite records)
Jan 13, 2003 ... No War Picture this: you're stranded on a desert island with nothing to comfort you but sand, sun and, miraculously, the solar-powered sound system that washed up with you. All of your CDs were lost at sea but, miraculously, a genie appears, promising to restore ten albums--but ...
`Stakes is high': conscious rap, neosoul and the hip-hop generation. (Articles).(political activism)
Jan 13, 2003; ... Fifteen years ago, rappers like Public Enemy, KRS-One and Queen Latifah were received as heralds of a new movement. Musicians--who, like all artists, always tend to handle the question "What's going on?" much better than "What is to be done?"--had never been called upon to do so much for ...
Russell Simmons's rap. (Articles).(Interview)
Jan 13, 2003; ... Russell Simmons, known for decades as Rush to his friends, is of average height and build for a man his age (45), with a cleanshaven face, bald dome and light complexion. In conversation, he is likely to switch gears from hip-hop culture and Eastern spirituality to politics and ...
Holy rock 'n' rollers. (Articles).(Christian rock music)
Jan 13, 2003; ... In Hicksville, Long Island, on any given Sunday afternoon, pierced and tattooed teenagers in black clothing gather to listen and watch as groups of kids like themselves tear their fingertips on guitar strings and scream unintelligibly into microphones. All the elements of the indie scene ...
Fear of a punk planet. (Articles).(appreciation of the Chicago-based magazine)
Jan 13, 2003; ... The Chicago-based magazine Punk Planet--nominated for the past two years in Utne Reader's Alternate Press Awards for "General Excellence," along with such better-heeled competition as The Nation, Mother Jones and The Ecologist--recently celebrated its fiftieth issue and the publication of ...
Kathleen Hanna's fire. (Articles).(Biography)
Jan 13, 2003; ... On the self-titled debut record by punk/dance band Le Tigre, there's a short song called "Eau d'Bedroom Dancing" that pays tribute to the timeless tradition of spinning around one's bedroom, alone. "There's no fear when I'm in my room/It's so clear and I know just what I want to do/All day ...
Empire of the air. (Articles).(the deregulation of radio broadcasting)
Jan 13, 2003; ... For too long, musicians have had too little voice in the manufacture, distribution and promotion of their music and too little means to extract fair support and compensation for their work. The Future of Music Coalition was formed in June 2000 as a not-for-profit think tank to tackle this ...
Does Europe do it better? (Articles).(squatters)
Jan 13, 2003; ... In more than fifteen years of rock-and-roll touring, my worst night of sleep followed a June 10, 1989, show at Centro Sociale Leoncavallo, an anticapitalist squat in Milan. On that impossibly long tour, ending just months before the Berlin wall fell, my band Soul Side played at social ...
Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
Jan 13, 2003 ... SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT ON SCHOOLS Boston * There's a lot of, to use Peter Sacks's words, "heavy lifting" ahead of us on many fronts--including education ["A Nation at Risk," Nov. 18, 2002]. Naturally, I'd have preferred unadulterated praise and assurances that this one book had ...
Sweet soul music.(Motown: Music, Money, Sex, and Power and Standing in the Shadows of Motown)(Movie Review)(Book Review)
Jan 13, 2003; ... Motown: Music, Money, Sex, and Power. By Gerald Posner. Random House. 350 pp. $24.95. Standing in the Shadows of Motown. Directed by Paul Justman. 108 minutes. Artisan Entertainment. When Martin Luther King, standing on a platform, addressing an off-stage white ...
Tap roots.(Savion Glover)
Jan 13, 2003; ... Savion Glover It's a shame that Savion Glover is trying so hard to hide from the world, because he's the greatest tap dancer who ever breathed. Glover is touring the United States and Japan through June 2003 in his show Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk, which won four Tony ...
The incubator returns!(United States and Iraq)
Jan 13, 2003; ... So onward into 2003 we go, amid INS roundups of Middle Easterners in Southern California and the grand hunt for Saddam's "material breaches," which could be a song out of Gilbert and Sullivan. As Hilaire Belloc wrote in his "Lord Lundy," "The stocks were sold; the Press was squared:/The ...
Strange fruit.(race relations, Trent Lott)
Jan 13, 2003; ... I have a friend who is the only black person living in his luxury cooperative building. A few years back, there was a get-to-know-your-neighbor party. After the party, as he was riding back upstairs on the elevator, a white woman who lived in the building told him that there was a new ...
