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Tom Brokaw
By Ryan Quinn
$14.99
$40
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theatrum-belli.com
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Be it due to danger or the ever-present desire for security, the Israeli government has always found reason to forbid journalists to enter the Gaza Strip at times of “conflict.” The current brutal assault on Gaza is no different, but this time an association of journalists has filed a petition in the Israeli Supreme Court to demand access to the occupied territories.
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Patrick E. McCarthy
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What does the post-Thanksgiving shopping rush dubbed Black Friday really symbolize in the U.S.? The death of a Long Island worker after a mob of shoppers rushed into a Wal-Mart certainly shows the worst of American consumerism and excess, but where do we position such exuberance in a time of economic downturn?
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AP photo / Allauddin Khan
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The legacy of George Bush’s two “wars of liberation” may already be judged as foreign policy blunders, but the real costs of war remain even after the truism of failed empire. In Afghanistan, acid attacks on at least 15 female students mark a worrisome trend in women’s rights there. And in Iraq, an Iraqi soldier opened fire on a patrol of U.S. troops, killing two.
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thewe.cc
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The International Court of Justice on Friday requested the U.S. not execute five death-row inmates in a decision that will put both the U.S.‘s controversial capital punishment policy and its historic rejection of international legal bodies in the global spotlight.
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White House / Chris Greenberg
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Bush’s former press secretary was never shy about his cancer, but friends and colleagues alike were surprised by the news of his death Saturday. As the president’s mouthpiece, Snow knew scorn, but he also had the respect of a number of his critics. As The Nation’s John Nichols elegizes, he brought “a measure of dignity” to the Bush administration.
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cbsnews.com
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White separatist, U.S. senator, GOP darling and otherwise racist stalwart Jesse Helms died Friday after a bout with both metaphorical and actual heart problems. For his supporters and detractors, Helms’ persona as a race-baiting Southern politician defined many debates around civil rights in the 1960s.
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AP photo / E Pablo Kosmicki
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The death of comedy great George Carlin on Sunday spurred fans and fellow comics to pay tribute to the prolific and profane performer, who took aim at cultural taboos with cheeky glee and paved the way for younger generations to continue to play with stand-up, and social, conventions.
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By Eugene Robinson — He knew he was a big deal—he had a healthy ego and an accurate sense of his accomplishments. But I’m confident that he would be stunned at the magnitude of the reaction to his death, especially among people who never met him.
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AP photo / Ng Han Guan
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Chinese state media are reporting that more than 50,000 people could be found dead as a result of the 7.9-magnitude earthquake that struck Monday. That’s substantially higher than earlier estimates. The government has already confirmed close to 20,000 deaths.
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Arizona Department of Corrections
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The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that lethal injection cannot be included under the constitutional amendment barring cruel and unusual punishment, clearing the way for the lifting of state moratoriums on executions that were installed last September.
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Washington Post / Karen Ballard
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A recently declassified memo shines the spotlight once again on John “Take Them to the Point of Death” Yoo, a UC Berkeley law professor and once deputy legal counsel in the Justice Department.
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By Timothy Snyder — One of the great crimes of the 20th century—the mass murder of Jews in the Nazi-occupied Soviet territories—is all but forgotten. “The Unknown Black Book” helps us remember.
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By Eugene Robinson — Not only are Rudy Giuliani’s figures about prostate cancer survival rates in the United States and Britain wildly misleading, but he’s also wrong on his general point: that a single-payer system, of the kind that Republicans call “socialized” medicine, inevitably would deliver inferior care.
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AP photo / Kathy Willens
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News of the loss of one of America’s most unique voices, Norman Mailer, rippled through the literary community Saturday after Mailer’s biographer announced that the author of “The Armies of the Night” and “The Naked and the Dead” had expired at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital.
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Here’s the good news: Significant drops in heart disease and strokes, two leading causes of death among Americans, have contributed to the highest life expectancy in the country’s history, which rose to 77.9 years in the latest report released by the National Center for Health Statistics.
