After transforming from an advocate of the Iraq war to an opponent, Peter Beinart knew he had to make sense of the ideas “that led me to this pretty massive mistake.”
Event Rundown
Event Rundown: Archives
How to Grade Barack Obama’s First Year
On June 15, 2010
With his years of experience covering the White House, Jonathan Alter understands intimately the shortcomings of the instant news cycle.
“You need to wait a few weeks or months before people will talk,” he told the full house at the RAND Corporation.
Reforming Prisons from the Inside
On June 10, 2010
Like most speakers, Wilbert Rideau began by telling the audience at the Skirball Cultural Center that he was glad to be there.
But, Rideau, who spent 44 years in Louisiana State Pententiary, added, “No one has ever meant it more than I do.”
How the Hoover Dam Made America
On June 8, 2010
The Hoover Dam wasn’t always known as the Hoover Dam.
As Michael Hiltzik, author of Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century, explained, the battle to name the dam spanned 20 years and several presidential administrations. Options included Boulder Canyon Dam or simply Boulder Dam, even though the dam was 20 miles downstream in Black Canyon. In 1947, a Republican-majority Congress voted to put Hoover’s name back on the Dam, prompting so much controversy that one frustrated Nevadan wrote in to his local paper suggesting the name, “Who Gives A Dam.”
How Does Direct Democracy Work?
On May 26, 2010
Besides being dream destinations for immigrants and global centers of finance, Zurich and Los Angeles share the unusual distinction of being de facto capitols of the world’s leading laboratories of direct democracy. As journalist Joe Mathews explained, Switzerland and California use citizens’ initiatives and referenda more often and with more force than anywhere else in the world. Although, he added, “Oregonians have some argument there.”
Articles
Feuilleton
Monday, August 30, 2010
Taking Down a Mosque
Mohamed's Ghosts: An American Story of Love and Fear in the Homeland
