National Review articles from May 2008

National Review archives from May 2008

Telescope of a conservative.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
May 5, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WFB wrote ("ATrip Down South," April 7) that Barry Goldwater was "a man of exploration and science. No tool of the trade... was unfamiliar to him.... The airplane was in his blood, and the radio, and instruments of...

The spirit is not weak.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
May 5, 2008... Although Travis Kavulla's description of Africa's Pentecostal awakening, and of the church history that preceded it, is highly informative, I found its tone to be negative ("Troubled in Spirit," March 10). Mr. Kavulla notes that "the faith...

If he wants to see bitter.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... If he wants to see bitter, he should try taking away their guns.

Michael A. Monsoor, of Garden Grove, Calif., became a Navy SEAL in 2004.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... * Michael A. Monsoor, of Garden Grove, Calif., became a Navy SEAL in 2004. In 2006, he deployed to Iraq. He won his first medal, a Silver Star, in May, for running through enemy fire in Ramadi to pull a wounded SEAL to safety. "We knew if...

Saved! Barack Obama's "bitter" comment came to light just in time for the old lucky dog Bill Clinton.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... * Saved! Barack Obama's "bitter" comment came to light just in time for the old lucky dog Bill Clinton. Bill's "explanation" of Hillary's Bosnia gaffe had threatened to overwhelm journalistic fact-checkers everywhere. He packed so many...

And we wonder: If Hillary is so frayed at 11 P.M. that she can't keep her memories straight.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... And we wonder: If Hillary is so frayed at 11 P.M. that she can't keep her memories straight, how is she going to manage all those 3 A.M. phone calls?

The classic account of the social origins of our presidents is The Log Cabin Myth, by Edward Pessen, who decided that only six presidents could claim to have been born in one, or its equivalent: Fillmore, Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Garfield, Nixon, Reagan.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... The classic account of the social origins of our presidents is The Log Cabin Myth, by Edward Pessen, who decided that only six presidents could claim to have been born in one, or its equivalent: Fillmore, Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Garfield,...

"That really ticked me off," said New Mexico governor Bill Richardson.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... "That really ticked me off," said New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. What had really ticked him off? The suggestion that he owed Hillary Clinton his support because Bill Clinton had made him U.N. ambassador and energy secretary. "I think the...

McCain-Rice in 2008?(The Week)(John McCain, Condi Rice)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... McCain-Rice in 2008? The idea came up on ABC's This Week; then a Marist poll found the ticket beating both Clinton-Obama and Obama-Clinton in New York. Can we all take a breath? Condi Rice is smart and attractive; a black woman, unlike the...

Bob Casey Sr., the governor of Pennsylvania, was not allowed to speak at the 1992 Democratic convention because he opposed abortion.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... Bob Casey Sr., the governor of Pennsylvania, was not allowed to speak at the 1992 Democratic convention because he opposed abortion. So serious was his opposition that he could not endorse Bill Clinton. His son, now a senator, is supporting...

Hugo Chavez smiled as the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement fell victim to election-year politics.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... Hugo Chavez smiled as the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement fell victim to election-year politics. After 16 months of fruitless negotiations with Democrats in Congress, President Bush sent the agreement to Capitol Hill, where existing rules...

Allan Carlson calls it "the demographic paradox of the welfare state": Entitlement programs depend for their financing on a growing population, but suppress fertility rates.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... Allan Carlson calls it "the demographic paradox of the welfare state": Entitlement programs depend for their financing on a growing population, but suppress fertility rates. In this country, for example, Social Security and Medicare are...

The Supreme Court is taking up the question of whether states should be able to execute child rapists.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... The Supreme Court is taking up the question of whether states should be able to execute child rapists. Both moral and practical arguments are made against this extension of the death penalty. Some of the opponents are against capital punishment...

Time magazine offers a bracing report on biofuels headlined "The Clean Energy Scam.".(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... Time magazine offers a bracing report on biofuels headlined "The Clean Energy Scam." The report, by Michael Grunwald, is unsparing in its assessment. Accounting for worldwide deforestation as biofuels push food crops onto newly cleared land,...