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AP Photo / Toni Nicoletti
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Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian —
Truthdig contributor Chris Hedges teamed up with Laila Al-Arian for The Nation’s shocking report “The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness,” in which American vets describe, in graphic detail that will challenge even the least fainthearted readers, “the disparity between the reality of the war and how it is portrayed by the US government and American media.”
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A tragic milestone has been marked in Afghanistan: The number of civilian deaths attributed to American- and NATO-led forces in the last half-year has outstripped the number caused by insurgents.
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By Eunice Wong — In her first Truthdig theater review, actor and writer Eunice Wong takes in director David Hare’s stage production of “The Year of Magical Thinking,” Joan Didion’s haunting memoir about the sudden death of her husband (she would also later lose her daughter) and the heartbreaking mind tricks she used to try to conjure him back.
Posted on May 29, 2007
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By Eunice Wong — In her first Truthdig theater review, actor and writer Eunice Wong takes in director David Hare’s stage production of “The Year of Magical Thinking,” Joan Didion’s haunting memoir about the sudden death of her husband (she would also later lose her daughter) and the heartbreaking mind tricks she used to try to conjure him back.
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Bill Maher celebrates the passing of an intolerant icon: “Now I know you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but I think we can make an exception, because speaking ill of the dead was kind of Jerry Falwell’s hobby.”
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The Rev. Jerry Falwell—televangelist, Moral Majority founder and head of Liberty University—was found unresponsive in his office on campus Tuesday morning and pronounced dead shortly thereafter of heart failure.
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The Tillman family and members of Congress expressed disappointment at the story presented by the Pentagon on Monday during a briefing regarding the investigations into the death of Pat Tillman and the subsequent military cover-up. Read details of the report here.
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By Stan Goff — Last week’s leak that nine officers will be implicated in the cover-up of the circumstances of Pat Tillman’s death unleashed yet another wave of commentary and speculation about the nature of his patriotism and service. Stan Goff takes on one particularly ferocious vulture in order to defend Tillman’s memory.
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The week’s deadly trend of sectarian aggression accelerated Friday and Saturday. Yet another car bomb claimed 12 lives Saturday in Ramadi. Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki pledged to avenge the deaths of 14 police officers found slain in Baquba on Friday.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The historian, who died this week, disdained utopianism but lived in hope with a lifelong belief in the power and persistence of liberalism in American politics.
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Founded by Brian Conley, a 26-year-old American journalist, and coordinated in Iraq by 21-year-old Iraqi Omar Abdullah, the website Alive in Baghdad features short films by Iraqis documenting daily life in their war-ravaged country. You must see this site. (BBC story, AiB site)
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That’s the stunning new count of Iraqis killed in the war, according to that country’s health minister—a figure three times higher than previous Iraqi estimates.
The minister based his tally on an estimate of 100 bodies arriving at Iraq’s morgues and hospitals every day. He dismissed as inaccurate the widely touted claim of 655,000 Iraqi dead, made by a British medical journal.
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Today was one of the deadliest days this year for American forces in Iraq, where on average three soldiers are killed every day. So much for the administration’s claims that the presence of the U.S. military is bringing stability to the region.
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At least 53 American troops have been killed so far this month, an extraordinarily high midmonth tally. October is on track to be the third deadliest month of the entire war for American forces.
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washingtonpost.com
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A survey team made up of Iraqi physicians and epidemiologists from Johns Hopkins University has determined that the U.S. invasion of Iraq caused the deaths of roughly 655,000 people. The estimate is more than 20 times higher than one Bush gave in December, but the researchers believe they have substantial evidence to back the claim.
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From Wired News
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Wired News put together a chart that compares the odds of being killed by a terrorist in the United States to other causes of death. Apparently, we’re much more likely to die from hernia.
