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Rebecca Solnit: Too Soon to Tell

May 21, 2013

The case for hope, continued.

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: Somebody Give Bill Gates and Drew Faust a Copy of Citizens Disunited

May 21, 2013

The new book by “class traitor” Robert Monks shows a system at its breaking point—and names the twenty-four Americans who can fix it.

Paul Kiel: The 182 Percent Loan

May 21, 2013

How installment lenders put borrowers in a world of hurt.

Robert Reich: The IRS and the Real Scandal

May 20, 2013

The problem is that the IRS has interpreted our tax laws to allow big corporations and wealthy individuals unlimited political influence.

Mimi Hanaoka: Misadventures with the Mukhabarat

May 20, 2013

How can you prove to the Syrian secret police that you’re not an Algerian spy?

Andy Kroll: Billionaires Unchained

May 17, 2013

America’s new pay-as-you-go democracy.

Robert Reich: Pyromaniacs on the Potomac

May 17, 2013

The problem with Obama’s second term.

Kaavya Asoka: Shifting the Gaze

May 16, 2013

The Guggenheim’s current exhibition, No Country, challenges conceptions of modern Asian art.

Sarah Browning: Poetry as Provocation

May 16, 2013

Camille Gage interviews the poet, activist, and director of Split This Rock.

Paul Kiel & Mitchell Hartman: Soldiers Defeated by Debt

May 16, 2013

Federal law is supposed to protect service members from predatory lending, but many military personnel are trapped in high-interest debt.

Keith Meatto: Seven Ways of Looking at The Great Gatsby

May 15, 2013

Meditations on Jay G, Jay-Z, the art of plagiarism, and America’s love affair with money, guns, and decadence

David Vine: Where Has All the Money Gone?

May 15, 2013

Contractors have raked in $385 billion to build and maintain military bases overseas. How much of the total is fraud?

Nick Turse: Nuclear Terror in the Middle East

May 14, 2013

Lethality beyond the pale.

Carlos Franz: Normalcy without Liberty

May 14, 2013

Life in East Germany on display in a strange Berlin museum.

Robert Reich: Working Mother’s Day

May 14, 2013

In 1966, only 20 percent of mothers with young children worked outside the home. By the late 1990s, 60 percent did.

Mira Ptacin: Is a Baby a Luxury?

May 13, 2013

When a chemical stick revealed that our little family was about to change, we were overjoyed. But not insured.

Rachel Riederer: Salman Rushdie’s Happy Irreligion

May 13, 2013

At an evening with the AAWW, the celebrated novelist shares thoughts on influence and identity, and offers advice to young writers

Jesse Eisinger: Act of Congress Stresses Hopeful Creation of Dodd-Frank, Omits Grim Ending

May 13, 2013

To a Beltway expert such as Robert Kaiser, that a dysfunctional and hyperpartisan Congress passed such a sweeping bill constitutes a small miracle.

Peter Van Buren: Homeland Insecurity

May 10, 2013

Seven years, untold dollars to silence one man.

David Morris: Hidden Power Grab Stops Communities From Deciding Their Own Futures

May 10, 2013

Increasingly states are quashing the power of local governments—and thwarting innovation.

Gina Myers: Holding It Down

May 9, 2013

Keith Meatto talks with poet Gina Myers about leaving New York, darkness in poetry, and the difference between growing up and settling down.

Christie Thompson: Is Obama Delivering on His Promise of a “21st Century” Approach to Drugs?

May 9, 2013

A look at the administration’s latest approach to drugs, and what they’ve done so far.

Tom Engelhardt: And Then There Was One

May 8, 2013

Imperial gigantism and the decline of planet Earth.

Lois Beckett: Kansas Gov. Insists it’s OK to Ignore Federal Gun Laws

May 8, 2013

Governor Sam Brownback rejects Washington’s argument that his state’s gun laws are blatantly unconstitutional.

Sergio Hernandez: Intern vs. Mayor

May 7, 2013

FOIA battle bares Bloomberg’s argument for secrecy.