Hot topic. (In Cold Type).(Topic magazine)(Periodical Review)
Jan 13, 2003; ... Topic magazine is a kaleidoscopic new British literary review, still in its infancy and edited by a bunch of precocious Cambridge graduate students. Not since Granta or the original Grand Street has there been such an original and absorbing new lit mag. Reading it is like letting your mind ...
A sorry Lott. (Editorials).(Trent Lott and the Republican record on race relations)
Jan 13, 2003 ... Trent Lott has grudgingly relinquished his grip on the Senate majority leader post, but that doesn't mean that the Republican Party has purged "the spirit of Jefferson Davis" that Lott famously described as living on in the party platform. Indeed, on the same day that Lott resigned, GOP ...
Prick up your ears. (Comment).(politics and the music industry)
Jan 13, 2003 ... How does a fiercely anticorporate musician feel about participating in a corporate entertainment system? "Rage Against the Machine was able to deliver 15 million subversive pieces of plastic across the globe," responds former Rage guitarist Tom Morello, in the forum convened by rock critic ...
Blind sweeps return. (Comment).(detaining Muslims and Arabs)
Jan 13, 2003; ... They say history repeats itself. But usually not quite so quickly. On December 19, the press reported that the Immigration and Naturalization Service had arrested hundreds of Muslim men in Los Angeles alone. The INS refused to say how many had been detained but, speaking anonymously, did ...
Venezuela on the brink. (Comment).
Jan 13, 2003; ... Caracas As the general strike against President Hugo Chavez entered its third week in early December, a major TV channel broadcast statements by baseball hero Andres Galarraga and other celebrities calling on Venezuelans to put aside differences for the sake of peace. What was ...
Innocent abroad. (Comment).(McMillan, Clark)
Jan 13, 2003; ... I went to a reception the other night to celebrate the efforts of a group called the Innocence Project, which provides legal assistance to prisoners for whom the technology of DNA testing may now provide proof that they did not commit the crimes they've been found guilty of. One such man, ...
On the web.
Jan 13, 2003 ... This holiday season the Bush Administration has put selfishness at the top back in style: Peter Dreier and Kelly Candaele survey numerous goodies being given to the rich. John Nichols remembers the late Joe Strummer, the passionate, socially conscious songwriter for the Clash. Peter Bergen ...
On not running for the presidency.(Poem)
Jan 13, 2003; ... <Pre> ON NOT RUNNING FOR THE PRESIDENCY We now feel warm toward Albert Gore,Who will not ...
Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
Jan 27, 2003 ... WANT FRIES WITH THAT? New Hope, Pa. * How deliciously amusing that Trent Lott was forced to eat not only crow but Jim Crow ["A Sorry Lott," Jan. 13/20]. MICHAEL HOLCOMB MUTANT CORN THREATENS ... Amherst, Mass. * In "Sowing ...
An African-American appeal for peace. (Articles).
Jan 27, 2003; ... On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was talking on the phone and looking down on the Hudson River from my southward-facing Greenwich Village apartment window. I heard a concussion, felt it almost. I looked around but saw nothing until my eyes rose up and caught sight of the World Trade ...
Tax the Plutocrats! Money is needed for social programs. And the rich have more than their share. (Articles).
Jan 27, 2003; ... It's time to confront the central obstacle blocking a new progressive politics: the Democratic Party's abject fear of the truth that new taxes are going to be needed if the party is ever to offer--and finance--a dramatic program capable of mobilizing large numbers of working Americans, ...
A dangerous game in Korea; US policies are fanning anti-Americanism in both the South and the North. (Articles).
Jan 27, 2003; ... On New Year's Eve, one week after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned that US forces were capable of "winning decisively" if North Korea's nuclear weapons program provoked a war, tens of thousands of South Koreans poured into the streets of Seoul to condemn the acquittals by a US ...
He's no Wellstone: Minnesota's new senator, Norm Coleman, is a dealmaker with ambitions.
Jan 27, 2003; ... This is the first in a periodic series on Republican members of the 108th Congress and officials who play important roles in the Bush Administration.--The Editors Two weeks after being elected to the US Senate, Norm Coleman is standing before the Minnesota Agri-Growth Council ...
The Fix at Ground Zero.(architecture hits the mainstream)
Jan 27, 2003; ... The second year of machinations at the World Trade Center site has gotten off to a vigorous start. Digging out of the public-relations hole it created for itself last summer with the release of six profoundly uninspired plans by four handpicked local firms, in September the Lower Manhattan ...