Or, as Nora Ephron put it in “Sleepless in Seattle”: It’s easier to be killed by a terrorist than it is to find a husband when you’re over the age of 40.
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George Clooney warned the United Nations on Thursday that millions would die in Darfur if the U.N. Security Council does not send in a peacekeeping force to replace departing African Union troops at the end of this month. “After Sept. 30, you won’t need the U.N.,” Clooney said. “You will simply need men with shovels and bleached white linen and headstones.”
Watch part of his speech
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It appeared for a while that the death toll had dropped drastically in Iraq in August, but then word leaked out that the initial numbers were two-thirds too low. We didn’t know why. But it appears we do now: The Pentagon isn’t counting those killed in car bombs or mortar attacks—and it has no good excuse. (h/t: Huff Po)
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It appears that a much-heralded drop-off in the number of killings in Iraq last month didn’t actually happen. ABC News reports that the original reported figure of 550 has now been revised to 1,535—which is in line with the blood-drenched months of June (1,595) and July (1,855). No word yet on the reason behind the initial discrepancy.
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flickr/nukeit1
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An Army officer has recommended the execution of four soldiers, should they be found guilty of murder. The soldiers are accused of improperly shooting three Iraqi detainees during a raid. No U.S. soldier has been executed since 1961.
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BBC News
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A British TV network is set to air a mock documentary that portrays the imagined assassination of President Bush. While the White House has refused to comment on the program, one Republican spokesperson said: ?I find this shocking, I find it disturbing. I don’t know if there are many people in America who would want to watch something like that.?
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Stephen Colbert trains his mock-Bill O’Reilly act on Ramesh Ponnuru, the conservative author of “Party of Death.” Colbert: “You’ve got a blurb on your cover from Ann Coulter. That’s some credibility right there.”
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AP / Alaa al-Marjani
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It’s the highest monthly death tally since the war started in March 2003. That’s an average of 110 per day, and in Baghdad, the numbers are up 18% over last month.
Also, a respected veteran Baghdad reporter writes of Iraqis’ fears that Bush & Co.‘s “rosy views are preventing the creation of effective strategies against the escalating violence.”
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Over 100,000 protesters filled the streets of Baghdad to show support for Hezbollah. Attendees burned American and Israeli flags, and pledged their willingness to die for Hezbollah. (WashPo, NYT)
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From champagnelovers.org
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Normally, this would be cause for unbridled celebration. However, Republicans had cowardly and self-servingly tacked an estate tax reduction onto a bill designed to raise the minimum wage. So good legislation had to die in order for a terrible bill never to live.
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At least 44 U.S. troops were killed in Iraq in July, well below the average monthly death toll of about 64. However, the sectarian conflict is worsening: Baghdad’s morgue received 1,595 bodies in June, up 16% over May. (July figures were not available.) “American troops are no longer the primary focus of the people perpetuating the violence inside Iraq,” said a U.S. think tank expert, “they have become a secondary target.”
Posted on Aug 1, 2006
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AP / Mohammed Adnan
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An average of more than 100 civilians were killed PER DAY in Iraq last month, the highest tally since the fall of Baghdad, according to the U.N. And that number has been steadily increasing since at least last summer.
So not only are things horrifically bad in Iraq, they are getting worse.
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Baghdad’s morgue received 1,595 bodies last month, 16% more than in May, showing that the pace of killing has actually increased since the death of terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al Zarqawi.
This is some of the most disheartening news to come out of Iraq in a long time. It’s yet more proof that we’re fighting a Vietnam-like insurgency that can survive and even prosper after the death of its leaders.
Posted on Jul 5, 2006
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The number is 20,000 higher than previously acknowledged by the Bush administration. The L.A. Times used stats from the Baghdad morgue, the Iraqi Health Ministry and other agencies. In the same time, at least 2,520 U.S. troops have been killed.
Posted on Jun 25, 2006
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Marching in Chicago: Resisting Rahm Emanuel’s Neoliberal Savagery
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