Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free
by Charles P. Pierce
When fringe opinions are louder than reasonable ones, and seem ready to overwhelm Americans’ ability to understand what’s happening in the world, consider it a cost of free speech.
Charles Pierce makes precisely this case….
David Gardner, Chief Leader Writer and Associate Editor at the Financial Times, asks in his book, Last Chance: The Middle East in the Balance,
David Loyn is an award-winning foreign correspondent for the BBC, where he has worked for 30 years reporting from Moscow, Kosovo, Kashmir, and Kabul, among other places. He also was the only foreign correspondent who was with the Taliban when they took Kabul in 1996. “They trusted that I wouldn’t bring an air strike,” he said. “I had to trust that they wouldn’t kill me, and fortunately, they didn’t.”
The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday: Unexpected Encounters in the Changing Middle East
by Neil MacFarquhar
Hizbollah isn’t exactly known for its courtesy in this part of the world, at least until now.
Though it rigorously controls media access to southern Lebanon, the political party, social services provider and militia group is at least polite to those whom it approves. Each year, writes Neil MacFarquhar, the PR-savvy “Party of God” sends birthday emails to its approved journalists, sometimes written in verse….
The Match King: Ivar Kreuger, The Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals
by Frank Partnoy
Though his name isn’t a common synonym for fraud, Ivar Kreuger was in many ways a far greater swindler than Charles Ponzi.
Like Ponzi, Kreuger was a European immigrant who sailed to America with little more than a few bucks and a penchant for self-invention. He surpassed Ponzi’s modest trick….
Orson Welles was born on May 6, 1915, and directed his most acclaimed film, Citizen Kane, at age 26. Years later, after a couple disastrous movies and a sojourn in Europe, he would reunite with one of its stars, Joseph Cotton, in The Third Man. Welles' character, Harry Lime, is the missing center of the movie until he appears, finally, and explains his motives for entering a less-than-savory line of work....