What do Albania, Croatia, Georgia, Macedonia, and Ukraine have in common?(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... What do Albania, Croatia, Georgia, Macedonia, and Ukraine have in common? Only that all five countries carry the unhealed scars of all-too-recent Communism. Independent now, they remain so suspicious of Russia and its undying urge to conquer...

President Bush can claim one major achievement from the NATO conference in early April: Over objections from Russia, NATO endorsed U.S. plans to build a small missile-defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... President Bush can claim one major achievement from the NATO conference in early April: Over objections from Russia, NATO endorsed U.S. plans to build a small missile-defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland. Iran poses a genuine...

In the Catholic understanding, conversion is not a discrete event.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... In the Catholic understanding, conversion is not a discrete event. The faithful Catholic is called to a continuous reconversion, growing ever closer to the Lord, becoming ever more what he was made to be. On his recent trip to the U.S., Pope...

Filth before freedom.(The Week)
May 5, 2008... [LUSTRATION OMITTED] MY colleague Mark Steyn, in the dock at a Canadian "human-rights commission" for crimes against humanity-or perhaps more accurately misdemeanors against humanity-has become something of a permanent warning voice...

Jimmy Carter went to the Middle East hoping to meet with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Damascus.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... Jimmy Carter went to the Middle East hoping to meet with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Damascus. Hamas preaches the destruction of Israel, and has killed over 250 Israelis in suicide bombings. No Israeli leader would meet with Carter, except...

Nepal's Maoists have made worrisome advances in that country's elections.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... Nepal's Maoists have made worrisome advances in that country's elections. Theirs is both a political and a military campaign, proof of Clausewitz's epigram that politics is war by other means. Some 13,000 Nepalese have perished during the armed...

A small (32-cabin) French luxury ship was boarded by Somali pirates April 4 while sailing from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... A small (32-cabin) French luxury ship was boarded by Somali pirates April 4 while sailing from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean. French president Nicolas Sarkozy dispatched helicopters and French naval vessels to the area. The crew (no...

We reported in our last issue that, "as we write, the results of Zimbabwe's March 29 election are still uncertain.".(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... We reported in our last issue that, "as we write, the results of Zimbabwe's March 29 election are still uncertain." Perhaps we should set up this sentence permanently in type. Robert Mugabe is still in power, his election opponent is still...

The Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) has dismissed a complaint of Islamophobia against Maclean's, a weekly magazine.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... The Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) has dismissed a complaint of Islamophobia against Maclean's, a weekly magazine. Good news? Not really. The dismissal was based on the wording of Ontario's human-rights code, which unmistakably protects...

In recent years Muslims in Britain have demanded, and received, exemptions from the nation's laws to accommodate their religion and customs.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... In recent years Muslims in Britain have demanded, and received, exemptions from the nation's laws to accommodate their religion and customs. Now a Scottish Muslim has taken things a step further by using one such indulgence to justify another....

Few institutions are dearer to the heart of an Englishman than his local pub.(The Week)(Halal Inn)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... Few institutions are dearer to the heart of an Englishman than his local pub. A few pints of ale with neighbors or colleagues; exchanges of gossip and talk of sports; a friendly game of darts, skittles, or snooker; teasing pleasantries...

A new production of Verdi's Masked Ball has been launched in Erfurt, Germany.(The Week)(Giuseppe Verdi)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... A new production of Verdi's Masked Ball has been launched in Erfurt, Germany. The action takes place on the ruins of the World Trade Center. Old people in Mickey Mouse masks are naked. Other people are dressed as soldiers, or Uncle Sam, or...

Perhaps Italians like their politics al dente.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Perhaps Italians like their politics al dente. A citizen going to the polls in Italy's most recent election, finding no appetizing choices on the ballot, ate the ballot itself. One supposes he was hungry for change....

Congratulations to Texas for shutting down the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Eldorado without loss of life.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... Congratulations to Texas for shutting down the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Eldorado without loss of life. Double congratulations for cleaning out a nest of polygamy. The Mormon-schismatic sect, which counts...

Last year Texas enacted a $5-per-customer tax on bars and clubs that feature nude dancing.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... Last year Texas enacted a $5-per-customer tax on bars and clubs that feature nude dancing. A judge has struck down the tax, finding that it violates the First Amendment by restricting free expression. How so? As Kevin Case explained in a 2006...