Robert Reich: The Hollowing Out of Government

May 7, 2013

When Republicans can’t repeal laws they don’t like, they hollow them out, deny funds to fully implement them, and reduce funds to enforce them.

Earl Lovelace: A Story in Which I Look Good

May 7, 2013

Flash Fiction: If he feels pushed, he will turn into a bull, a storm.

Lois Beckett: Nullification

May 6, 2013

How states are making it a felony to enforce federal gun laws.

Theodoric Meyer: Pay to Prescribe?

May 6, 2013

Two dozen doctors named in Novartis kickback case.

Ellen Cantarow: The Downwinders

May 3, 2013

Fracking ourselves to death in Pennsylvania.

Robert Reich: A Story for May Day

May 3, 2013

The Fed, Apple, and Trickle-Down Economics.

Jonathan Rowe: The Real Tragedy

May 2, 2013

Ecological ruin stems from what happens to—not what is caused by—the commons.

Justin Elliott: House Finance Chair Hensarling Goes on Ski Vacation with Wall Street

May 2, 2013

A getaway with Hensarling, whose committee oversees Wall Street and its regulators, is an invaluable opportunity for industry lobbyists.

Elizabeth Kadetsky: Moths

May 1, 2013

You’ve never liked spring, as if its optimism, that sense of opportunity, is something you can never match.

Eduardo Galeano: The Life and Death of Words, People, and Even Nature

May 1, 2013

From walking libraries and a god named “Word” to what Sherlock Holmes never said.

Michael Grabell: Taken for a Ride

May 1, 2013

Temp agencies and ‘raiteros’ in immigrant Chicago.

Vaddey Ratner: The Cripple’s Last Dance

April 30, 2013

Flash Fiction: Dossier No. X recovered from Interrogation Cell B of Sala-XX

Christie Thompson: Billions Proposed for New Border Security

April 30, 2013

Where would the money go?

Robert Reich: Public Debt and Economic Growth

April 30, 2013

Government should fuel growth by spending more—at least in the short run.

Editors’ Reading Recs: Collectors’ Items

April 29, 2013

Guernica‘s staff recommends collections of stories, essays, poems, and more.

David Rosner & Gerald Markowitz: You Are a Guinea Pig

April 29, 2013

How Americans became exposed to biohazards in the greatest uncontrolled experiment ever launched.

Sebastian Rotella: How Hezbollah Trained an Operative to Spy on Israeli Tourists

April 29, 2013

Hezbollah’s recent activity casts doubt on its relationship with Europe.

Todd Gitlin: Is the Press Too Big to Fail?

April 26, 2013

It’s dumb journalism, stupid.

Theodoric Meyer: What Went Wrong in West, Texas

April 26, 2013

And Where Were the Regulators?

Allison Benis White: The Luminous, Grieving Mind

April 25, 2013

The author of Small Porcelain Head on how poetry can help us mourn.

Robert Reich: The Xenophobe Party

April 25, 2013

Can we just get a grip? Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a naturalized American citizen.

Tom Engelhardt: Filling the Empty Battlefield

April 25, 2013

A new book from Jeremy Scahill, America’s blowback reporter.

Colson Whitehead: Each Book An Antidote

April 24, 2013

Colson Whitehead on labels in literature, wearing genre drag, and getting lost in New York.

Marian Wang: The Admissions Arms Race

April 24, 2013

Six ways colleges game their numbers.

Taxcast: G20-Endorsed Transparency and the End of Secrecy for Sale

April 24, 2013

‘Offshore leaks’ blows the lid off secrecy for sale.

Angela Boskovitch: Expressions of Emotion

April 23, 2013

An artist catalogs usage of a versatile Egyptian swear.

Ru Freeman: Siege

April 23, 2013

Flash Fiction: The gun empties. He returns.

Charles Seife and Rob Garver: FDA Approved New Drug Despite Ongoing Investigation of Lab Misconduct

April 23, 2013

Though agents found blatant fraud in a Houston lab, the FDA refused to question drug safety.

Jack Tuholske: The Great American Commons

April 22, 2013

Our National Forests cover 191 million acres in forty states.

