Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
The shattering events of 2014, beginning with Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri, in August, did more than touch off a national debate about police behavior, criminal justice and widening inequality in America. They also gave a new birth of passion and energy to a civil rights movement that had almost faded into history, and…
Hitler’s Cartoon Problem and the Art of Controversy Low’s strategy of making Hitler silly rather than scary pinched a touchy nerve. When the English government was pursuing the policy of appeasement before the Second World War, they found that one of Germany’s demands was that Low stop making fun of Hitler. As Lord Halifax, a…
In an attempt to be far out in front of the Charlie Hebdo terror attack manhunt story Wednesday night, NBC News ended up walking back what the network claimed was false information from U.S. counterterrorism officials. And in a series of appearances on MSNBC, justice correspondent Pete Williams had to radically change the story he…
Frederick County council member Kirby Delauter, who threatened to sue the Frederick News-Post if it published his name without permission, now acknowledges that he was wrong. He says in a statement: Over my career I have fired off my fair share of angry e-mails, which in hindsight I wish I hadn’t. I can’t think of…
The New York Times editorial board has reacted to the raw data of the NYPD slowdown with sweater-vested histrionics. “The madness has to stop,” the editorial states. A lack of Broken Windows policing won’t “unleash chaos,” they argue, it’s that “cops who refuse to do their jobs and revel in showing contempt to their civilian…
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Advisory Committee, charged with advising on improvements to FOIA administration, has begun its deliberations. As part of the process, the committee has established a website with a “submit comments” option. Here is the link if you would like to make your voice heard on FOIA administration: https://ogis.archives.gov/foia-advisory-committee/contact-us-submit-comm…. If you…
Four months into its existence, Destiny is a better, more frustrating, more expansive—and ultimately, expensive—game than it was at launch. It’s also very different, because after months of tweaks, it has become clearer than ever who we’re really playing against: the people who made it. The player’s greatest adversary in Destiny isn’t an alien warlord…
Cliff Sloan on Closing Gitmo by Deborah Pearlstein In case you missed it Monday, departing U.S. State Department special envoy for closing Guantanamo had a sharp op-ed in the N.Y. Times, marking the administration’s recent successes at moving detainees out of the prison and urging that further progress be made. Among other things, Sloan highlights…
Defenders of the police department too often ignore credible evidence that its treatment of minorities leaves much room for improvement. Shannon Stapleton/Reuters A dozen years ago, City Journal, the quarterly magazine of The Manhattan Institute, published “The Black Cops You Never Hear About” by Heather Mac Donald, one of the sharpest, most eloquent, and zealous…
PARIS—Following the fatal terrorist attack Wednesday at the offices of French newspaper Charlie Hebdo, sources confirmed this afternoon that it is sadly not yet clear whether this very article will ultimately put human lives at risk. According to totally and utterly depressing early reports, given the tragic deaths of 12 people, it is impossible to…