Oliver Stone is creating a film about the presidency of George W. Bush, and there is every indication that the movie will alloy the worst elements of the Stone style, combining the historical tendentiousness of JFK with the prurience of Natural Born Killers.(The Week)(John F. Kennedy)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... Oliver Stone is creating a film about the presidency of George W. Bush, and there is every indication that the movie will alloy the worst elements of the Stone style, combining the historical tendentiousness of JFK with the prurience of Natural...

Readers of National Review have appreciated the cartoons of Michael Ramirez for years.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... Readers of NATIONAL REVIEW have appreciated the cartoons of Michael Ramirez for years. He is one of the most delightful and insightful in the business. And now the Pulitzer committee has recognized that, too: giving him the big award. It is the...

Richard Dreyfuss said it best.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... Richard Dreyfuss said it best. "John Wayne allowed us into our American past. [Charlton] Heston, because of his perfectly male face, the depth of his voice, the measured, almost antique rhythm of his speech, the oddly innocent commitment that...

In 1985 Eugene Ehrlich published a compendium of Latin phrases called Amo, Amas, Amat and More.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 5, 2008... In 1985 Eugene Ehrlich published a compendium of Latin phrases called Amo, Amas, Amat and More. The original title was All the Latin You Need to Know to Understand William F. Buckley and Others of That Ilk, but then Ehrlich had an even better...

Heroic patience.(AT WAR)
May 5, 2008... GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS and Amb. Ryan Crocker's testimony on Capitol Hill was anti-climactic compared with the Iraq hearings of last September. No one called Petraeus a traitor, and Democrats were more willing to accept the fact of security gains...

What's the matter with Obama?(2008)(Barack Obama)
May 5, 2008... BARACK OBAMA campaigns as the man who can heal Divisions--between blacks and whites, Democrats and Republicans, people you respect and people you don't... That last pair wasn't on Obama's usual list of dichotomies, but it is now, thanks...

Bear politics.(THE ECONOMY)(homeownership bill)
May 5, 2008... WE remain stubbornly unconvinced that the United States is in an economic crisis. For all the talk of foreclosures, the homeownership rate is higher than it was in 2000. The Dow, meanwhile, has dropped all the way to--where it was in April...

By his friends ye shall know him: the trial of Tony Rezko spells trouble for Barack.(2008)
May 5, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] BARACK OBAMA has two categories of problematic friends. On one hand, there are the radicals-such people as his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and his friend Bill Ayers, a former leader in the homegrown '60s terror group...

Wordsmith to a hero: of pens, swords, and Mark Salter.(PEOPLE)
May 5, 2008... IF Mark Salter hadn't lost his way beneath the Superdome in New Orleans two decades ago, he might never have met John McCain. It was like that scene in This Is Spinal Tap when the band wanders lost through the basement of an arena in...

Straw predators: for the mortgage meltdown, the Left deserves a share of blame.(PUBLIC POLICY)
May 5, 2008... THE basic story of the housing crisis goes something like this. For years, prices climbed rapidly. This made mortgages less Risky--so far as lenders could tell, every homeowner sat on a pile of $100 bills that bred like rabbits. The industry...

Texas holds 'em: how Lone Star republicans stopped abusive medical-malpractice lawsuits.(THE STATES)
May 5, 2008... THAT high lonesome sound you hear ululating over the wideopen Texas prairies isn't coyotes--it's hungry trial lawyers, forced to subsist on 40 percent of a litigation pie that has gotten a little bit smaller of late. When Texas Republicans...

Machina ex machina: greendom has drawn the wrong moral from the catalytic-converter story.(TECHNOLOGY)
May 5, 2008... GREENS hate technology, except when they love it. A case in point is the catalytic converter, whose introduction in the 1970s virtually ended America's smog problems. It's an inspiring story: The Environmental Protection Agency ordered massive...

Syrian hopes: a political party and its mission.(THE MIDDLE EAST)(Reform Party of Syria)
May 5, 2008... FARID GHADRY and the Reform Party of Syria have a dream: a dream of a free, democratic Syria. That dream may seem terribly far-fetched. But stranger things have happened, or at least equally strange things have: Think of the breakup of the...