Kathryn Joyce: The Purpose-Driven Nation

April 22, 2013

Rick Warren exports American-style evangelism—and the gospel of adoption—to Rwanda.

Michael Klare: Entering a Resource-Shock World

April 22, 2013

How resource scarcity and climate change could produce a global explosion.

Teddy Wayne: The Celebrity Machine

April 19, 2013

The author of The Love Song of Jonny Valentine talks to Matthew McAlister about the publishing industry, narrative forms, and the nature of child stardom in the digital age.

Erika Eichelberger: House of Horrors

April 19, 2013

Violence on the home front.

Cora Currier: Hunger Strikes and Indefinite Detention

April 19, 2013

A rundown on what’s going on at Gitmo.

Sebastian Junger: We Kind of Assume We Won’t Be Killed

April 18, 2013

The director of Which Way is the Front Line From Here? talks with Leah Carroll about his friend Tim Hetherington, the strange allure of war, and what it takes to document combat.

Robert Garver and Charles Seife: Double Dose

April 18, 2013

In a second case of flawed drug research, FDA response was slow and secretive.

Alex Marshall: Commons Has Expanded, Not Shrunk, Over Past 200 Years

April 18, 2013

Public water systems, public education, public libraries, and public roads are modern innovations.

Kirsten O’Regan: These Dark Histories

April 17, 2013

A profile of photographer LaToya Ruby Frazier, whose exhibition A Haunted Capital is at the Brooklyn Museum through August.

Rafia Zakaria: The Tragedies of Other Places

April 17, 2013

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, a columnist for Pakistan’s largest English newspaper reflects on why violent attacks leave a more lasting impression if they happen on American soil.

Jeremiah Goulka: It Doesn’t Take Much

April 17, 2013

On almost getting PTSD in Iraq.

Randa Jarrar: A Sailor

April 16, 2013

Flash Fiction: Her husband wants to know what she had in common with the Turkish sailor.

Robert Reich: Why This is the Worst Recovery on Record

April 16, 2013

Wages keep dropping and government debt keeps growing. Simply arguing “more” won’t cut it.

Liz Day & Justin Elliott: Republicans and Dems Come Together

April 16, 2013

To keep the IRS from competing with TurboTax.

Christie Thompson: Are California Prisons Punishing Inmates Based on Race?

April 15, 2013

Prison officials claim they need race-based methods to fight gang violence.

Tom Engelhardt: The Enemy-Industrial Complex

April 15, 2013

How to turn a world lacking in enemies into the most threatening place in the universe.

Mattea Kramer: A Tax Day Plan for Righting the Republic

April 12, 2013

Just doing what’s popular would make us healthier, wealthier, wiser, and less indebted.

Cora Currier: Gitmo Defense Lawyers Say Somebody Has Been Accessing Their Emails

April 12, 2013

Concerns about the breaches are causing delays to long-awaited hearings.

Stephen Engelberg: A Simple Fix

April 11, 2013

Should New York compel judges to report problem prosecutors?

Lois Beckett: Senator Pushes for Investigation of ‘False Statements’ by Dark Money Groups

April 11, 2013

Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, of Rhode Island, is calling for the Justice Department to do what the IRS won’t.

Mary Jo Bang and Lynn Melnick: The Poetic Confession

April 11, 2013

As part of our celebration of National Poetry Month, a conversation on Lynn Melnick’s collection If I Should Say I Have Hope.

Matthew McAlister: Criminally Underappreciated

April 10, 2013

Georges Simenon might be the best French-language novelist you’ve never heard of.

Barbara Garson: Down Is a Dangerous Direction

April 10, 2013

How the 40-Year “Long Recession” led to the Great Recession.

Lois Beckett: Voter Information Wars

April 10, 2013

Will the GOP team up with Wal-Mart’s data specialist?

Chloe Pantazi: Detritus of Innocence

April 9, 2013

“We Went Back: Photographs from Europe, 1933 – 1956″: Chim at the International Center of Photography

Justin Elliott: Another Layer to Rendell’s Fracking Connections

April 9, 2013

The former Pennsylvania governor is a paid consultant of the natural gas industry.

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