The New Republic

Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers By Arundhati Roy (Haymarket Books, 230 pp., $20) READ MORE >>

Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers By Arundhati Roy (Haymarket Books, 230 pp., $20) READ MORE >>

[Guest post by Isaac Chotiner] When Jon was away last week, his TNR colleagues rented out his office for various nefarious activities, one of which was the filming of a Bloggingheads.tv episode, where I debated Matt Yglesias. The clip below features our discussion of whether something is lost when people read fewer books and more blogs. And if you keep watching you will see a few minutes of soccer-bashing. READ MORE >>

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[Guest Post by Isaac Chotiner] READ MORE >>

[Guest post by Isaac Chotiner] Wedding season has been upon us for a couple of months, thus making it a good time to examine the latest news in conflict diamonds. This is an issue that received an enormous amount of publicity at the end of the 1990s, and again in 2006 with the release of Edward Zwick's Blood Diamond. Unfortunately, while there are nowhere near as many conflict diamonds on the market as there were a decade ago, the problems that outraged many human rights activists and discriminating consumers over the past 15 years still persist. READ MORE >>

[This is a guest post by Isaac Chotiner] READ MORE >>

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The Weekly Standard certainly knows how to attract readers. The magazine's new cover story, written by Charlotte Allen, is accompanied by a cover photo of a big-breasted woman in a red dress being approached from behind by a sleazy looking man. The cover text reads: READ MORE >>

If Jon were here, I know he would post this: Former State House Speaker Marco Rubio has squeaked past Gov. Charlie Crist in the race for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination, leading 47 - 44 percent and topping Gov. Crist on trust, values and conservative credentials, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. READ MORE >>