A tiger, he's not: enough with the Obama-Woods comparison.(2008 II)(Barack Obama and Tiger Woods)
May 5, 2008... WHO first referred to Barack Obama as "the Tiger Woods of politics"? The answer is a bit murky, but the phrase was not widely repeated in the public conversation until the New York Times's Maureen Dowd used it in a March 2007 column wondering...

Thus are we coarsened: lessons from a sex scandal.(BRITAIN)
May 5, 2008... If there is one thing the British still do best, it is sex scandals. Strange erotic practices and predilections remain common among the prominent of my great nation, and make the illicit sexual practices of the prominent of other nations (for...

The Obama way: a Chicago pol's special brand of insincerity.(Barack Obama)(Cover story)
May 5, 2008... POLITICAL campaigning necessarily produces a wide gap between words and deeds--this is the price of bringing together a broad coalition with disparate interests. All effective politicians are at times authentically insincere or sincerely...

Unified theory: the candidate of change forbids you to disagree.(THE LEFT)
May 5, 2008... 'UNITY is the great need of the hour," insists Barack Obama. Unity and the hope for unity and the need for unity in the pursuit of hope and the hope that our unified hopefulness will carry us to ever greater heights of hopeful unity until each...

Remembering 1968: the student movement that set the stage for the center right.(CULTURE WATCH)
May 5, 2008... AFTER 40 years, the year 1968 still brings to mind elite students, major universities, rebellion, the delegitimation of traditional authorities, cultural upheaval, the lifestyle revolution, marches for civil rights, anti-war protests, the drug...

Ask Michelle Obama[TM]: united feature syndicate.(the long view)
May 5, 2008... DEAR MICHELLE: I'm planning a small wedding for my daughter, and I'm wondering, what's a low-cost appetizer to serve at the reception?--MOTHER OF THE BRIDE IN MONROEVILLE DEAR MOTHER: Firstly, let me tell you that both Barack and...

Help!!!!(Cartoon)
May 5, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Poor Oog-his wife invented imperative verbs." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "I know how you all feel, but the illegal barbarians are essential to the Roman economy." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It's 3 am and...

Blinkered sages.(The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions)(Book review)
May 5, 2008... The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions, by David Berlinski (Crown Forum, 256 pp., $23.95) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] DAVID BERLINSKI'S new book describes the remarkable extent to which the dominant religion of the...

Heaven's Neighbors.(books, arts & manners)(Poem)
May 5, 2008... HEAVEN'S NEIGHBORS After Victor Hugo Death and Beauty, see how these goddesses cast So much light and shade, a sage might say They were sisters, both bountiful, frightful, vast, Guarding the same enigma...

Round two?(The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West)(Book review)
May 5, 2008... The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West, by Edward Lucas (Palgrave Macmillan, 261 pp., $26.95) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IT'S not just the fact that Edward Lucas is a quietly proud, quietly amused holder of Lithuania's...

An original voice.(A Writer's People: Ways of Looking and Feeling)(Book review)
May 5, 2008... A Writer's People: Ways of Looking and Feeling, by V. S. Naipaul (Knopf, 208 pp., $24.95) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE career of V. S. Naipaul is a marvel. Born in Trinidad into a family originally from Indiapoor people from a poor...

Fighting right.(The Echo of Battle: The Army's Way of War)(Book review)
May 5, 2008... The Echo of Battle: The Army's Way of War, by Brian McAllister Linn (Harvard, 320 pp., $27.95) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE idea of an "American way of war" gained currency in 1973 with the publication of Russell Weigley's book of the...

The Aldous factor.(FILM)
May 5, 2008... THERE'S only one reason to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and his name is Aldous Snow. Or maybe I should say Russell Brand, since the line between the actor (Brand, that is) and the character he plays is not exactly clear. Snow, the lead singer...

Green the tree of life.(THE STRAGGLER)
May 5, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IN the beginning there was a mid-20th-century nuclear family living in a small English town: Father, Mother, Sister, and Brother. Brother was the younger of the kids by two years. There was also a much older...

Sub-prime history.(Letter to the editor)
May 19, 2008... In analyzing the sub-prime mortgage crisis, Robert VerBruggen starts with 1977's Community Reinvestment Act ("Straw Predators," May 5). He could usefully have gone back another decade, to 1968's Housing and Urban Development Act. This act...