Explaining `the Magician'.(Thomas Mann: Life as a Work of Art)(Book Review)
Jan 27, 2003; ... Thomas Mann: Life as a Work of Art. By Hermann Kurzke. Translated by Leslie Willson. Princeton. 581 pp. $35. Art peels the kitsch off of life.--Robert Musil. Thomas Mann's popularity has been going the way of the Buddenbrooks family business. It is in decline. With ...
Unfinished women.(The Mercy Seat, Imaginary Friends)(Theater Review)
Jan 27, 2003; ... IMAGINARY FRIENDS * THE MERCY SEAT The public feud between Mary McCarthy and Lillian Hellman continues to warrant our attention long after its two vehement opponents have left the stage. To be sure, the nature of their dispute transcended the specific questions it raised ...
The year in pictures.(Gangs of New York, 25th Hour)(Movie Review)
Jan 27, 2003; ... GANGS OF NEW YORK * 25TH HOUR * BEST AND WORST OF 2002 Looking backward in the January chill, I feel my eyes shoot past the films of 2002 toward a movie made some thirty years ago: a picture by Martin Scorsese about violent, driven people in downtown Manhattan and how they were ...
The Wellstone way. (Going Down The Road).
Jan 27, 2003; ... During my days as Texas agriculture commissioner, a farmer pointed out to me that you can count the seeds in an apple, but you can't count the apples in a seed. I remembered the farmer's pithy observation when thinking recently about our departed friend Paul Wellstone, for he was a ...
They know when you are sleeping.(national security and law enforcement)
Jan 27, 2003; ... One of my cherished childhood memories is of my petite, polite mother closing the front door firmly on two hulking FBI agents who wanted to come in and ask her questions. "I don't have to talk to you," she informed them in a steely voice, and she didn't. Wow, Mom! I can't swear to all the ...
The roamin' empire.(United States foreign policy)
Jan 27, 2003; ... During the 2000 campaign, candidate George W. Bush proclaimed that America must be "humble in how we treat nations that are figuring out how to chart their own course." But that was then. September 11 opened up a door through which such rhetoric might be unceremoniously tossed. Its ...
Axis of incoherence. (Editorials).(attitudes toward North Korea and Iraq)
Jan 27, 2003 ... The burgeoning Far East crisis has exposed the bankruptcy of US Korea policy. Kim Jong Il's resort to nuclear threats, however deplorable, was predictable--even rational, given the hostility and bluster the Bush Administration has directed at him. Consider: The Pentagon's $60 ...
Memo to the Democrats. (Comment).
Jan 27, 2003; ... If Congressional Democrats want to be more than George W. Bush's punching bag in 2003--and in the critical election year of 2004--they must learn the difference between ambition and opposition. In 2002 Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle and former House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt ...
The Bush tax sham. (Comment).
Jan 27, 2003; ... On January 7 George W. Bush went to the Economic Club of Chicago to preview what he has been calling his "jobs and economic growth package," which he will formally present in his State of the Union address later this month. The Bush plan repackages old proposals to aid the wealthy ...
Long live the estate tax! (Comment).
Jan 27, 2003; ... There is a stunning disconnect between the terrible budget shortfalls facing states and localities and the priorities of federal tax-cutters. States face budget deficits of more than $60 billion for the coming year--and the ax is falling on mental health, education and children's ...
The right drug Rx. (Comment).(Medicare + Choice plans)
Jan 27, 2003; ... With a doctor in charge of the Senate, compassionate conservatism is well positioned to run roughshod over the issue that traditionally worked well for Democrats--healthcare. The Republicans' parsimonious plan for a senior citizen prescription-drug benefit will be among the first issues ...
Dixiecrats and the GOP. (Comment).(Trent Lott's misstep)
Jan 27, 2003; ... Why should anyone have been surprised that the senator who led the Republican Party of 2002 paid homage to the States Rights Party of 1948? Those Dixiecrats fatally extolled by Trent Lott at the hundredth birthday celebration of their onetime presidential nominee Strom Thurmond were very ...
The Question of North Korea.(Poem)
Jan 27, 2003; ... <Pre> The Question of North Korea Korea has the bomb, but not to worry.It's not a crisis. No, we needn't hurryTo get inspections back. Why try to spotThe weapons they already say they've got?Containment's fine, no ...