Unsafe at legal weight.(Letter to the editor)
May 19, 2008... Fred Schwarz is right to predict that science will achieve regulatory goals at its own pace ("Machina ex Machina," May 5). He also says that "[current] CAFE standards are quite feasible, and while opponents have criticized them severely on...

Telescope of a conservative, continued.(Letter to the editor)
May 19, 2008... In a recent letter to the editor, Robert Howe wrote with understandable pride of his possession of a Questar telescope previously owned by Barry Goldwater ("Telescope of a Conservative," May 5). A Questar indeed is an American-made jewel...

Well, he's no longer clinging.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... Well, he's no longer clinging to his pastor.

Hillary Clinton is joining in for a chorus of "Bomb, Bomb Iran.".(The Week)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... Hillary Clinton is joining in for a chorus of "Bomb, Bomb Iran." In the event of an attack on Israel, Clinton says, "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran. In the next ten years, during which they might...

It's now a vast two-winged conspiracy: an expose of Hillary Rodham Clinton's extremist roots has appeared not in National Review but in The Nation.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... It's now a vast two-winged conspiracy: An expose of Hillary Rodham Clinton's extremist roots has appeared not in NATIONAL REVIEW but in The Nation. Tom Hayden, who as one of the Chicago Seven knows a little something about fringe radicalism,...

On the eve of the Pennsylvania primary, the author and screenwriter Nora Ephron wrote in the Huffington Post: "This is an election about whether the people of Pennsylvania hate blacks more than they hate women.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... On the eve of the Pennsylvania primary, the author and screenwriter Nora Ephron wrote in the Huffington Post: "This is an election about whether the people of Pennsylvania hate blacks more than they hate women. And when I say people, I don't...

John McCain visited New Orleans on what was billed as a tour of "forgotten places"--places forgotten by America, and by the GOP.(The Week)(Republican Party)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... John McCain visited New Orleans on what was billed as a tour of "forgotten places"--places forgotten by America, and by the GOP. He trashed the response to Hurricane Katrina, which he called "a perfect storm" of "federal, state, and local...

North Carolina Republicans ran an ad zinging Obama for his association with Jeremiah Wright.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... North Carolina Republicans ran an ad zinging Obama for his association with Jeremiah Wright. There are enough degrees of separation here to question the ad's implicit argument. But that wasn't enough for liberaldom (which decided that any...

John McCain has proposed suspending the federal gas tax for the summer.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... John McCain has proposed suspending the federal gas tax for the summer. Drivers will no doubt appreciate the sentiment, but his proposal is unlikely to help them. Suspending the tax, to the extent it lowers prices, will drive up demand, but oil...

If personnel is policy, President Bush couldn't have done better than the new jobs he has given Gens.(The Week)(George W. Bush, General David Petraeus and General Ray Odierno)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... If personnel is policy, President Bush couldn't have done better than the new jobs he has given Gens. David Petraeus and Ray Odierno. Petraeus will be the next head of CENTCOM, with responsibility for the entire Middle East, and Odierno, who...

Gun-rights supporters are eagerly awaiting the Supreme Court's upcoming decision in D.C. v. Heller.(The Week)(District of Columbia)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... Gun-rights supporters are eagerly awaiting the Supreme Court's upcoming decision in D.C. v. Heller. The justices are likely to declare the Second Amendment an individual right, and could very well strike down the handgun ban in the nation's...

When it agreed last September to take up Baze v. Rees, a challenge to the constitutionality of lethal injection, the Supreme Court effectively imposed a national moratorium on the death penalty.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... When it agreed last September to take up Baze v. Rees, a challenge to the constitutionality of lethal injection, the Supreme Court effectively imposed a national moratorium on the death penalty. On April 16, the justices rendered their verdict:...

Staff Sgt. Ronald C. Blystone, of the 4th Infantry Division, died patrolling Baghdad on his third tour in Iraq.(The Week)
May 19, 2008... Staff Sgt. Ronald C. Blystone, of the 4th Infantry Division, died patrolling Baghdad on his third tour in Iraq. Blystone, of Springfield, Mo., had won a Bronze Star. He leaves a wife and three children. He appeared in full gear on the May 9,...

President Bush's North Korea policy is in disarray.(The Week)(George W. Bush)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... President Bush's North Korea policy is in disarray. The State Department's seeming goal is to implement our part of the six-party agreement, in which Kim Jong Il promised to give up his nuclear program in exchange for economic aid, no matter...

Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri does the propaganda nowadays for al-Qaeda, and he has found the modern way to keep alive his movement's fantasy of global supremacy.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri does the propaganda nowadays for al-Qaeda, and he has found the modern way to keep alive his movement's fantasy of global supremacy. (And yes, this killer is a doctor of medicine.) Last December, he put out a video...

So Jimmy Carter had his meeting with Hamas in Syria.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... So Jimmy Carter had his meeting with Hamas in Syria. With what result? In a speech to Hamas supporters in Gaza, Mushir Masri, a Hamas official, said the Carter meeting confirmed "the failure of the U.S. and European policies of ignoring...

Clare Short, of Britain's Labour party, is a longtime member of Parliament.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... Clare Short, of Britain's Labour party, is a longtime member of Parliament. She is also a longtime leftist--but she is by no means on the lunatic fringe. There's her membership in Parliament, of course--and the fact that she served in Tony...

In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi became prime minister for the third time.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi became prime minister for the third time. His center-Right party scored a big electoral triumph over all rivals--including the extreme Left and the extreme Right. Surveying the new landscape in his country,...

States of recession.
May 19, 2008... WHEN the economy enters recession, some regions are hit harder than others. Two things about the current episode merit especially close attention: the narrow geographic focus of the hardest times, and the uneven political distribution of the...

For Che Guevara, the lovin' never stops.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... For Che Guevara, the lovin' never stops. He must be the most adored totalitarian thug/murderer in the world. The 80th anniversary of his birth is upon us, and Andres Zerneri, a sculptor in Guevara's native Argentina, is doing something about...

If in recent weeks the entire male population of Congo have looked like soccer players defending a free kick, the reason lies in widespread rumors of penis snatchers: sorcerers who, with a single touch, can shrink said appendage or make it non-functional in its most rewarding application.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... If in recent weeks the entire male population of Congo have looked like soccer players defending a free kick, the reason lies in widespread rumors of penis snatchers: sorcerers who, with a single touch, can shrink said appendage or make it...

The case of Robert Mugabe, 84 years old and still monstrously eager to wreck Zimbabwe, illuminates the dilemma of many a dictator.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... The case of Robert Mugabe, 84 years old and still monstrously eager to wreck Zimbabwe, illuminates the dilemma of many a dictator. Is it enough to steal an election through trickery and measured violence, or is it better to shoot outright as...

Since taking over Cuba from his infirm brother Fidel, Raul Castro has swept away many of the old regime's restrictions.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... Since taking over Cuba from his infirm brother Fidel, Raul Castro has swept away many of the old regime's restrictions. Cubans may now rent mobile phones and own computers, DVDs, microwave ovens, and--perhaps the greatest concession of...

Pope Benedict XVI concluded his trip to these shores by meeting with five victims of priestly sexual abuse and addressing the United Nations.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Pope Benedict XVI concluded his trip to these shores by meeting with five victims of priestly sexual abuse and addressing the United Nations. In the first meeting, the pope faced up to the grave sins committed both...

The trial of three detectives responsible for the death of Sean Bell, a young black man killed during a confusing run-in outside a Queens strip club after his bachelor party, ended with the acquittal of all three.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... The trial of three detectives responsible for the death of Sean Bell, a young black man killed during a confusing run-in outside a Queens strip club after his bachelor party, ended with the acquittal of all three. "New Yorkers will not take...

Lesley Stahl interviewed Justice Antonin Scalia for 60 Minutes.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... Lesley Stahl interviewed Justice Antonin Scalia for 60 Minutes. (Scalia has just collaborated on a book advising lawyers on how to persuade judges.) Stahl, to her credit, let Scalia make the case for originalism, even if the segment treated...

An anonymous report of sexual abuse set off a raid of a polygamous sect in Texas.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 19, 2008... An anonymous report of sexual abuse set off a raid of a polygamous sect in Texas. What the authorities have uncovered should dispel any illusions about what tolerance of polygamy is likely to yield. More than half of the teenage girls on the...